Guitar Hero Greatest Hits coming this summer

Posted by Al Warmington on Fri 6 Mar 2009

Give your favourite Guitar Hero tunes the full band treatment

Since Guitar Hero stormed on to the rhythm gaming scene, the series has undergone a some major changes. First there was coop play that allowed an extra player to pick up the bass line, then the series moved from mere to cover versions to predominately using master recordings.

Nowadays, it’s all about the full band experience, with up to four players filling out the lead, bass, drums and vocals with all the appropriate plastic instruments.

But, arguably, one thing has changed for the worse – the track lists have steadily cherry picked the best singles to rock out to, leaving the likes of Guitar Hero World Tour with some rather dodgy European thrash metal to flesh out the line up.

You’re probably wondering why we can’t just get the classic Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (oh, okay, and that half-baked Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s as well) tracks and give them the full band treatment? Activision has heard your plea and is making it happen.

Guitar Hero Greatest hits is coming later in the year, featuring a selection of 48 fan favourites from previous Guitar Hero titles, redesigned to support all the new modes introduced in Guitar Hero World Tour: band play, 8-player online Battle of the Bands, Rock Star Creator and Music Studio.

In addition, some of the older songs are getting updated note tracks, which will throw in three-note chords, slide bar and sustained notes into the mix, as well as enhancing the sound quality to master status.

Activision is teasing out the full set list, but has let slip the first eight. Guitar Hero Greatest Hits, will feature “Them Bones” by Alice in Chains, Queen’s “Killer Queen,” “Nothin’ But A Good Time” by Poison, Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing in the Name,” “I Wanna Rock” by Twisted Sister, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts’ “I Love Rock N Roll,” Heart’s “Barracuda” and Dragonforce’s “Through the Fire and Flames”. Well, it's not quite The Beatles, but series fans shouldn't be disappointed.

Guitar Hero Greatest Hits is coming this summer for PS3, PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii. Prices have yet to be confirmed, and we’ll be interested to see if it comes with a new Band bundle – some hardware problems were reported with Guitar Hero World Tour’s drum kit, which might well result in a new design.

Link: Activision