So, for no good reason I decided to drop an email to the gang at Harmonix, to say thanks for making an amazing game, and to ask them if there were any plans to release a complilation album of the music of Guitar Hero (something which I’m sure we all agree we’d buy now that we rock to the music regularly).
I was pleased to see they responded, and I figured I’d post the email and response here.
From me:
Im sure you know by now, but Guitar Hero is amazing, inventive, and some of the best fun to be had in a console.
My friends and I only came to Guitar Hero recently so we are a little late to the ball (or early for GH2 !) but I just wanted to let you know you have done an amazing job. It was even enough to get me to buy a PS2. Well done! Even better to know its a local game company that has brought such a great game to the world.
Thanks and looking forward to Guitar Hero 2,
Russell
Medford, MA
P.S. Is there any chance you and / or Sony will release an album / collection that has the songs of Guitar Hero as a collection. I’d buy one
And the reply:
Hi Russell,
Thanks for the kind words. We do have all the indy band music from GH available at Apples iTunes online store. Red Octane, our publisher for Guitar Hero, has considered putting out a CD of the game music, but all the licensed songs would have to be re-licensed for that, and it’s a bit of a nightmare. We’ll see.
Rock on,
-Mike
Well, we Monkeys have discussed amongst ourselves how we figured that the liscencing must have been a crazy hurdle to overcome, but I bet now bands are lining up to be a part of the sequel. Lets hope everyone gets onboard a compilation CD, and in the meantime, we can all enjoy the less-red-tape-laden indy scene.
Thanks for the response Harmonix, and thanks again for an amazing game.
So Slashdot has informed us that Quake is 10. Thats pretty cool. Whats even cooler is this wikipedia entry, and accompanying picture that shows the quake engine and its offspring.
Long live the King.
“Late on 22nd June 1996 Quake was uploaded to cdrom.com’s archives in the form of 7 1.44MB floppy disk images. Though it wasn’t until the 23rd that everyone realised (or at least, that’s my excuse for being a day late with the news submission). Cue much aggravation on the newsgroups as eager downloaders experienced glorious 2 FPS gameplay.”
From Japanese game designer Omega comes “Every Extend”, a simple yet highly addictive game in which the player blows him or herself up to create the longest chain reactions possible. You are given 12 suicide bombs and two and a half minutes to rack up a high score. Long chains will extend your time, not by much though, just a couple of seconds. There are two difficulty modes, light and heavy, as well as an awesome replay mode. The game is very short but does have a boss at the end with 3 forms. I have heard that there may even be an extra secret boss in heavy mode but I have yet to score high enough. Graphically the game is beautiful and the music that accompanies the gameplay is perfect. Please try out Every Extend, you have my guarantee that you will love this game. Currently Every Extend is only available for the PC but is due to be ported over to the PSP as “Every Extend Extra” in a couple of months. Oh and did I mention this is a free game? In case you find it difficult to read the Omega website(it’s in Japanese), here is a download link on Cnet
Slashdot pointed me to this cool article today. Its showing the wiimote in action with all the games that were played at E3. Nice to see it. It will be even better to FEEL it.
he movies shown here feature each and every Wii game at E3, with footage showing how they are played using the Wii-mote. These videos really bring the Wii to life, so check them out!
Gamespot has some of the skinny on the new faction in the Empire At War expansion. EAW was and is wonderul, and this new faction sounds sweet. Perhaps a little bit “Prince Xizor“, but a lapse in originalitiy does not mean it won’t rock.
After spending countless hours refining the powers of “corruption,” we’re ready to share some of the sinister details that make the Underworld faction unique to Star Wars: Empire at War. Before I get started, here’s a quick overview of our new playable faction. The Underworld is comprised of a network of thieves, mercenaries, and some of the most corrupt bounty hunters in the galaxy. They’ve been brought together under the will of Tyber Zann, a crime lord who after many years in the spice mines of Kessel, has been unleashed on the Galaxy. His goal is a simple one–to take back his empire that had been seized by the Hutt cartel and to gain control of all criminal activities in the galaxy.
This really was just a matter of time. I mean, we all knew that EA has been wanting to have its very own MMORPG studio. Its really the only major horse that EA has been missing from its stables. All we can hope now, is that the acquisition will help give Mythic access to greater resources (helping out an already great game studio) instead of the bureacracy of a larger uber-corporation stifling the smaller company.
Ever since the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft was released in fall 2004, Electronic Arts has looked on with envy as rival Vivendi has raked in millions. In March, the French media conglomerate’s game division–which lost 203 million euros ($241 million) in 2004–reported a whopping 244 million euro ($289.9 million) one-year jump in earnings for the calendar year 2005.
The jump in revenue was thanks largely to WOW, which is developed and published by Vivendi subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment. The game now has over 6.5 million subscribers worldwide, filling the company’s coffers with a hefty regular revenue of gold.
Not one to let an unexploited market pass it by, Electronic Arts today announced that it has entered an agreement to acquire the Virginia-based development studio Mythic Entertainment. The new studio will be renamed EA Mythic, and it will focus on producing MMORPGs. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Gamespot has a nice little look-see at user voted top 10 NES games of all time. Ahh good times. My diary’s first entry is about how awesome it was to beat level 4-1 of Super Mario Brothers. Times were simpler then, eh
Twenty years after the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System, the GameSpot editors took a look back at the console that shaped gaming, in our feature Flashback NES.
As part of that experience, we asked our readers to submit their own nominations for their favorite NES games of all time. Nearly 12,000 votes were tallied to get these results, and thousands of submissions were read. Many readers cited excellent soundtracks on several games, claiming that the music was still ingrained in their memories. Other readers loved being able to play games with their friends and family and mentioned that in some instances, members of their families, such as their parents, enjoyed playing these games as much as they did. Quite a few people felt that the nature of their submission was so obvious that little needed to be said in defense of their choice.
If one thing can be said of NES games, it’s that people are quite passionate about them. We’ve included excerpts from many of the submissions to help explain why the readers feel the way they do. What follows is an ordered list from 10 to 1 of the readers’ top 10 NES games of all time.If you want to just straight to the part where you sound off about the choices, feel free to jump right over to the comments section of our Honorable Mentions page Thanks for contributing, and enjoy!
I’m just saying. This is why I love the micro. Sure I could bring alot of portable gaming devices with me when I travel. But how many could I just drop in my pocket, and bring on a bike ride into the gardens of Versaille? I’m not saying I played it much there.. I mean.. its not like there was nothing to do. But when I got stuck in a line or two, Mario was there to cheer me on.
That picture is the far end of the gardens at Versaille, and its a HAUL on a bike to get that far, let alone walk.
Many of us monkeys are new(er) to Guitar Hero. It started with one or two of us picking it up, and the game was so amazing that it prompted me to finally get a PS2 (which I had put off till it was only $129. Go me!) and now it is prompting nearly everyone we know to get one. Did I mention the Hero-ecue scheduled for this weekend, (thing Burgers and Big Hair Bands) as well as the many hours of drinking and playing we’ve already spent? Oh.. and we’re all also well into guitar p1mp1ng.
This news could not make us happier. And not least because Red Octane is a local development house!
Go Red Octane!
Guitar Hero publisher RedOctane tells Next-Gen.Biz that non-guitar “Hero” games are “very, very likely,” and online will play a “huge” role in the company’s future software; also, higher-end guitar controllers possible.
Harmonix, Not Just Great Game makers, But Classy too!
