Activision invited us out to the House of Blues last week, which was a fitting place to give us a first look at Guitar Hero: World Tour in action. Though we didn't get to play it, we did watch the folks from RedOctane take a spin through all the new features. Suffice it to say, this isn't simply Guitar Hero: Rock Band ... which is what we thought it might turn out to be. Read on after the break to find out why you'll soon have a closet filled with enough peripherals to make your own one-man band.

Here's some news that's sure to strike a sour chord with the legions of Guitar Hero III owners worldwide. We've confirmed with Activision that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith will not allow users to access content for GH3.

It will also be impossible for those who've purchased only Guitar Hero: Aerosmith to access and download tracks currently available for GH3. For those with both games: prepare for disc-swapping. The carry-over of DLC into Guitar Hero: Aerosmith seemed like a real no-brainer; hopefully Neversoft will take Guitar Hero fans' previous purchases into account while nailing down Guitar Hero World Tour and Guitar Hero: Metallica's feature sets.

It's Guitar Hero III ... now with lots more Aerosmith! Seriously though, at Activision's hands-on debut event for the stepping stone to Guitar Hero World Tour, we couldn't help but feel a strong overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

That's probably because, for all intents and purposes, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is GH3 with polygonal likenesses of the legendary rockers, a story mode that follows their rise to fame, lots of their songs, and a few tracks from other bands to sweeten the deal.

You've heard about the game. You've seen the crazy "Guitar Grip" peripheral. You've wondered: "Can the DS really pull off a proper Guitar Hero?" Last night we sat down, strapped a DS to one hand, and held a special pick-shaped stylus in the other to answer that question for you ... and ourselves.

Surrounded by a gaggle of other gamers having their first go on the game, we heard shouts of "Rock on!" and "Star Power!," cementing in our minds that this was going to be an even more atypical Guitar Hero experience than we had imagined. Fortunately, it was a lot like the Guitar Hero experience we've grown to love over various console incarnations, too.

Well, not as realistic as, you know, actual drums, but apparently the next Guitar Hero will be setting some sort of benchmark in the battle of the fake bands. Judging by the above debut trailer for "Guitar Hero World Tour," the new peripherals are convincing enough to lure hundreds of people into a poorly lit grotto and subject them to a cacophony of plastic instrument flailing. It's out this Fall.

Each week Jeff Engel and Geoff Brooks contribute Counting Rupees, a column on the business behind gaming:

When Guitar Hero 3 launched last year it was an immediate success, selling out at a fairly quick pace throughout the holiday season. Following just behind it was Rock Band, selling very well, but not nearly as quickly as Guitar Hero. So far, all versions of Guitar Hero III have sold about 9.1M copies, versus just roughly 1.5M for Rock Band. Of course, part of the discrepancy lies in the fact that Rock Band launched on two platforms while Guitar Hero 3 launched on four, but that is about to be remedied with Harmonix's recent announcement of Rock Band for Wii. While Rock Band was a more ambitious game and representative of an evolution of the music game, it did seem like Activision may have made the right choice in buying the Guitar Hero publisher (and thus the Guitar Hero brand), but not the developer. With so much brand awareness already built into Guitar Hero, was there any way that Harmonix could possibly top the original creation that it no longer owned the rights to?

If the price is the only thing holding you back from Rock Band, then you might want to swing buy your local Target sometime this week. Starting today, Target's offering the PS3 and 360 versions of the special edition bundle for $149 USD, $20 off the normal price.

The offer's only good from the 17th to the 23rd, and sadly doesn't apply to the PS2 version. Despite those setbacks, it's still the cheapest we've seen the Rock Band bundle thus far. If you've already purchased the game, maybe this is a sign to buy it for a friend (or your favorite blogger who might have a birthday coming up...)

[Thanks, Jon B]

Have no friends? No self-respect? No foot fungus? Then the below video of an unorthodox method for playing two Guitar Hero parts at once might just be for you!

When tipster Rob first sent us this extraordinary video, we thought it was somewhat unique. Apparently, though, playing Guitar Hero with your feet became a minor internet trend while we weren't looking. Some wimp out by only doing a solo part, or using their hands for one of the parts. Some use their feet out of necessity, others out of camaraderie. Some take it seriously and some just ham it up. But all of them use their feet for a game that ostensibly requires hands.

One other thing seems constant too... they all pretty much suck. Unsurprisingly, hitting those fret buttons with your stinky toes makes it nearly impossible to play on anything past Easy difficulty ... and even then it's no bed of roses. Think you can prove us wrong? Send us your video of Expert-level, foot-controlled Guitar Hero and we guarantee you a spot of internet semi-fame on this very page. To those about to rock with their feet ... we salute you.

[Thanks Dan]

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.

You know it's a bad sign when the trailer for a game only uses six seconds of gameplay footage. To be fair, what did you expect? When we first heard the idea of Guitar Hero on a cell phone, we scoffed so hard that we needed to sit down. You may feel just like Hendrix as you shred on your touch-tone pad, but something tells us if we saw anyone actually playing this in public, it would look like they were trying to disarm a tiny cellular bomb.

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]

Just as it should be, Guitar Hero's genesis began not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a guitar. Inspired by the popularity of the Guitar Freaks franchise in Japan, peripheral manufacturer RedOctane approached developer Harmonix with one question: if we make an awesome guitar, will you make an awesome game for it?

With that, Guitar Hero was born, and it was good. Gamasutra has posted an excerpted interview with Guitar Hero's lead designer Rob Kay, from Iain Simmons' new book, Inside Game Design. The interview discusses how Guitar Hero evolved from a pretense to manufacture guitar controllers to one of the greatest games of all time.

Simmons' book contains the rest of the interview, as well as development sketches, profiles and interviews with other industry giants like Valve, Bizarre Creations, and Keita Takahashi. Sounds like a great holiday gift for that special gamer in your life.

And as Atreyu mourned the loss of Artax, the great Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter emerged from the Swamps of Sadness to dispense some relatively happy predictions for Activision stock holders. Pachter believes Guitar Hero will sell 7.5 million units this year and will begin to see declining sales next year due to Rock Band competition. He guesstimates the Guitar Hero franchise will generate $550 million for Activision this fiscal year.

Pachter expects decent revenues from Spider-Man and Shrek sequels for Activision's fiscal year '09 and sees their new James Bond game generating between $100 -150 million in sales. But Guitar Hero is Activision's great source of revenue and imperative in keeping them in the #1 US publisher spot.

What I like about you, is you really know how to sue. The Romantics are suing Activision, Harmonix, and Red Octane over their song "What I like About You" in Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the '80s because -- and try not to laugh -- the cover of their song sounds too much like them! The Romantics want to halt the sale of the game (their lawyers use the fancy term "enjoin") and want accounting of all profits from the game, along with unspecified "compensatory and punitive" damages. That's totally tubular dude!

The suit alleges that the cover of their song used in the game is "virtually indistinguishable from the authentic version" and therefore would confuse the consumer. Ironically, if said consumer heard the song on the game and liked it, the version they would 99.9% be purchasing is The Romantics original version -- as cover artist "Wavegroup Sound" probably won't be found in the local HMV or on iTunes. We don't know the real technicalities of an issue such as this, but we're pretty damn sure that all corporations involved in the production of the title made sure to get the license to use it. So, yeah, um, dear rhythm game developers, for fear of getting sued, please make sure all future covers you do for songs are really, really, bad.

Update: Heh, what do you know, Wavegroup's version is on iTunes. Now nobody will buy The Romantics version. Doomed, they're doomed we says. Mwahahahaha.

[Thanks, Qkthr]