PS3 Fanboy

If what Activision's Bobby Kotick has stated in the latest issue of Conde Nast Portfolio magazine is true, then "Guitar Hero" could soon become a misnomer for the series. Guitar Hero IV could be branching out to "include a lot of other instruments, [and] vocals". Not a bad idea, except it's been done before.

Judging from Guitar Hero III's low quality controller build and its lackluster downloadable content, we don't really expect Guitar Hero IV to be much of a Rock Band beater. Especially when you consider Harmonix' superior ability to create note charts. Who knows though, maybe Neversoft will feature an instrument not currently available in Rock Band - that's the only real way we can see the franchise becoming relevant again.

It seems entirely bizarre to us that we're talking about not only the next Guitar Hero but the Guitar Hero after that - both of which are due out this year. Especially when you consider that the tracklists for the two games probably won't come close to the content available on the Rock Band platform by the time they're both out. Regardless, it seems that after we're done with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (otherwise known as DLC-on-a-disc) we can look forward to rocking out the legends that are Def Leppard on Guitar Hero IV.

This news was leaked out by the band members during a radio interview and has yet to be confirmed by either Activision or Neversoft. The tracks that will be included are said to be "Photograph", "Animal" and "Rock of Ages". We're excited to see this awesome band's music finally hit rhythm games, but we'd have preferred to see them in Rock Band. If only so we could practice drumming one handed.

We really need some sort of "Shocker!" category for posts like this. A British band called "The Answer" have revealed that their music will be included in the next edition of the Guitar Hero franchise, which will be out before the end of the year. Watch as we remain unsurprised and, to be honest, completely indifferent to the news. Guitar Hero has largely been made irrelevant by Rock Band and we only expect things to get better for the game with the inclusion of over 200 songs coming in the next year.

No doubt Guitar Hero IV will still sell well when it's released at the end of the year, but in the meantime Rock Band will have sold many more million downloadable songs (judging from how quickly it reached the 2.5 million download mark). Activision is keeping tight-lipped about the whole thing, with no official game announcement having come yet. No doubt we'll hear about it during GDC or E3 later this year.