It seems that Activision has stumbled across the correct formula for getting us to drop our drumsticks and don our trusty, dusty Les Paul peripherals -- a three-song DLC pack for Guitar Hero III featuring the music of the epic British prog-rock trio, Muse. As of May 8, "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Exo-Politics" from their 2006 album Black Holes and Revelations as well as the fan-favorite "Stockholm Syndrome" from 2003's Absolution will be available to download for a heretofore unannounced price (we're assuming it will match the $6.25 price of former GHIII packs). We've got videos for all three tunes after the jump -- go decide which ones are purchase-worthy! (Hint: All of them.)

Chris Chike, currently the Guinness world record holder for points in Guitar Hero III, won the Play N Trade GHIII tournament last weekend and bested his record-setting score. Chike's Guinness score was 870,647 (seen in video above) before he won the tournament, along with $2000 of in-store credit, with 889,256 points.

The best part of this story is that Chike actually drove two hours to compete at the Play N Trade store in Bloomington, Minnesota. Guess when you're the world record holder the trip seems worth it, considering you've probably got the win in the bag. Chike says he still hasn't done as well at any tournament event than he's done at home. The good thing about tournaments and competition is you only have to be better than second place.

Well now, this is a trend we'd like to see continue: Just a week after it's last update (a batch of No Doubt tunes) Guitar Hero III is getting another song pack. This time, it's the "Modern Metal Track Pack," featuring master tracks of Deftones' "Hole in the Earth," Avenged Sevenfold's "Almost Easy" and Thrice's "The Arsonist." As you've come to expect, the three songs will cost you 500 points ($6.25).

If you don't find yourself in a metal mood, you'll be excited to hear that the next pack is already in the works. It's three from Dropkick Murphys, master tracks of "Famous for Nothing," "(F)lannigan's Ball" and "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya." It's due in mid-March in time for St. Patrick's Day. And the best part? Totally free. We didn't think it was possible for us to be more excited about drinking ourselves into oblivion on a Monday, but we guess wonders never cease.

[Thanks, Matt]

As our bat-eared readers discovered when the game was first released, the Wii edition of Guitar Hero III, though advertised as possessing Dolby Surround Sound capabilities, could only duplicate one channel of audio through multiple speakers (a.k.a. mono sound). Incensed, Nintendo's virtual troubadours demanded action -- Activision responded with a somewhat less-than-timely disc replacement program. Now, four months after the game was released, Activision has announced another method of atonement for their single-channel sins.

Instead of replacing your half-mute disc with a standard one (though this option is still available), you can now replace said disc with cold, hard cash (or warm, soft cash, depending on your local climate and the weariness of the bills you receive). While we're sure this policy will be exploited by those who tire of faux rocking and simply want the cash, it's refreshing to see Actie-V face their shortcomings so directly -- if not a tad unpunctually.

[Via Evil Avatar]

One of the nice things about being the top US publisher in a booming game industry is that it affords you the privilege of announcing record holiday sales. Activision's third fiscal quarter, stretching from October to December 2007, saw the publisher's sales increase by 80% over the year prior to $1.48 billion, with profits amounting to $272.2 million. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare are the key titles to praise if you're Activision and blame if you're a consumer wondering where all your hard-earned money went.

Activision anticipates a further $350 million in sales to originate from its fourth fiscal quarter (ending in March), ultimately contributing to a projected $2.65 billion for the entire fiscal year 2008. As long as shootin' and shreddin' remain popular and the upcoming Vivendi merger stays on track, we don't expect to put "bankrupt" and "Activision" in the same sentence for a very long time. Well, not unless one those words is preceded by "creatively."

Just four short months after a faulty version of Guitar Hero III was released on Wii, Activision will be ready to start shipping out replacement copies in February. Though Wii owners will have been toiling with mono sound until that point, they'll finally be able to experience the bone-crunching intensity of two separate channels of audio slamming into them at whatever volume level their moms have deemed acceptable.

The happy news was apparently related to customers in an email Activision recently sent out to affected customers, in which it said it "expected" to have new discs ready next month. If you still haven't readied yourself for the stereo onslaught, you can still register for your own replacement copy of the game right here.

It's been nearly a month since the last infusion of DLC came to Guitar Hero III, and if we weren't getting regular, reasonably priced updates to a game that also lets you sing and play drums, we would be totally curious about what was up. Today though, Shacknews reported what they believe to be three new songs coming to the game: Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero," Journey's "Any Way You Want It" and Boston's "Peace of Mind." All three of the songs were spotted in the game's online leaderboards (though there don't seem to be any sign of them now).

As long-time fans of Guitar Hero, we'd love to see Activision do something big to put their title back on even footing with Rock Band. But three songs, one of which ("Juke Box Hero") is already in Rock Band does not a comeback make. Let's hope these tracks, rocking though they may be, are part of a large offering.

For those of you who own the Wii version of Guitar Hero III and figured out you couldn't hear what the other speaker was saying, Activision is slowly beginning to remedy Guiter Hero Wii's mono sound. There is now a page up on the Activision's support site with information to pre-register for a replacement disc.

The pre-registration is available for North American customers only, and the site claims new discs will be available in "early 2008." If you don't feel like pre-registering at this time, there is also a notification by email option for receiving updates on the situation. Guitar Hero Wii's mono sound should find a nice place in "How'd the heck that happen?" History, right next to Dead Rising's teenie tiny text.

Our exhaustively debated, occasionally pretentious list of the year's top games will be on the way soon, but we wanted to try something a little different to whet your appetite. We polled our wives, girlfriends and boyfriends (all of whom fall somewhere between casual and medium on the hardcore gaming spectrum) and asked them to choose their favorite games of the year.

We opted to be more casual with this list, allowing games that may not have been released in 2007 as long as the significant other in question spent most of their time with them this year. So, it's without further ado that we present the top five:

• 1. Guitar Hero III
• 2. Peggle
• 3. Rock Band
• 4. Super Mario Galaxy
• 5. BioShock

Way to go, everyone! What was interesting as we collected this list was the wide variety of games that were represented, many of which wouldn't even get a mention in most GOTY debates. Now, is that because they haven't played as many games or the more frightening option: Because they've lived a 2007 unpolluted by hype and are unafraid of picking the games that really brought them the most joy? Honestly, we're still not sure.

Check out all the also-rans after the jump.

You may remember drooling over/staring quizzically at a load of new tracks we first reported on earlier this month. We just wanted to drop a line and let you know they'd become available, with "The Warner/Reprise Track Pack" (catchy title, guys) going for 500 points or $6.25 and the "popular European bands" going for 200 points/$2.50 a piece. Though we checked the Xbox Live Marketplace, since this is Thursday, we're assuming they're dropping on PS3 today, too. In case you need a reminder, they are:

The Warner/Reprise Track Pack (master recordings)

• "Pretty Handsome Awkward" by The Used
• "Sleeping Giant" by Mastadon
• "No More Sorrow" by Linkin Park

Single song downloads (courtesy of "popular European bands")

• "So Payaso" by Extremoduro
• "Antisocial" by Trust
• "Ernten Was Wir Säen" by Die Fantastischen Vier

"Free, exclusive rock rendition" of a holiday classic

• "We Three Kings" by Steve Ouimette

We took the cover of "We Three Kings" for a spin this morning, and liked it, even though the acoustic intro was kind a tease, leaving us still wishing for more variety in the lineup. That said, we're happy to report that its worth far exceeds the asking price.

Woo! Good evening, internet! Welcome to the stage the new patch for Guitar Hero III on PS3 and Xbox 360, now, are you ready to rock? They're going to kick it off with "Improved Online Quick Match Results" and "Calibration Screen Improvements, Helping Users With High Lag AV Systems" and then one just for you Playstation 3 users: "The Co-Op Quickplay Mode." Finally, they're going to be closing with their new single: "Various Stability Improvements and Fixes." ... Hey, why doesn't anyone have their lighter out?

... OK, so this patch isn't particularly rock 'n' roll. It doesn't wear a cool leather jacket or hassle nerds or boss around the rest of T-Birds. But it is practical, which is sort of cool too, isn't it? Maybe in a old-but-still-hip-English-professor sort of way? Guys? Where are you going?

Well, perhaps the song selection will make more sense to you than the headline. Still not content with the initial track list in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Activision has revealed the contents of the rock 'n rhythmer's next set of downloadable content (but not the price, so no accusing them of pitching a con-tent just yet). Right, on to the content:

The Warner/Reprise Track Pack (master recordings)

• "Pretty Handsome Awkward" by The Used
• "Sleeping Giant" by Mastadon
• "No More Sorrow" by Linkin Park

Single song downloads (courtesy of "popular European bands")

• "So Payaso" by Extremoduro
• "Antisocial" by Trust
• "Ernten Was Wir Säen" by Die Fantastischen Vier

"Free, exclusive rock rendition" of a holiday classic

• "We Three Kings" by Steve Ouimette

In fitting with tradition, you can expect the Warner/Reprise/Wrist Slasher Special track pack to cost $6.25 when it appears on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network sometime in December. We'll let you know as soon we've confirmed the prices of the individual songs.

Let us explain. ... No, there is too much. Let us sum up. Guitar Hero III controllers don't work with Rock Band on the PS3. Harmonix made a patch to fix the problem, which never appeared. Harmonix released a statement saying that Activision "objected to the release of the compatibility patch," effectively halting it's release from Sony. That brings us up to yesterday when Activision released their own statement that they were (shockingly) blameless, saying "In fact, Harmonix and its parent company MTV Games/Viacom recently declined Activision's offer to reach an agreement that would allow the use of Guitar Hero guitar controllers with Rock Band." So, now it's apparently Harmonix's fault. Great. That's much clearer.

Tell you what. While you multi-billion dollar organizations are arguing like toddlers over a couple of toy guitars, we'll be over here being disgusted. Just tell us when you're done. Seriously, drop the he said/she said crap, do like Tim Gunn and make it work already, please.

You're a rebel. You don't listen intently for thoughtful gift ideas before hitting the mall months ahead of the holiday shopping season. No, you march to your own tune – a tune, which we should add, is more than likely generated by clicking brightly colored plastic buttons on a plastic guitar – and you wait until the last minute to get your gift ideas from a blog, a video game blog, of all places.

Relax, you're amongst peers. Which is why we just had to show you these vinyl guitar straps with that i am 8-bit aesthetic we know you're so crazy about. Yeah, it's really a Christmas present for yourself, but you've been good this year, right? We thought so.

[Thanks, Kevin]

It's pretty clear that the Wii version of Activision's rockstar simulator is the ugly stepsister of the Guitar Hero III family (aside from the PS2 version, but who plays those things anymore) -- it's got no downloadable content, requires friend codes for online play, is sans Grim Ripper, and to top it all off, it only transmits sound monaurally. However, Activision is not neglecting its rockers of the tiny white box, as it has announced that it will be offering remastered game discs early 2008, and will also enable DLC for the system sometime next year.

The new, stereo-enabled discs will be free of charge through Activision, though they haven't announced exactly when they'd be available, or how they would be shipped out. Also, we're not exactly certain how DLC will work on the system (our Wii's system memory is already bogged down by VC gems like Donkey Kong Jr. Math and Urban Champion), but RedOctane is reportedly working feverishly with Nintendo to figure out a method of getting new songs on the Wii. Apparently, trying to wish them onto the system hasn't been working out very well.

Read - Guitar Hero III Wii DLC Expected Next Year
Read - Fix Coming For Wii's Guitar Hero III Mono Problem

[Via 1UP]