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Guitar Hero Announces November Line-Up of Downloadable Content!

Elliott Rudner — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:54:02 +0000

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Band Hero let's you be Taylor Swift without being interrupted by Kanye West!

After last week’s amazing DLC 3 pack of Gwar, Marilyn Manson, and The Misfits is there any better way to follow it up than offering a new game featuring Taylor Swift and Adam Levine? Heck no!

On November 5th as a way to celebrate Band Hero being released, plastic instrument fans can either export 69 songs from Guitar Hero 5 into Band Hero or 61 songs (out of 64) into GH5 from Band Hero!

The songs that will not export from Band Hero to Guitar Hero 5 are as follows:

Jesse McCartney- “Beautiful Soul”
Aly & AJ- “Like Whoa”
Styx- “Mr. Roboto”
Hilary Duff- “So Yesterday”

Look on the bright side though you can make Kurt Cobain sing Taylor Swift!

The export runs you 400 Microsoft Points on Xbox 360, $4.99 on Playstation3, and 500 points on Wii.

November 12th is all about Lenny Kravitz as Guitar Hero commemorates the 20th anniversary of his 1989 debut album Let Love Rule. This three song track pack includes the title track “Let Love Rule,” “Lady” off his seventh studio album Baptism, and “Fly Away,” a song which I will assume you all know because it’s freakin’ “Fly Away”

On November 19th paint your faces and grab your tongue extensiosn because it’s time to rock out with the one and only KISS! This track pack includes their new single “Modern Day Delilah,” which has a ripping solo “I Was Made for Loving You,” their second Gold single and finally “Lick it Up,” which was the title track off their album which was also named… Lick it up.

It’s been awhile since Guitar Hero gave us anything for free and on November 24th they’re doing it SIX TIMES! The Neversoft Thanks The Fans Track Pack features: “Lemon Frosting” by Bunny Knutson, “RockNRola” by Nancy Fullforce, “From the Blue/Point of No Return/T.T.R.T.S” by An Endless Sporadic, “Love Holds It Down” by Dom Liberati, “You Really Like Me” by Davidicus and “Guilty Pleasures” by Tony Solis.

These may appear to be unknown bands to the casual player but I can tell you that I am super excited to play more An Endless Sporadic (from GH3 and GHWT DLC respectfully) and Guilty Pleasures sounds awesome as well.

For reasons unknown this track pack will only be available for Playstation3 and Xbox 360 as of this announcement.

We aren’t done quite yet though for the Wii fans out there that have been feeling not metal enough lately the 8 missing tracks from Metallica’s Death Magnetic will now be able to be downloaded as singles on your Nintendo Wii! This offer begins on November 24th so prepare to shred!

Lenny Kravitz Track Pack

KISS Track Pack

I Was Made For Loving You

Modern Day Delilah

Neversoft Thanks The Fans Track Pack

From The Blue/Point of No Return/T.T.R.T.S

http://guitarhero.com

Guitar Hero 5 rocks October with Downloadable Content!

Elliott Rudner — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:15:45 +0000

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Welcome to GWAR into your home this October with Guitar Hero 5!

No tricks here folks just treats as Guitar Hero rolls out a fine month of DLC for Guitar Hero 5.

It all starts with a Queens Of The Stone Age Pack featuring three tracks from their debut album, with Dave Grohl being featured on Avon you know it’s going to be a blast on drums. The week after that we get three tracks from Billy Squier with “The Stroke” which funny enough was the first Guitar Hero custom ever! Coming up next is Mike Patton’s favourite band Wolfmother featuring three tracks from their forthcoming album Cosmic Egg.

The second most exciting pack of DLC in October would have to be The Classic Rock 2 Track Pack featuring another epic from Peter Frampton with “Show Me The Way (live)”. Canadian rockers Triumph make their debut on plastic instruments with their hit “Lay It On The Line” which is sure to give guitarists a run for their money. Finishing it all off is a track from The J. Geils Band “Freezeframe” which is sure to make you go “Oh YEAH! That song.”

The most exciting announcement however is The All Hallows’ Eve track pack with the debut of GWAR’s “GOR GOR” so make sure you don’t wear your Sunday’s best when you sit down to play with all the blood and umm “GWAR juice” coming out of your screen. Adding to the Halloween spirit Marilyn Manson submits his smash hit “The Beautiful People” and we finally get an authentic horror-punk band with The Misfits “Astro Zombies” (let’s hope it’s the original with Danzig).

Downloadable Content – October 1

Queens Of The Stone Age Track Pack

* “Mexicola”
* “Avon”
* “How to Handle a Rope”

Downloadable Content – October 8

Billy Squier Track Pack

* “The Stroke”
* “Everybody Wants You”
* “When She Comes To Me”

Downloadable Content – October 15

Wolfmother Track Pack

* “Pilgrim”
* “California Queen”
* “Cosmic Egg”

Downloadable Content – October 22

Classic Rock 2 Track Pack

* The J. Geils Band – “Freeze Frame”
* Peter Frampton – “Show Me The Way (Live)”
* Triumph – “Lay It On The Line”

Downloadable Content – October 29

All Hallows’ Eve Track Pack

* GWAR – “Gor Gor”
* Marilyn Manson – “Beautiful People”
* The Misfits – “Astro Zombies”

http://guitarhero.com

Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection review

Josh Salem — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:41:38 +0000

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Marcus, Dom, and all the Locust hordes you could ever hope for are back in what I would like to call the Ultimate Gears 2 collection. Unfortunately I am not allowed to name these DLCs so instead, Gears of War 2 would like to proudly present the All Fronts Collection.

The Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection is exactly that, a collection of every GoW2 map add on to date. With this collection, the over 5 million gamers who have clashed with the Horde since it’s launch last fall will not only get access to the Flashback map pack, not only get access to the Combustible Map pack, not only get access to the Snowblind map pack, but also get access to the brand new Dark Corners map pack as well as the elusive deleted campaign chapter entitled Road to Ruin. That’s right, a chapter campaign and 19 maps are being released in the All Fronts Collection this July 28^th, for 1600 MS points. For those of you who have been keeping up with the horde and already have Flashback, Combustible, and Snowblind; the Dark Corners map pack with Road to Ruin chapter will be available by itself for 1200 MS points. Now that the general details of this glorious package have been taken care of, let’s move onto the details of the All Fronts Collection and revitalize one of the best titles of last fall.

First let’s talk about the 7 brand new maps that come in the Dark Corners map pack of the All Fronts Collection. While this DLC only comes out July 28^th, I was able to test and explore the following maps utilizing AI combatants. I was unable to find a full game to play it in online although I did find one other person online at 4 in the morning looking for a team once, that was as close as I got.

Allfathers Garden: This map takes place on the sacred grounds of the Coalition founders and half the time when I wasn’t killing or being killed, I would just stroll around and enjoy the scenery. With plenty of places to dive for cover and even more high power weapons popping up, this map will either have you raging on or being raged upon. I found the balance of this map interesting as it either came down to sheer skill, or whoever could grab the beefiest weapon the fastest. Interestingly enough, the corners in this map aren’t very dark…

Memorial: Again a fan of the heavy weapons in Memorial; this map is set near the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Sounds ominous and a bit over the top if you ask me. Overall this map will be pretty much run by whoever has the Boomshot, and only if they actually know how to use it properly. Memorial is a fairly large, brightly lit open area. It features a small upper area as well as hallways below so while there is some open space, you can still strategize and catch your opponent off guard. The corners are not dark at all.

The boys are back in town.

Highway: This feels like you’re in the belly of the beast. A Locust themed level has you fighting through a number of complex passages underground as you try to keep your team alive and decimate the enemy. With plenty of grenade happy locations as well as sniping vantage points, I can easily see this becoming one of my favourite or most hated of the new maps. The corners in this map are Locusty.

Nowhere: You play in the middle of nowhere, a desert. This aptly named map will have Longshot fans jumping in glee with everyone else jumping out of the way! Scrapped cars and shuddered store fronts litter Nowhere as timely gusts of sand will come and minimize visibility. With shields, staircases and rooftops (that have heavy weaponry), Nowhere turned out to be one of my favourite new Horde maps to play on. Again however, no dark corners in this map!

Sanctuary: I’m not sure about you, but when I look for sanctuary… I want it to be somewhere safe, not a dark dreary grave yard looking map. Many staircases, barriers, and yes dark corners to hide around make Sanctuary one of my all time most frustrating maps to play on. Take my word, be careful when climbing stairs as there is often a barrier at the top, and with barriers in strategic places often come mean online gamers ready to blind-blast you. Definitely this map will have the highest kill counts of any of the new maps.

The diner gets a little rowdy around lunch time.

Way Station: I enjoyed Microsoft’s explanation of this map so much I had to quote it, “In the limbo between death and ‘processing’ you’ll find Locust way stations like this one, filled with COG soldiers. Tread lightly and practice patience – it’s best to sacrifice firepower for stealth while navigating this minefield of hidden grenades.” I could not have said it better myself as while playing this map, I feel the majority of my deaths came from grenades stuck to walls. This Locust map I think is my favourite to peruse as in the centre of the map, you find a huge river of lava! This somewhat interactive map has a few dark corners (far away from the lava) as well as a secret or two.

War Machine: another train themed map, this station includes Longshot, Mulcher, and Boomshot fun; but wait what’s this? You’ve been here before? Oh you must have been a fan of the original Gears of War as this was taken from that game of yesteryear. And yes, dark corners abound.

Overall, I found there was a great variety of maps included in Dark Corners, however, I may have missed something as I don’t really know why the pack is titled so as the maps included rarely involve corners without light. I guess it’s a metaphorical dark corner? Perhaps a metaphysical one? Either way, these 7 maps bring a new flavour to the Gears world of online play, now all I have to do is practice practice practice.

Onto the lost chapter dubbed, “Road to Ruin”. While you cannot continue your campaign into this chapter, nor save in the middle of it, Road to Ruin is essentially a world of it’s own. When you click on the deleted chapter you are immediately introduced by Cliff Bleszinski, design director of Gears of War 2 who sheds a little light on this missing storyline. He explains that sometimes parts of the game get cut, tells you what to expect in this little extra piece of gameplay, and informs you that you may run into an old friend along the way (here’s a hint, you do run into this old friend no matter what, and it is Franklin) sort of like a deleted scene introduction on a DVD, Cliff introduces this small piece of gaming well… but every time I hear about him all I can think about is how he brought Jazz Jackrabbit into the world, and our hearts.

THIS is Cliff's claim to fame in my book.

This chapter, or at least little extra bit of story-based gameplay takes place immediately after *SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT* Dom finally connects with Maria. He’s depressed, he’s lost his way, and he wants to take it out on the Locusts. As Marcus Fenix, do you do as Dom wishes and go in, ‘guns a blazin’ or do you use your noggin, and do things a little differently? Here’s what I liked about Road to Ruin. You’re given a choice, you can push one trigger and fight your way through, or you can push the other, don some Theron guard armour and sneak your way in.

I’ll start by discussing what I consider the more entertaining of the two and go in guns blazin. Here you literally just go in and kill everyone, there are A LOT of Locust beasts to destroy, a lot of weapons to use, and a lot of ammo to keep you going. The basic formula for this chapter is that you blast your way through a room with baddies hiding everywhere, pick up their ammo and grenades (I highly recommend holding onto a Boomshot and as many grenades as possible until you get to the end), clear the room and go into the next waiting area. Here you climb a ladder and flick a switch to open the next gate, but not before sounding an alarm bringing bigger and badder Locust hordes out. This happens about 3 times until the last gate instead has you fall through the ground and you must defend yourself in small corridors until the coast is clear. Once out you begin to cross a bridge only to be confronted by a Brumak! Time to high tail it to the near by turrets and take that bad boy down! You fight a little bit more until you are introduced with pretty much the first bit of story since the introduction and decision at the beginning of the chapter as you release Franklin from his jail cell and toss him a shotgun for support. Here’s where the fun happens though folks because the next bit gets intense. Without giving too much away your led into a big room with plenty of cover and must defeat wave after wave of increasingly difficult Locusts, culminating with a face to face battle against a Reaver. Remember when I said to keep all your big explosives, it was pretty much for this whole last battle. The chapter ends after the Reaver is slain and you get your achievement for taking vengeance on the Horde. Over all I found going balls to the wall very therapeutic – limbs flailing, grenades lobbing fun. While short (it took me 15 minutes on normal, 2 hours on hardcore with lots of dying, and will probably take you a lot less with co-op) and light on the story, I found that this little addition was a fun treat as long as you’re not buying the entire DLC just for Road to Ruin.

sometimes even big burly soldiers like to dress up and feel pretty.

Now about the stealth mode; while I fully appreciated the fact that Epic gave us a choice here and a new way to play Gears – I would have liked it to be developed and explored a bit more. Perhaps not just sneaking but also introducing stealth kills or something. So you start out by putting on your trendy Theron armour, but your faces are still shown and your guns are as blue as the sky… but the Locust don’t seem to notice, it’s only when you get close enough for them to smell you (???) That they will sound the alarm and kill you almost instantly. Again you take the same path (more or less) that you did when you went in with guns prepared but you must follow Dom past the rotating guards from room to room keeping as far away from the guards as possible and not firing a single shot. In two instances do you turn a wheel to get the grubs to look the other way by making something fall, but otherwise it feels like a game of ‘red light / green light’ (remember when you were a child and you tried to sneak up on the one who was ‘it’ without them seeing you?). When you get to the Brumak, you just run by it, down the stairs and underneath it in a tunnel, meet with Franklin and from here on out the rest of the level is exactly the same (big battles) but you don’t have the benefit of 4 grenades and 9 Boomshot bullets. Finish the battle and the deleted level is over; you get a different acheivement and pat yourself on the back. Passifism in one of the most gruesome games to date. Again, this should take roughly 15 minutes or so if you know what your doing, longer if your like me, shorter if you have a buddy to play with.

I enjoyed both modes of Road to ruin, stealth was a different take on Gears while guns blazin was just really good mindless fun. Overall a very short bit of extra gameplay and like I mentioned before no matter which method you choose you still meet up with Franklin and have the big battle at the end (at which point the game would continue on with the main story line if it was never deleted in the first place). While it’s cool to dress up as a bad guy, it’s even cooler to kill the bad guy in my opinion. The Road to Ruin was filled with tons of variety not only in enemies, but weapons and level design as well as one of my favourite portions of the stealth mode has you look on as a Locust jerk tortures and kills a thin human, should you have blown your cover and tried to save him? Was it in the interest of the greater good that his sacrifice kept you hidden? This area of the game is pretty much wrought with moral dilemma.

So, there you have it, for 1600 MS points you get 19 maps (6 of them brand new, one new to Gears of War 2) as well as the Road to Ruin deleted chapter. Or for 1200 MS points you get just the Dark Corners map pack (6 new maps and one new to Gears 2) and Road to Ruin. If you never downloaded a Gears 2 map pack before I highly recommend getting the entire All Fronts Collection. If you have a couple of the map packs, I still recommend shelling out 1200 points for the Dark Corners pack and Road to Ruin. If you want to get it for Road to Ruin by itself, I’m not sure if it would be worth it for a maximum 3 hours of gameplay. While it would have been nice to see a stealth option for some parts of the GoW 2 campaign, it was refreshing to at least get a taste of what could be coming in the future in terms of more campaign downloads or even Gears 3!

For Road to Ruin:

Gameplay: 5/5

Graphics: 4/5

Sound: 3/5

Replay Value: 2/5

For the All Fronts Collection:

Gameplay: 4/5

Graphics: 4/5

Sound: 3/5

Replay Value: 5/5

Call of Duty: World at War makes good with third map pack release

Josh Salem — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:43:01 +0000

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One of the most-played online shooters is upping the anti as Activision and Treyarch confirmed plans to release a third map pack DLC for Call of Duty: World at War this coming August.

This map pack will feature three multiplayer maps called ‘Battery’ ‘Revolution’, and ‘Breach’ as well as a new zombie map called ‘Der Riese’ For the Xbox 360 and PS3.

No other details are as of yet announced, but check out www.CoDWaW.com for more details.

Transformers fans prepare yourself for a little DLC

Josh Salem — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:53:05 +0000

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With Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen only recently being released, Luxoflux is already spoiling us with a huge list of downloadable content on it’s way later this summer for Xbox 360 and PS3.

By far one of the largest sounding DLC’s I have ever witnessed, this addition will provide something for oldschool fans as well as fans of the new movie.

This coming pack will include over ten new multiplayer characters including oldschool favourites like G1 Starscream and new additions like Sideswipe. As well there will be three all new multiplayer maps to use these characters (and your older favourites) on. In addition, these new characters can be played in both the Autobot as well as Decepticon single player campaigns and bring with them new achievements for Xbox 360, and trophies for the PS3.

Finally for those who have beaten both campaigns and whined about this game being too easy, this add-on will include a new expert difficulty mode complete with a fresh set of leader boards to challenge expert gamers in single player campaigns.

While we still aren’t sure as to how much this DLC will cost gamers, one thing is for certain. This DLC has more than meets the eye.

Sorry about that last sentence…

Halo Wars marches on with new game add-on pack

Josh Salem — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:09:43 +0000

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Whether you’re part of the UNSC or the Covenant, it’s time to shape up and ship out with this new downloadable add-on for the ever popular (best selling RTS game of current consoles) Halo Wars real-time strategy game. Microsoft and Robot Entertainment are expanding the battlefield this coming July 21st by adding four new multiplayer maps that highlight key turning points in the UNSC / Covenant war.

The “Historic Battle” add on will run you 800 MS points on Xbox Live and as mentioned above, will be available July 21st. Continue after the break for details of the four new maps as well as four new achievements.

Barrens (1v1 map): Harsh terrain guide troops into killing zones. Whomever weilds the Forerunner artifacts are the best bet to win the battle.

Blood River (1v1 map): Take over bases on cliff edges that overlook the blood soaked river below. Soliders battle over the two narrow crossings are perhaps the reason the river will forever run red.

Glacial Ravine (3v3 map): Snow covered mountains form natural barriers that split the land in half. Control of the two energy walls often determine the outcome of war.

Memorial Basin (2v2 map): High grounds in the middle of the map offer good cover for infantry. Otherwise it’s hunting season in an open field surrounding it.

The four achievements (worth a total of 100 points) include:

Tour coming through: Hot drop 50 squads to your Covenant leader in a single game on Memorial Basin (30 points).

Never leave a man behind: Finish a game with 5000 net resources contributed to your teammates on Barrens (15 points).

Drain Cleaner: Kill 20 enemy squads with a continuous Covenant leader power on Memorial Basin (30 points).

Killjoy: Disrupt 5 active leader powers in a single game on Blood River (25 points).

Kind of weird that no achievements have been annouced for the Glacial Ravine level, but otherwise this seems like a fantastic reason to dust off Halo Wars and give it another go either online or against the computer.

Master Chief out.

EA Reveals Free DLC for Fight Night Round 4 Starting August

David Barmak — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:51:46 +0000

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It hasn’t taken long for EA to announce the first batch of DLC for Fight Night Round 4 — and it’s free! There are a couple of items in the pipes. By early August, Fight Night fans can expect a new training gym, new gameplay sliders, and a host of new equipment that can be used for outfitting boxers. And as cross-promotional exclusive, Xbox 360 users will receive an alternate version of Sugar Ray Leornard courtesy of Pizza Hut.

Then by early September, EA will release a controversial update that allows players to use the face buttons to throw punches instead of wielding the analog sticks with Total Punch Control precision. “Among the new content in development, our new button control scheme will give fans a choice for how they want to throw punches in the game,” says Dean Richards, senior producer of EA Sports. “We strongly believe that the refined Total Punch Control is the most intuitive way to throw punches in Fight Night Round 4, but we also want fans of the franchise to have an option.”

Fight Night Round 4 was released in North America on June 23, 2009. It is currently available for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine – Downloadable Content Now Available

Josh Salem — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:29:21 +0000

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Just a heads up for those loving the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine game by Activision (or those who have grown tired of the story mode already). We now have the ability to download the Weapon X arena, yes, the very same arena DLC that came with a Wolverine pre-order is now available to the masses on both Xbox 360 for 800 Microsoft points, and Playstation 3 for $9.99.

The Arena is comprised of four combat simulators for your gory enjoyment. In the Custom Combat arena, Logan potentials can ‘grow’ and combination of enemies (big or small) to fight, creating your ultimate brawl dreams including Sentinel Prototypes, Machine Gunners, Machete Men and more! As well, the Ladder Challenge mode gives those that have fought ever enemy in the game the ability to fight through an onslaught of preconfigured challenges, starting weak and easy and growing gradually until the room fills with the hardest battles imaginable; there are 50 ‘levels’ to plough through in this mode. The Environmental Simulator gives you the ability to utilize all the environmental weapons throughout the game, things like broken tree branches, electric panels and all the fun stuff you can throw enemies into are all here for your Canadian chucking pleasure. Finally the Weapon X Arena provides an extra bonus room that has heightened enemy reaction effects.

So you heard it here folks, those Wolverine fans that didn’t get the pre-order no longer have to wallow in self pity that they don’t have access to this arena because now for 800 MS points or $10 bucks, you too can have hours of mutilating mutation entertainment!