New Guitar Hero IV Details Released

Apparently next week’s issue of Game Informer has a Guitar Hero IV cover story and guess who got an advance copy? No, not us, but rather a reader at the NeoGaf forums and she was kind enough to give some details which we mention here.

Extra Instruments

Unsurprisingly, Guitar Hero IV will be like Rock Band in the sense that it will contain not only the guitar, but a bass part, vocals, and drums. It wasn’t mentioned on the forum, but we read elsewhere that the Guitar Hero drums will have 4 ‘drum heads’ and 6 ‘cymbals’ (and a bass drum too we suspect - but will you need a 2nd TV just to fit all of the drum notes in?).

Create Your Own Music

What did come as a surprise is the news that Guitar Hero IV will feature a ‘create a song’ mode. Not a lot of in depth details were mentioned about this but it appears as though you will be able to compose tracks (guitar, bass, and drum parts). After composing a song you’ll be able to name it, create album art, and then upload it to ‘Guitar Hero Tunes’ where anyone can download it.

The create a song feature will not have vocals, possibly due to copyright or storage issues.

Song uploads will be limited to 5 at first but, depending on the ratings that your songs receive, you may be able to upload 10 (or more).

While the Wii and PS2 tend to get shafted when it comes to access to online features, it is said that these platforms will be able to utilize the ‘create a song’ feature as well (but Game Informer says that it will likely not be as robust as the PS3 and 360 versions.

Tracklisting

It was mentioned that all of the songs for Guitar Hero IV will be master tracks which is certainly welcome news. Activision was reluctant to mention specific songs (they don’t want to be scooped on those tracks by competition) but they did confirm 4 bands that will be included. The bands that were mentioned were Van Halen, The Eagles, Linkin Park and Sublime

Guitar Controller

As Gibson is no longer partnering with Red Octane and Activision to make the guitar controllers for the Guitar Hero series, Guitar Hero IV will see a new guitar designed by Red Octane. This new guitar will feature a new input mechanic that will “impact the way you play [Guitar Hero] in the future”. What the new mechanic is we can’t say, but Game Informer mentions that they saw ’see through’ note while playing and that Neversoft said this was a new input feature they were trying to patent.

As always, you can find up to the minute Guitar Hero IV details at Console Hero’s Guitar Hero IV info page.  The link is located at the top of the page, or you can just go to http://consolehero.com/guitar-hero-iv/

Related Links:
Console Hero - Guitar Hero IV Preview