Battle mode power-ups revealed in new Guitar Hero III videos
by Jem Alexander 
{ Jun 15th 2007 at 8:00AM }
When Neversoft took over the Guitar Hero franchise from Harmonix there were worries that the gameplay would change unrecognisably. While the interface of the game has remained largely the same (surely lumped into the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" category), there seem to be a couple of new features shown in this newest batch of Guitar Hero III vids.
The video above, showing Living Colour's "Cult of Personality", gives us some insight into the new additions to the battle mode. It's fairly widely accepted that the multiplayer mode in Guitar Hero I was pretty bad, but Guitar Hero II more than made up for it with its co-op and battle modes. Even then the battle mode could at times feel like little more than comparing scores. With the inclusion of power-ups in Guitar Hero III we will be able to directly affect our opponent's guitar playing abilites by making their markers blink, their fret board tremble or even increasing the difficulty level temporarily.
Sounds like a great update to us. Once all the songs are unlocked, multiplayer really is where it's at with the Guitar Hero series, so it's good to see Neversoft are doing their best to improve on it. As for the single player, there's not much there to improve. Unless, maybe, you included a couple of other instruments? Maybe a singer? Oh wait, nevermind. Be sure to watch the rest of the vids after the jump.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
SKI @ Jun 15th 2007 11:03AM
This is AWESOME, as long as there is an option to pick and choose which power-ups I want.
nobody528 @ Jun 15th 2007 1:50PM
Holy crap, those versus battles look chaotically fun. Did you notice in "The Metal" video that one power-up made player 1's fret buttons do an auto-lefty flip? That would throw me off like crazy
pete @ Jun 15th 2007 2:44PM
i now this drops this year, but when, november??? anyone know?
chris ciancanelli @ Jun 15th 2007 2:59PM
I think those things look chaotic, and not in a good way. I really hope that you can choose to put those in or not - i know you want more direct competition, but some of it just looks annoying.
John @ Jun 16th 2007 5:15PM
Wow, that really sucked. Band players fighting with each other? This is the thing that breaks up bands, and makes good video games into crap.
This is a classic example of a developer reaching so far to please the gaming audience that they only appeal to those with no sense of harmony, only a sense of aggression.
Count me out on a music-based video game that has the players attacking each other. This is the antithesis of music.
Hopefully that other game will go in the other direction, where players support one another, and points and bonuses are awarded for the ability to play in sync, just like in real bands.
What they should have done is, whenever the timing between two players is spot on, then the fidelity improves, or the drummer starts drumming better.
Here's how you do it:
You start out in mono, with garage ambience, cheap mics, This can all be emulated.
As you start to play in sync, the ambience moves from garage to professional studio, the bass comes in tighter and thicker, the highs become shimmery and glorious, and as long as you play in sync with the person you're playing WITH (not fighting AGAINST), you maintain this pristine audio fidelity. You could have crowds going wild, or you could have it segue into a pre-selected video algorithm, something artsy-fartsy and really stoney.
I'm not kidding. This is how you do it.
I already tentatively accepted Sony's offer to improve their marketing campaign, I am now available to provide musical and artistic direction to these guitar "hero" people.
Thomas @ Jun 18th 2007 6:24AM
That battle mode sucks bigtime... If the band members (or guitarists) were going to fight, when perhaps it would have been better to see a fight going on in the background between the guitarists on state that's affected by how well the players are playing. Electricity coming from one player's character to the other player character(on screen), Similar to Guitaroo Man, and the xbox 360 commercial for Guitar Hero 2 (the one where the lighting is coming from the guitar players and shooting up at a meteor.) Guitar Hero is all about who can play the best... not who can mess their opponent up the best... what a load of crap...