Tom's Games: "In the span of just a few years, Guitar Hero has gone from being a risky gimmick to a blockbuster hit to, most recently, a transcendent experience that has changed music and gaming. No one, including this author, could have predicted that the game would turn into the huge pop culture phenomenon it has become. Several recent developments have shown how much it has grown and how much the music business has wised up to Guitar Hero's potential.
To understand how Guitar Hero has evolved as an experience, one needs to look past the games' technical aspects. After several titles, the basic gameplay dynamic, controllers and presentation haven't changed. What has changed is how bands and artists are flocking to Activision, Guitar Hero's owner and publisher, to get their tracks into the latest version of the game. After trying for several years, Guitar Hero finally secured the involvement of Metallica, which coincided with the release of their comeback album, "Death Magnetic." Not to mention Activision CEO Bobby Kotick proclaiming that Guitar Hero Aerosmith "generated far more in revenues than any Aerosmith album ever has," and the game reportedly grossed $25 million its first week after launch.
"Guitar World" magazine just put out a special "Guitars and Gaming" issue, featuring extensive behind-the-scenes coverage of the making of the game, what real-life rockers Joe Perry and Slash feel about their involvement in Guitar Hero, how to improve your guitar controller skills and when you're ready to graduate to the real thing, a buyer's guide to getting your first real six string. "Decibel" magazine also recently had a contest where you would win, not a real guitar, but a guitar controller signed by the members of DragonForce, a band who certainly benefited well from having their song, "Through the Fire and Flames" on the game (their sales went up 183% thanks to Guitar Hero and their new album debuted at 18 on the charts)."
These groundbreaking video games changed gaming forever and drew in scores of fans in the process.
The Guitar Hero franchise died in the wake of Activision's lust for Call of Duty, but we should be dusting off those plastic guitars for a new Guitar Hero game.
Guitar Hero was good. The problem was Activision started creating many versions. Guitar Hero had the every one year cycle like COD and people felt they were being robbed.
Why in the hell would one want to spend time to learn a button mashing order when you can lean to play a real guitar in the same time frame.
As the world reels from the shockwaves of the seismic news that Microsoft is acquiring the proverbial swamp of the video-game landscape, Activision Blizzard King, it only seems natural that our minds should now shift towards what the fallout will be for presumably years if not decades to come.
Another Prototype would be awesome.
As for Singularity, I don't necessarily need a sequel, I just want to see Raven be able to flex their creative muscle again; not just be relegated to assisting with CoD. A lot of the old guard is still with the company.
That's part of what I'm hoping to see come from this acquisition. Revive teams like Vicarious Visions and Ravem to actually allow them to work on their own new projects again.
I'd like to see Activision get the Transformers license again and continue the War and Fall of Cybertron games. the movie games were crap and the game that combined both movie and Fall and War of Cybertron sucked a new Prototype would also be good as well.
Re-imagining of River Raid and the original adventurer Pitfall. Oh Zork is also a great game.