Guitar Hero‘s Back With A Redesigned Controller And The War On Drugs

Guitar Hero and the similarly themed Rock Band were once ubiquitous, but both of them seemed to fade away as the casual gaming audience that they attracted moved primarily to mobile devices to get their fix. But both games are coming back this year — Guitar Hero has just announced Guitar Hero Live, the first new iteration of the video game series in five years. It comes paired with a brand new plastic guitar controller, meant to more closely mimic the actual feeling of playing the guitar rather than just mashing colorful buttons.

As The Verge reports, there will be two main components to the new game: a solo campaign mode –where you take on the POV of a rocker and go out to perform your songs, and the audience reacts positively or negatively based on how well you do — and an online multi-player mode designed to encourage players to stick with the game.

The game’s creators also promise a more diverse lineup than ever, including EDM and hip-hop in addition to the game’s more traditionally guitar-oriented tunes. “If it’s got a beat, and it’s got a rhythm, you can make good gameplay out of it,” the developers told The Verge. The lineup so far includes the War On Drugs (for beer commercial lead guitar shit mode), Ed Sheeran (for sleep mode), the Black Keys, the Rolling Stones, Skrillex, Fall Out Boy, the Killers, and more.

Guitar Hero Live will arrive on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PS3, Nintendo Wii U, and some mobile devices later this year. Here’s a melodramatic trailer for the game:

The Very Best - “Let Go” (Official Video)

The Very Best, the duo of Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and Swedish producer Johan Hugo, have a new album called Makes A King coming out next month. Their new video for “Let Go,” which features Vampire Weekend’s Chris Baio on bass, follows the clip for “Hear Me” that they released last year. In the new video, Mwamwaya and Hugo become characters in an old-school NES video game. We see them bouncing across African and Scandinavian landscapes, avoiding crocodiles and polar bears alike. The pixel beat artist Pappas Parlor directed the animated video, and you can watch it and read a statement from the duo below.

The Very Best write:

Our friend Pappas Parlor is an amazing pixel bead artist from Sweden, We talked to him about doing an old school 8-Bit game type video with all the characters and landscape being made out of pixel beads and giving the impression of stop motion filming. The idea to have one level in Malawi where we run from street dogs and fight off Monsantos GMO monster maize plants, and one level in Sweden where we run from a fox and our enemies are the far right-wing political party. The whole thing was a collaboration between Pappas Parlor and The Very Best, we tried to come up with funny things that could happen in the video as well as addressing some of our more serious concerns. We also made characters of Chris Baio (Vampire Weekend) and Freddie Cowan (The Vaccines) so they could have a little cameo at the end. It took just over a month to make the video.

Snoop Lion - "Get Away ft. Angela Hunte" (prod. Major Lazer) Video

Snoop Lion's homage to old school video games in his latest visual "Get Away," from his Grammy-nominated album REINCARNATED: http://smarturl.it/ReincarnatedDX

Directed by: Ashten "Whoopi" Winger
Animated by: Mykola Dosenko

2013 in Gaming: The Year in Under 2 Minutes

2013 has been a landmark year for gaming. New consoles have been released and the older ones have made a fantastic last impression with an incredible line-up of intense and innovative titles. Both mainstream and indie developers have pushed the boundaries of interactive entertainment in 2013, delivering experiences we'll be talking about for years to come.

These are by no means the only great games from 2013. Your favorite game isn't missing because I don't think it is worthy... more likely it just didn't edit together well with the rest or had to go to keep it under 2 minutes. I also attempted to give some screen time to overachieving indies that deserve the attention, rather than trying to cram in every major release.

SOUNDTRACK
Sometimes - Miami Horror
The Defeatist - Cameras

GAMES FEATURED (in order of first appearance)
God of War: Ascension
Tomb Raider
Bioshock Infinite
Ryse: Son of Rome
Outlast
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Need for Speed Rivals
Forza 5
NBA 2K14
FIFA 14
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
Ni No Kuni
The Cave
Rayman Legends
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD
Super Mario 3D World
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
Splinter Cell: Blacklist
Devil May Cry
Deadpool
Battlefield 4
Grand Theft Auto V
Papers Please
Payday 2
Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs
Pikmin 3
The Swapper
Total War: Rome 2
Killer is Dead
Guacamelee
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
The Last of Us
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Gran Turismo 6
Proteus
Gone Home
Beyond Two Souls
Fire Emblem: Awakening
Don't Starve
Dead Rising 3
Dead Space 3
Batman Arkham Origins
Injustice: Gods Among Us
Grid 2
Remember Me
Contrast
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
Crysis 3
The Wolf Among Us
Saints Row 4
Resogun
Tales of Xillia
Knack
Killer Instinct
Dead Island: Riptide
Lost Planet 3
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
Gears of War: Judgement
Metro: Last Light

Google Glass Gets Into The Music Game

As soon as it came out, the $1,500 futuristic eyewear known as Google Glass became something of a punchline. But the technology now has some music apps that go along with it, and those apps seem pretty fucking cool. Using voice-activated commands, you can now identify a song that you might hear, find that song, buy it, and even search out a place to find that song on vinyl. And in the promotional video below, Jay-Z sound engineer Young Guru does exactly that, hearing a song in a Mexican restaurant and then finding that exact same song on vinyl.

Later this month, Google Glass will get its own cusomized earbuds, and you can read more about the glasses’ music functions at Rolling Stone.

Eminem - “Survival” (Official Video) (Call of Duty: Ghosts Soundtrack)

In the video for his Call Of Duty-affiliated single “Survival,” Eminem! Is! Still! Screaming! But the veteran Detroit MC’s aggression sounds a little more like classic Em than the exceptionally “Berzerk” persona he’s been showcasing lately. Production-wise, it’s more of the guitar-laden Rick Rubin old-school treatment we’ve come to expect from this The Marshall Mathers LP 2 era. Visually, it’s fittingly gritty, casting Em against a cityscape rife with stray dogs and graffiti.

AlunaGeorge - Watching Over You

Watch the Nintendo-Inspired Video for AlunaGeorge's New Song "Watching Over You"

UK duo AlunaGeorge have offered up an extra spine-tingly new song, titled "Watching Over You", for a compilation put together by BBC Radio 1's Annie Mac. Brendan Canty (not the one from Fugazi) also created a very abstract video to go along with the track, filled with gently glitchy imagery and brief flashes of Nintendo games.

Beck – “Cities,” “Spiral Staircase,” & “Touch The People”

As previously reported, Beck has contributed three songs to the new Playstation 3 game Sound Shapes. And we’ve already heard a preview of “Cities.” But now, the video game is out, and versions of all three songs are out on the internet. In the gameplay videos below, we can hear the songs and see how the music interacts with the gameplay experience, which looks both pretty fun and absolutely maddening. “Cities” and “Spiral Staircase” find Beck sounding smoothed-out and precise, while “Touch The People” is glitchier and jankier, as if Beck is experimenting in EDM.







Sound Shapes is out now, via Queasy Games. Also, Beck’s new album Song Reader will be out now, but only in sheet music form, which is sort of like releasing a video game as pure binary code.

Via: Stereogum.

Live Action Mega Man X Vs. Protoman Fan Film

This slick looking Megan Man X fan film was brought to life by Olan Rogers, who spent a mere $700 on the entire production. The costumes alone look like they cost more than seven hundred bucks, and yet the average budget of B-movies like Sharktopus is well over a million dollars.

Take note, budding filmmakers-it’s not the size of your budget that counts, it’s how you use it.

Rye Rye - Boom, Boom

Geremy Jasper & Georgie Greville of LEGS imagine Rye Rye in a surrealist video game world for her new single "Boom, Boom". Multiple Rye Ryes dance, jump, fly, flip, sing and rhyme through collaged psychedelic game levels full of pyramids, flying carpets, laser shooting dolphins, hunks, UFOs, cubed clouds and dragons. In a visual style that pushes 90's Sega graphics 'Through the Looking Glass' "Boom Boom" pushes the hip hop video to mind warping dimensions.

Director: Geremy Jasper and Georgie Greville

New Year's End: A BioShock Short Film

Fans of the Bioshock video game series (like me!) are getting mighty excited about the upcoming release of Bioshock: Infinite later this year, so it’s no wonder we watch everything related to Bioshock that comes out on the interwebs in order to get our Rapture fix.

To tide us over until the new game is released, here’s an entertaining Bioshock themed short film, which deals with the events that took place in Rapture before the first game on that fateful New Years Eve, 1958.

–via Geekologie

Angry Birds (2011) - (Un)Official Movie Trailer

This Angry Birds parody trailer looks like it was made by Guy Ritchie, and really has nothing to do with the video game aside from the whole “pigs snatch their eggs, so the birds get revenge” dynamic. But it’s sexy, funny, and really slick looking for a comedy short.

–via Ology

The Elder Scrolls Adventures with the Dovahkids

Remember when Saturday morning cartoons were full of fantasy adventure? This throwback Skyrim cartoon by Harry Partridge reminds me of watching the Dungeons and Dragons animated series as a youngster, with eyes full of wonder and monster manual in hand.

–via Destructoid

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Full Cinematic Trailer

Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 is an explosive showdown between the heroes of the Capcom universe and the superheroes of the Marvel universe.

The Song Of Skyrim Animated Video

I have been waiting for years to get my hands on a new Elder Scrolls game, and my excitement can barely be contained. Enter an equally excited, and fashionably medieval, bard to sing the praises of the newest incarnation-Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.

The “Song of Skyrim” is beautifully animated by Harry Partridge, and is so catchy that you’ll be humming the tune all day as you wait to get a copy of Skyrim in your hands.

–via Ology

Story of Genki

Around these parts David O’Reilly needs no introduction.

When David’s name is attached to a project anything can happen. Usually grotesque, sinister and wholly unholy, but always hilarious.

With his latest offering for Tim and Eric’s “Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax”, he does not disappoint. Again it’s NSFW (and finishing of the recent NSFW posting trilogy). Normal service will now resume!

Official Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - The Vet & The n00b

The official Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 3 live action trailer featuring Sam Worthington, Jonah Hill and Dwight Howard. Whether you're a veteran of Call of Duty or a n00b just starting out, there's a soldier in all of us.

Need for Speed: The Run Michael Bay Trailer

Experience a action-packed, coast-to-coast race for your life, all through the eyes of Michael Bay.

Game: Need For Speed: The Run
Developer: EA Black Box
Publisher: Electronic Arts

It's called The Run. An illicit, high-stakes race across the country. The only way to get your life back is to be the first from San Francisco to New York. No speed limits. No rules. No allies. All you have are your driving skills and sheer determination as you battle hundreds of the world's most notorious drivers on the country's most dangerous roads.

Parallax (beta) - IGF 2012 Trailer

With a monochrome color palette and mind bending portal physics, the indie game Parallax is set to blow away gamers when it comes out early 2012.

And, as amazing as this game looks, it was developed by only 2 people, Zi Ye and Jesse Burstyn, and is slated to be completed in less than one year! Check out the trailer and see if your brain can handle the world of Parallax.

–via Ars Technica

PS3 Long Live Play: "Michael" - Full Length

When they tell your story, what will they say? www.longliveplay.com