Bad news for Freezepop fans (like us here at Joystiq) -- the synthpop trio, of which Kasson Crooker, Senior Producer at Rock Band creators Harmonix, is a member, does not have a song in their latest game, Rock Band 2. And that's a shame -- they've had a new song on the disc in every Harmonix game since FreQuency (including Phase, their iPod game), which makes this the first Harmonix game without a new Freezepop tune.

Shocked at this revelation, we confronted Harmonix at the Rock Band event this evening, and they confirmed that yes, there is no Freezepop song on the disc in RB2. The reason given to us was that Freezepop hasn't recorded any new music lately, and that they didn't have anything new to put out. But our source at Harmonix did say to look out for some Freezepop DLC -- they may be planning, we were told, a two or three-song downloadable pack of "sweet and cold and fruity and plastic-y" music.

There's a rub, though: there is a new Freezepop song in the recently released Guitar Hero: On Tour DS game. Guitar Hero, as you may know, was originally created by Harmonix, but since GH3 has been owned by Activision and developed by Neversoft. Are Liz Enthusiasm and her two compadres jumping ship?

Update: Commenter skie reads Liz' livejournal. Apparently the band never got paid for any of their songs in the Harmonix games since Guitar Hero, but they did get paid for the GH:OT appearance. They say they want to open themselves up to as many different fans as possible, and that means showing up in other companies' games.

Plastic instrument rivalry news now, with Stephen Totilo of MTV Multiplayer confirming that the upcoming Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero: World Tour will happily work with non-Guitar Hero peripherals – including those from Harmonix's first Rock Band game. The fate of Rock Band 2's instruments has yet to be decided – they haven't become available for testing just yet.

We're happy to see Activision tear down this wailing wall, even though we'll have to tweak our peripheral compatibility matrix for the umpteenth time. We're not quite sure how many an "ump" is, but we're thinking it's somewhere in the region of 119.

Reading about people playing Guitar Hero World Tour is one thing, but seeing it in action is quite another. We've chopped up and condensed the extremely lengthy World Tour demonstration contained in Activision's non-E3 press conference into the most important, informative and interesting bits for the below embedded videos. We've even included a full, six minute performance of Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher," performed by the developers themselves. Rock on!

Over 350,000 units sold in three weeks ... on a handheld? You're damn straight Activision is already booking a second tour -- call it: Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades. The sequel to last month's (yeah, last month's!) palm-packed jam session was confirmed today during the Nintendo E3 2008 keynote. While not detailed, Decades will likely include a setlist that ranges multiple ... decades. The game will also include a song-sharing feature, allowing those with only the original On Tour to sample the Decades tracks. And apparently, there could be some form of microphone functionality (karaoke?) -- as if On Tour wasn't already awkward enough to play during the morning commute...

It's not Guitar Hero: Metallica but metal fans should still be excited about today's announcement (at Microsoft's pre-E3 press conference) that their next album, Death Magnetic, will be released as a Guitar Hero III and Guitar Hero World Tour the same day it launches in stores this fall. "Who knows, maybe a few years from now this will be the norm when your favorite band's new record comes out," the boys from the band said on their official web site.

The band is no stranger to rhythm games, already having tracks featured in both Rock Band and Guitar Hero III already. The band was previously reported to be in talks to premiere a single as Rock Band DLC.

Bobby Kotick, CEO of newly minted mega-publisher Activision Blizzard, has forecast the "the natural evolution" of the Guitar Hero franchise: iTunes. "I don't think there have been a lot of credible alternatives to iTunes but Guitar Hero certainly has that potential," Kotick told Financial Times.

While Kotick stopped short of actually detailing the proposal (we're imagining a typical music download service that features some Guitar Hero compatibility), Activision's merger with Vivendi Games ostensibly unlocks the Universal Music catalog, and Vivendi chief exec Jean-Bernard Levy added that the company has payment and processing capabilities in "virtually every country." Certainly, Activision Blizzard has a strong enough backbone to launch an iTunes competitor -- and an untold war chest ($3.5 billion, you say?) to make a bid for the highly coveted Beatles songs -- but to date, releasing 3 or so tracks a month ain't gonna cut it. Let's just get the Guitar Hero DLC updates on par with Rock Band's. Then we'll talk iTunes, m'kay?

Many of us could write entire volumes of songs and bands we'd like to see in one or both of the reigning emperors of the rhythm genre, Rock Band and Guitar Hero -- we'd wager that included in everyone's wishlist is a track or twelve from the legendary early 70s rock outfit Led Zeppelin. Unfortunately, Zeppelin front man Jimmy Page recently hung a definitive "No Stairway" sign on the genre, citing his hesitance to lend game developers the band's valuable master tracks.

The reasons behind Page's apprehension are unknown -- perhaps it has to do with the recent news of the easily misplaceable nature of master recordings. We hope the group's co-founder can be persuaded to part with the recordings before the siren call of "Immigrant Song" swoons the games' developers, forcing them to include earnest but unsatisfying covers of Zeppelin's bigger tracks. Discerning ears know -- there really is no rock-scream like a Robert Plant rock-scream.

Eager bookworms visiting the Washington-Centerville Public Library in Centerville, Ohio, will face exposure to the new-fangled "video game" entertainment medium, as the library will now be loaning PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 games. According to the Dayton Daily News, the library will carry two categories of games: Titles aimed at families, and ones aimed at players aged 10 and up (sans adult-only games). Each game will be available for one-week loan with the option of one renewal.

You can check for yourself which games are available in the library's online catalog, though the Dayton Daily News has gone and confirmed the presence of Guitar Hero, Kung-Fu Panda, Madden NFL 08 and, err, Iron Man. That one's probably meant to frighten the kids into reading books again.

[Via Shacknews]

In celebration of this week's Fourth of July holiday, Activision plans to serenade Guitar Hero III players with in-your-face patriotism and ambiguous homo-eroticism -- that's right, the "Top Gun Anthem" will be available as a free download on July 3rd. The film's instrumental theme, obtainable from both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, is sure send your fingers up and down your instrument as you dream of being Val Kilmer's wingman. No, Tom Cruise's wingman!

You have room on your desk, right? Right there between the Varia Suit Samus statue and Battle Armor Skeletor sits a space just begging to be filled. Now, McFarlane Toys, whose figs have more in common with plastic sculptures than actual toys, has announced plans to fill that space on your already crowded desk with figures based on Guitar Hero this November.

Already known for creating figures based on other video game properties such as Metal Gear Solid and Halo, McFarlane Toys has announced a manly lineup of four Guitar Hero personalities, each featuring 15-18 moving parts and a price between $10-15. The first wave of plastic rockers will include Johnny Napalm, Lars Ümlaut, Axel Steel, and God of Rock, while Casey Lynch and Judy Nails cheer lead the first wave from the sidelines.

While we may find ourselves favoring Rock Band's a la carte offerings far more than Activision's band-themed bundles, we're not sure whose model will win in the long run. Take the Beatles for example: getting the notoriously protective (note: they're not even on iTunes) band's tracks onto either offering (or both!) would be a huge coup, to be sure, but wouldn't Guitar Hero: Beatles be more attractive to the license holder than some downloadable tracks for Rock Band?

FT.com revisits the pursuit and reports that, perhaps unsurprisingly, Beatles "representatives have held discussions with both Activision and MTV Games" in pursuit of a "final deal [that] would be worth several million dollars" and "could be reached in a matter of weeks." Well, we'll be here in a matter of weeks ... say, E3 would be a really nice time to announce something. We're just sayin' ...

Just in case you hadn't heard via, oh, every manner of media possible, British rockers Coldplay will have a new album, Viva la Vida, on shelves (and your favorite music download service) June 17. Today Activision announced that a dose of Coldplay DLC will hit Guitar Hero III two days later on June 19.

The Coldplay track pack will contain three songs, including "Violet Hill," the first single from Viva la Vida. "Yellow" and "God Put a Smile on Your Face" from the album A Rush of Blood to the Head round out the set. Activision has yet to price the goods, but three-song packs have historically run 500 MS points via Xbox Live and $6.25 on PSN.

[update: Activision sends along confirmation that the Coldplay track pack will, in fact, set you back 500 MS points or $6.25 on XBL and PSN, respectively.]

Following the Motörhead set earlier this month, more Guitar Hero III downloadable content lands on the PS3 and Xbox 360 today, with the three-song Isle of Wight Track Pack now available on both consoles for purchase and download.

The pack features "Problems [live at Brixton] by The Sex Pistols, "Shoot the Runner" by Kasabian, and "I Predict a Riot" by Kaiser Chiefs. The set costs 500 Microsoft Points, or $6.25 USD on PS3. For a taste, check out the above video for Kasabian's "Shoot the Runner." It's kinda rockin'.

[Via X3F]

Each week Jeff Engel and Geoff Brooks contribute Counting Rupees, a column on the business behind gaming:
Guitar Hero IV is on its way, and with it are coming individual games themed around Metallica, Aerosmith, and others. This follows the strategy highlighted by Activision CEO Robert Kotick last year, in which the executive promised shareholders to fully "exploit" the company's franchises on an annual basis. The immediate response of gamers was almost exclusively negative, not least because the prospect has connotations of poor quality and high pricing. Although Activision may be the only company to announce its strategy so publicly, it's hardly the only adopting these kinds of tactics. If it irritates gamers so much, why do companies in the industry do this? And is it as bad as it seems?

Some of us here at Joystiq still remember the first time we played Super Mario 64, at a Toys "R" Us kiosk set up a month before the game and the Nintendo 64 system were officially released. Compared to that, a four-hour long in-store sneak peak for Guitar Hero: On Tour might not seem as revolutionary, but hey, we'll take what we can get.

Players eager for some portable shredding can head to their local TRU between noon and 4 p.m. on June 14 -- one week before the game's June 22 release. Besides getting the opportunity to "prove their shredding skills on the most diverse set list of master tracks ever offered in a Guitar Hero game," as the release puts it, attendees will also receive a "complimentary Guitar Hero sticker, dog tag, and temporary tattoo." Caution: Wearing all three at once may actually transform you into a rock god, accidentally raining rock-infused destruction on the surrounding area. You've been warned.

[Via Press Release]