Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock [X360]

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With E3 literally only minutes away, announcements about big games are starting to hit the 'net. There are few games this year we're more curious about than Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock, and this week there's a big official announcement regarding a legendary guitarist's appearance in the game. Specifically, Slash of Guns N Roses and Velvet Revolver fame will not only be on the box, but you'll play against him in one of the new boss battles. We spoke with Tim Riley, head of worldwide music for Activision, about Slash's involvement, from the new music he wrote and recorded to the ideas he brought to the table during the early stages of development. The only thing Tim couldn't tell us was the degree to which Slash would be involved promoting the game, but we're hoping to be nearby if he hops on stage for a live boss battle.

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Tell us about Slash's involvement, as an overview.

I think it's obvious - when you're sitting around thinking of a boss battle with an iconic, famous guitarist, Slash from Guns N Roses and Velvet Revolver springs to mind relatively quickly. He was always on our short list, even when we started talking about the boss battles as a concept. Reaching out to his management, he was the first person we made a call to. You never know how people are going to be, whether or not they're gamers. But he is. Not only is he into the idea, but he's a big fan of Guitar Hero. I was ready to talk him into it, but didn't have to. He'd made his manager buy Guitar Hero 2 so they could play each other.

Did he have specifics about how he'd be portrayed visually?

Sure. You've seen the game - the style is a caricature. Everyone's a little bit, I don't know if this is the right word, but a little bit cartoonish. So he had to keep with that theme, it couldn't be a model like they'd make for Tony Hawk or something similar. He knew we were going to do that, and he had maybe two small changes he wanted us to make after he saw the first pass at the artwork. He was easy to work with, and I think his expectations were realistic. I think he already knew what we were going to make him look like.

We understand there's a considerable amount of new music from Slash.

With scoring the music, in our initial meetings I don't think we even knew what direction we were going to go with the boss battles. We knew the idea, that you had to battle famous guitarists, but the first time we all sat down no one knew what we were really going to do. But by the time he came in to record we had a better idea, and he'd really prepared. He'd written a couple different solos and a couple other pieces of music he wanted us to listen to. He played them, we showed him the game build we had, and how the boss battles would work, and he took those ideas he had and elaborated on it. We turned it almost into a Crossroads sort of call and response thing. When he saw that part he went a little crazy writing new stuff.

So we've got new riffs to look forward to?

Oh, definitely. He had a bunch of pieces of music, some of which he changed when we got in there, some of which he kept and some of which he added on to or extended. I think for the whole session, he recorded for maybe four hours, getting tones right, reworking pieces.

Will some of the extra music appear in the game outside the context of the boss battles?

That's a good question and we may end up doing some stuff with the other music. I'm not sure what they're going to do with it all at this point.

And he worked as a consultant to some degree, as well?

Yeah, just from a gameplay standpoint. He had ideas about certain bands and venues we should put in and he had serious ideas about the guitar peripheral, the Les Paul. When we met with him the first time we hadn't fully decided on the guitar, and while that was always on the short list, he was adamant about it. That's his signature guitar, and he really wanted the game to use the Les Paul. I got countless inquiries from his management and text messages and emails directly from Slash about it. So that was a big part of his input.