In his latest movie, The Woman In Black, Dan traded his Hogwarts uniform for a totally new role as a Dad.
Natalia brings you the latest news on Adele’s interview with Anderson Cooper, Kristen Bell’s interview on Ellen is auto tuned, Ladyhawke’s latest music video and much more!
Natalia discusses what’s new with Pharrell Williams and her thoughts on Karl Lagerfeld’s mean comments towards Adele’s weight. She also shows a roster of animals behaving like humans and, wait until you see the new size of coffee available at Starbucks!
Natalia dishes the latest news on the Juno Awards nominees, the upcoming Spiderman 3D film starring Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield and is Katy Perry hooking up with Tim Tebow? Watch today’s episode to find out.
When The Kooks are in the studio they’re focused and most importantly, sober. Watch Hugh and Luke explain their reasoning below.
The Kooks released a new album called “Junk of the Heart,” and you would think Hugh and Luke would be very excited about it. Well, they seemed rather indifferent to be honest. We spoke about that and why they don’t care about critics.
Natalia dishes the latest in entertainment news on Joan Rivers, Lana Del Rey and a brand new trailer for the movie Hunger Games.
Natalia talks about how Snooki might be pregnant, Nicolas Cage’s Cage Rage, Elisabetta Canalis is dating Steve-O and more for Feb 1, 2012.
Natalia dishes the news on Miley Cyrus breaking her tailbone, a 100 year old woman who plays the Nintendo DS to stay young and Houston, Texas contemplating a statute of Beyonce.
David Beckham debuts a new line of underwear, the worst dressed celebrity – Shy’m and Matthew Broderick is back as Ferris Bueller with a brand new commercial airing during the Super Bowl on Feb 5th 2012.
Daniel Radcliffe is back with his new movie The Woman In Black. It’s a bone chilling remake of a film from the ’80s. Ironically, Daniel actually scares very easily but he’s not afraid of ghosts. In this interview he tells us what really gives him the creeps.
Next time you’re struggling to make conversation, try asking this question: “If you could invite anyone (living or dead) to the perfect house party, who would it be?”
Graffiti6 is starting to make their North American invasion, and they are hitting up the Tonight Show. Does this sound familiar? Well the Beatles made the exact same journey over 40 years ago. Naturally, @jordans_life had to make some comparisons.
Nick plays World of Warcraft. Not only that, he’s the head of his guild, demonstrating that it IS possible to juggle being a hardcore gamer with being a top-selling recording artist.
During a LIVE interview on andPOP.com Nick Carter gave out a number and took phone calls from his fans. These were real phone calls from real fans who we gave exclusive access to one of the biggest recording artists of our generation.
There were great questions about music, fitness, the backstreet boys but the most popular question, however, was about his underwear. In this clip Nick talks about his his ‘Haynes’ and covering his fans with glow in the dark paint.
When releasing new music today, half the battle is online promotion. However, contests, signed merch and giveaways aren’t always the best solutions. When working on their latest album, Hedley came up with a brilliant idea, they decided to make trailers.
It’s hard to prepare for an interview with Hedley. So in this interview, we threw caution to the wind, got a 24 of beer and broadcast the interview live on our USTREAM (andPOP.tv). Eventually Jacob, Dave and @jordans_life ended up talking about hairy legs, their newest music video and more.
Diamandis from Marina and The Diamonds talks to us about her very serious disease. It’s called synaesthetic. And we lied, it’s not a disease. More like a cool condition. Diamandis explains further.
Would you be embarrassed if someone scrolled through your iPod? We sit down with Spee and Brendan to talk about the diverse music on their playlist.
I still remember the summer when Guitar Hero 2 came out. It was a summer not unlike this one. The sun was hot and the air was clear, but I did not go outside. I stayed in and worked my way through career mode on medium, then hard, and then expert. Would you believe, I started impressing girls with my button-shredding abilities?
Video game fans, take my advice. Stay in this season and hone your fake guitar skills with Activision’s Guitar Hero: Smash Hits. Some may scoff at this newest entry, a compilation of the greatest hits from previous guitar hero releases, but the core gameplay remains tight and challenging as ever. The tracks have been taken from Guitar Heroes 1, 2 and 3, with entries from Rock the 80′s and Aerosmith. All of the tracks are now playable by the whole band – guitar, bass, vocals and drums – just as in Guitar Hero World Tour. The selection features lots of reliable favourites, but like the rest of the series there’s a heavy weighting on classic rock and metal.
GH has always separated itself from Rock Band by playing up the competitive aspect of the game. Where Rock Band 2 added favourites like Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads and Eye of the Tiger by Survivor, Guitar Hero 3 saw soul-crushing entries like Raining Blood by Slayer and Through the Fire and the Flames by Dragonforce. As a devoted Guitar Hero player since the series started, I could simply not get through either of the latter songs, even on hard mode. Guitar Hero: Smash Hits has remedied the problem by smoothing out the gap between difficulty modes. It took me lots of work to beat Raining Blood on Hard in GH3, but the song has been rejigged to make it less complicated this time around. The difficulty definitely ramps up in Expert mode – but even Through the Fire and the Flames lets you play most of the song on the slider bar without worrying about strumming. On the other hand, it means that the note layouts on your favourite song have probably changed. If you had almost memorized The Sword’s Freya, for example, you might be as bothered as I was to have to learn the song again.
As the music genre slowly evolves, gamers are becoming more familiar with plastic instruments. Guitar Hero: Smash Hits doesn’t quite offer anything new in the way of gameplay that a previous entry hadn’t already done. Guitar Hero: Metallica brought us Expert+ mode on drums – and it’s back. Some really tough songs have a skull and crossbones icon, meaning you can attach a second bass pedal to your drum kit and blast your way through Lamb of God’s Laid to Rest, among others. The bass has recently been improved with an open note, where no buttons are pressed, and this makes songs like Rush’s YYZ all the more dynamic and enjoyable.
Despite these subtle changes I have described, this is still a Guitar Hero game, and you have definitely played this before. The game runs on the same engine as World Tour, and features many of the same options including customizable avatars, guitars and tattoos. Activision has recently announced a downloadable licensing patch that will make Guitar Hero 5 backwards compatible with most of the tracks on the Smash Hits disc. This will certainly give the GH franchise some legs, as it jostles to dethrone Rock Band 2 as the reigning rhythm game.
Guitar Hero: Smash Hits has the same visual style as its predecessors. There is a cartoony feel to the characters on screen matched by realistic motion capturing. The venues are exotic this time around, everything from the pyramids in Egypt to the strangely-chosen final level in Quebec City. The sound is generally pretty good in this game, but there are some slight discrepancies between the tracks as they appear here and their original recordings. No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age suffers from this – the bass is way too quiet in the game mix. Audience effects are pretty minor here, and I’m fondly reminded of Rock Band here; nothing sounds as exhilarating as when the audience sings along with your song.
Ultimately, the gaming enthusiast has two distinct choices on the console. Rock Band is known for its lengthy list of downloadable tracks. Lots of popular genres are represented, including simpler tracks that demand less skill to play. This can make it boring for extended play sessions. Guitar Hero, on the other hand, has always curated a list of challenging songs. Sure, the series features I Love Rock and Roll and other ultra-basic tracks, but the difficulty ramps up fast. The career mode of Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is where it’s at. Practice with this game, and you will be a fret-shredder in no time.
Gameplay: 5/5
Graphics: 4/5
Sound: 4/5
Replay Value: 4.5/5
