Guitar Hero 2: Two more songs announced, plus weird stuff [Update!]
Posted by inpheaux on August 22nd, 2006 at 8:33 pm
The Guitar Hero 2 news keeps trickling in. In addition to the 11 tracks we knew about already, today we've got #12: Guns 'n Roses - Sweet Child of Mine. Gamespot's got a video of it. The vocal track sounds kinda off, but at least it isn't as bad as the cover of Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart. Though, I have been told to not worry about these until I hear it in-game.
In similar news, GH2 has been confirmed for a November release in Europe. Red Octane won't specify exactly when in November, but any time in November is better than waiting six months like you lot did for Guitar Hero, right? They also further-confirmed that the game will have a grand total of 55 tracks, 10 more than the original, so long as you don't count stuff like Trippolette. We're also apparently going to get another three song announcements tomorrow at the Leipzig Games Convention. . . though, due to how the Gamespot article is worded, I can't tell if that's 3 new songs including Sweet Child of Mine or 3 new songs in addition to Sweet Child of Mine.
Whatever they are, it's a pretty safe bet that their announcement will be eclipsed by what's expected from Nintendo . . .
Now turning to stranger Guitar Hero news. It seems one Riff6809 has been busy hacking away at the original Guitar Hero. Sure, there's PC clones of the game out, like Freetar Hero (which has a functional game portion now!) and Frets on Fire, but Riff apparently just couldn't settle for those. So when Riff wanted to cram his own songs into Guitar Hero, he did it the hard way: by tearing the game apart, working out his own finger positions with a MIDI sequencer and then duct taping it all back together. He has apparently thus far finished two songs this way: Billy Squire - The Stroke and The Doobie Brothers - China Grove. Oh and he has videos:
Billy Squire - The Stroke - Clean song showing note positions / Slowed down, an actual attempt / 4 and 5 note chord proof-of-concept
The Doobie Brothers - China Grove - Standard playthrough
To our knowledge, nothing in Guitar Hero 2 is going to be as difficult as these custom songs, but still, it's amazing that he was able to pull this stuff off.
UPDATE! More official new stuff! Freebird has been confirmed as the 13th official song for Guitar Hero 2. Apparently now they aren't heckling you, they really do want to hear Freebird. As with Sweet Child of Mine, Gamespot has a video.
Furthermore, G.H.O.U.L. has been officially introduced. About a month ago there was a cryptic post somewhere official about an upcoming Guitar Hero thing called "G.H.O.U.L.". The easily-excited rumor mill kicked into high gear, and started churning out predictions along the lines of "OMG IT WILL TOTALLY BE THIS XBOX LIVE THING WHERE YOU DOWNLOAD SONGS FROM THE INTERNET STRAIGHT INTO YOUR BRAIN ALSO VIRTUAL REALITY!!!!!!"
As expected, they were hilariously wrong. It's an official tournament league. Essentially, if you want to host a tournament of decent size, you head over to the GHOUL website and request sponsorship. If you get picked for sponsorship, RedOctane will hook you up with all manner of gear for the event, with prizes, promo material, etc.
Only thing that troubles me about it is this:
"You need to announce the event on 5 different websites or related message boards with “Sponsored by RedOctane” in the subject line and include the RedOctane logo in your posting."
Gee guys, did you really need to include an astroturfing clause in your agreement?
Still very neat stuff, though.
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