Guitar Hero 5 lets you cram 4 drumsets into your living room

by Kevin Kelly on May 15th 2009 1:25PM

You already know Guitar Hero 5 is coming, but did you know it'll let you amass even more little plastic instruments? The new game offers the ability to create any combination of rock you want. Three microphones and one guitar? Okay. Two drummers and two guitars? No problem. Four drummers? Insane, but yes. We just hope that doesn't mean a Guitar Hero 5 Super Mega Ginormous Box Set: Limited Edition with four of everything is coming.

Also new to the game is RockFest, which has five competitive head to head modes that are playable "online or in your living room." Er, aren't most people online in their living room? Other tweaks: you can play the entire set list from the moment you pop the disc in, no more unlocking songs, and all of the Guitar Hero: World Tour DLC will be playable in GH5. Thanks for not locking us out of the music we've previously paid for.

Of course, there are some new songs coming as well. So check out the only two screenshots we've seen so far in the gallery below, and head over behind the break to peep the tunage.

Guitar Hero 5

The Rolling Stones – "Sympathy for the Devil"
Bob Dylan – "All Along The Watchtower"
The White Stripes – "Blue Orchid"
Santana – "No One To Depend On (LIVE)"
Vampire Weekend – "A-Punk"
Tom Petty - "Runnin Down a Dream"
Johnny Cash – "Ring of Fire"
Kings of Leon – "Sex on Fire"

Tags: Activision, GH5, Guitar-Hero-5, Microsoft, music, neversoft, Nintendo, rhythm, Wii, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (115)

Vampire Weekend?

*music nerd heart attack*

I guess.

I like Vampire Weekend too, but "A-Punk" has been played TO DEATH on the radio.

But not as much as "Sex on Fire". I don't ever want to hear that song again, much less have it in one of my precious rhythm games.

Uhhhg...more guitar hero....don't they know that rock band is way better an-......wait a second...this post seems pretty original...HEY! you can use whatever combination of instruments you want, that's seems like a nice option. And all the songs are unlocked right away....

AND WHAT THE HELL!? VAMPIRE WEEKEND?! KINGS OF LEON!?

That sounds...cool...really cool....this isn't like Activision at all...

dude you missed runnin' down a dream.. arguably one of the most requested songs ever

I truly wish they put Vampire Weekend - "Boston" instead, but, alas, I'll live.

VW is on the radio? I thought they were solely popular on the indie-type scene. Now I don't like them...MORE OBSCURE ARTISTS, PLZ.

(btw, fuck the word indie.)

doesn't sound too bad.

not that im buying it

Judging by that second screenshot, it looks like they ditched the original hideously ugly stylized design for their characters and opted for something more realistic.

"opted for something more realistic" = "did it the way Rock Band does it." :D

Except Rock Band's characters are equally hideous

Nah, the Rock Band characters are still pretty stylized, they're just actually recognizable as human rather than hideously mutated beasts. This looks more realistic than the Rock Band characters.

Not that it really matters, unless this has a killer setlist I'll be sticking with Rock Band.

Still looks like they have no idea how big a guitar is supposed to be, unless that guy is like 7 feet tall.

keep swinging from RB's nuts, everyone else does.

It can look as good as it wants to, but if they haven't fixed the marionette, Captain Scarlet-like animation I'm going to be pretty damn disappointed.

Have you ever seen a bass guitar, they're bigger.

@jdawg:
Yeah, I should definitely go play Guitar Hero instead when Rock Band has a better interface, better graphics, a better setlist, better DLC support (more tracks, work in all games, RB1 importing), and just seems to be more polished overall rather than rehashed. Don't get me wrong, I loved Guitar Hero I and II, but they messed the franchise up when Harmonix left. With Harmonix developing Rock Band now, it's the obvious choice.

Exactly. It's hard to justify calling someone a ball-sucking sycophant when the product in question is objectively better. :P

Great. I already have a closet full of boxes with plastic instruments in them. 2 drums, 4 Guitars, 2 Mics.... But eh, more couldn't hurt ;)

With the possibility of having three drummers in the game I am surprised Slipknot hasn't been announced on the set list yet.

The other 2 kits weren't proper kits, usually something simular to floor toms or congo drums, think on the DVD they were groups of 5, sometimes with a metal ceg(keg?)..
there would also be a lot of censoring on the songs which would kill it..

you could only probably get the Abusive mix of My Plague...

I know they weren't proper kits, but that doesn't mean the drum peripherals couldn't be used.

And yeah there would be a lot of censoring, but that hasn't stopped Activision before.

Killing in the Name Of, Laid to Rest, etc etc.

Even better than three drummers is three bassists -- that way you can perform "Big Bottom" as it's meant to.

sadly some idiot will probably have 4 drum sets for no reason all by himself

It will be funny if they start having gigantic bundle sets coming in the fall

Let the sad guy pretend to be Neil Pert for a bit... what harm will that do?

they need that dude from the got milk commercial.

white gold is white gold.

that second pic kinda reminded me of him.

Milk is not cool.

makes perfect sense....now 4 friends can buy 4 copies of the game with the drums and play together.....or 4 siblings can beg their parents to get them the game and 4 drumsets to play in unison...

Do you ever not get downvoted?

yea I've gotten quite a few blue comments the past few days...lol...do I give a damn tho?? nope

I hope that they add single player 4 drum kit support to any Rush or Dream Theater song they release in the game.

the idea for the 4 drumset thing is probably more like a fourway head to head drumming match (and most likely online), and not so much in your living room

Keith Moon, why did you have to die?

Whoa, nobody commented on the DLC compatibility yet? Quite cool! Now, make that DLC GOOD for a change, Activision! That's a good start.

I'll make the comment for ya...Good job Activision, way to do what Rock Band already did. It's really to bad you couldn't do this in time for Guitar Hero Metallica or Smash Hits or Van Halen.

@CTC: Maybe you should stop being a douche and just be happy they're being supportive of their prior DLC at all. You were mad that they didn't before, and now you're mad that they weren't first.

Hmm...

-Two Hendrix packs
-Two Nirvana packs (with songs NOT from Nevermind)
-Queen pack
-Rise Against pack
-Classic Rock pack with HOT BLOODED
-Raconteurs pack
-Motorhead pack
-Steely Dan pack
-Metallica's Death Magnetic album
-Smashing Pumpkins pack

They're not Rock Band, but GHWT has put up some good DLC and it's really sad that people just instinctively shit on it.

@False

"Steely Dan pack"

Oh, hell yes. And if that song pack should happen to contain all the songs from all their albums, well, that's a cross I'll have to bear.

its really not the same.. you still cant export previous games into your library.

disc-switching is here to stay.

@False

Don't forget Oasis pack!

I can't wait to see the YouTube videos of people endlessly failing while attempting to play all 4 of the same instrument at the same time.

Erm, I think the idea is to be able to play with 4 guitars, which makes sense, and kinda an awesome idea: if a lot of people have the guitar solo-packs, then letting them play all together kinda makes sense.

I'm probably the biggest Guitar Hero fan but this song selection sucks!
The rest better be good cause otherwise its gonna be the end for me!

Really? Those songs alone are better than the sets on the last 2 GH games.

Wow really? I like all those except Kings of Leon and Vampire Weekend(who is this?) and would kill to have some of those on Rock Band, Johnny Cash's version of Ring of Fire is one specifically as well as Sympathy of the Devil....maybe Harmonix will releases GNRs version of Sympathy to make up for it even if it isn't quite as good as the original.

GN'R's "Sympathy for the Devil" in Rock Band? Yuck. The only thing worse than that would be if Harmonix decided to put Chinese Democracy in there. Oh, wait.

Multiple combinations of instruments is an interesting idea.
However, it's all about execution. It's all well and good to have ideas, but if they're not done well, it can really ruin a potentially good game.

The inclusion of Tom Petty has me interested, however Sex on Fire made me facepalm.

GH5 is going to need to be fantastic for me to go buy it. I don't want to shell out my cash dollars for something that'll disappoint me like GH:WT did.

What? Sex on Fire is the best song on there next to Johnny Cash.

It's horribly overplayed everywhere I go.

Also, what grinds my gears is that they've been releasing music since the turn of the decade and suddenly they're a "hot new band"?

Sex on Fire is just a reminder of everything I hate about commercialised music.

If you're going to include Kings of Leon, couldn't they use some of their earlier stuff instead?

Nice way of saying "fuck you" to everyone that bought GH:World Tour. It was already a disaster trying to find people to play against/with.

I wish it had a better White Stripes Song...

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Guitar Hero 5 lets you cram 4 drumsets into your living room

Guitar Hero 5

Reader Comments (115)

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