Sydney, Australia – November 12, 2008 – Living-room legends are now free to jump on stage and rock as Activision Publishing, Inc.’s (Nasdaq: ATVI) Guitar Hero® World Tour, shreds, drums and wails onto retail shelves nationwide. Transforming music gaming by expanding Guitar Hero’s® signature guitar gameplay into a cooperative band experience, Guitar Hero World Tour combines state-of-the-art wireless controllers in new online* and offline gameplay modes and a Music Studio feature that lets you compose, record, edit and share your own rock and roll anthems. Guitar Hero World Tour is the most complete music game to-date with 86 on-disc tracks from music legends such as The Eagles, Van Halen, Metallica, Michael Jackson and The Doors and featuring in-game appearances by world famous artists like Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Corgan and Travis Barker.
“Only Guitar Hero World Tour has the star power and brand recognition to bring family and friends together to rock this spring,” said Dusty Welch, Head of Publishing for RedOctane. “With a massive on-disc set list and a host of downloadable content on the way, new high-quality controllers, including the drum kit controller and a redesigned guitar controller; multiple online and offline gameplay modes, plus the groundbreaking Music Studio music creator and GHTunesSM, a revolutionary user-generated music hub, Guitar Hero has again set the standard in the music-based videogame genre.”
Guitar Hero World Tour delivers more ways to play than ever before. Virtual musicians can live out their rock and roll fantasies by playing either a single instrument, or any combination of instruments within the game, in addition to the full band experience. In addition to all of the online gameplay modes from Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock, Guitar Hero World Tour introduces Battle of the Bands mode which allows eight players to join online and challenge each other band-to-band to determine who is the best of the best. In the Band modes, up to four players can jam together, online or off, as they progress through the game, and in single-player Career Mode, players can jam on any of the instruments in-game utilising the controllers in branching venue progression enabling them to rock out in the order of their choice.
The game’s innovative new Music Studio lets players express their musical creativity by giving them access to a full complement of tools to create digital music from scratch, utilising all of the controllers, and then play their compositions in the game. Music creators can also share their recordings with their friends online through GHTunesSM where other gamers can download their unique compositions and play an endless supply of unique creations.
The Wii™ version of Guitar Hero World Tour features the exclusive Mii™ Freestyle mode, an intuitive gameplay mechanic that connects players to music in a whole new way by incorporating their Mii and engaging players with the freedom to create their own groove.
In addition to a newly designed more responsive guitar controller which features a touch-sensitive slide on the neck and microphone, Guitar Hero World Tour delivers a genuine drumming experience by utilising a realistic drum controller. Featuring three drum pads, two raised cymbal pads and a bass kick pedal, the drum kit controller combines larger and quieter, velocity-sensitive drum heads with soft rubber construction to deliver that certain bounce back when struck with a drum stick that drummers are used to and is easy to set up, move, break down and store.
Guitar Hero World Tour is now available for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system. The Wii™ home video game system from Nintendo version is developed by Vicarious Visions. The PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system version is developed by Budcat. The game is rated “PG” (Mild themes and Violence, Sexual references and mild coarse language) by the Classification Board. For more information on Guitar Hero World Tour, please visit worldtour.guitarhero.com.