Coming soon from Activision: Puerto Rican Mandolin Hero

Activision Blizzard!

Just like Activision buying Blizzard, it'll be twice as good as before!

^exactly, demon_ix, which is why

Kotaku was even notified about the O'Reilly video by a viral marketing group that drew parallels between this video and the one for Guitar Hero World Tour featuring Heidi Klum, and also aired on O'Reilly's show.

Did O'Reilly knowingly run a viral ad at the behest of Activision? Has the "culture warrior" and America's "moral barometer" become the conservative mainstream face of Guitar Hero or does he just like to watch naked or nearly naked women prance around on his show?

That's not completely true. You could definitely argue that gaming, and spending on home entertainment as opposed to going on holidays or spending more lavishly in some ways acts as an inferior good, or probably more accurately is just more income inelastic. Despite that, game publishers particular the major players EA, Activision/Blizzard and THQ, all still suffered losses last year and in several cases cut projects and closed development houses.

Since gaming as a whole has a culture and tenacious following attached to it, and especially since you could say it's seen as a cheaper form of entertainmnent, of course it would have suffered less than general consumer products. Not to mention video game sales as a whole have been growing at an escalating rate in the past few years, doubling in volume to some $50bn worldwide since 2004, so any dampening effect from the depression would have only had the effect of slowing the pace of growth.

As for predictable sequels I definitely agree the escalating costs of game development has funnelled production into a bunch of sure-fire derivative sequels. Video games though being a technology oriented industry after all though means you can't sit on your hands. Look at how badly EA suffered for example because it almost completely neglected the Wii and chose to focus on traditional AAA titles for the PS3/X360.

Guitar Hero 3 and World Tour are Guitar Hero in name only, the original developers of Guitar Hero 1 and 2 (Harmonix) are responsible for the Rock Band games (which is why Guitar Hero is catching up).

Technically the games are roughly equivalent. Unless you plan on buying both, your choice should be based on which group you want curating your music gaming experience: Mega-publisher Activision (they have the money for big names and exclusives), or the Genre originators Harmonix (good musical taste, surprisingly enjoyable singles from independent bands made up of Harmonix employees, warm fuzzy's for supporting the OG's). Take a look at what tracks are already available as downloadable content (DLC) for both games.

^then you should know that Many servers actually keep track of your level ups and upgrades these days.

And actually that's starting to become a problem, because someone with the rank of general (flak jacket, life regeneration, steady shots, use of adrenaline etc) is so much stronger than a first time newbie joining the server that most servers have an XP reset limit, where once you reach a certain number, you start back from 0.

p.s. Activision loved to break development teams up and move them around and assign them to a new project. Some developers of CoD are originals from RTCW. And luck would have it that they probably would have been involved in more than 5 different development teams during the reigns of old Activision days.

If anyone from Ubisoft, Steam, EA, Activision, Sony, etc. sees this, I think we can expect it to release as a major game title by next Christmas.

Tim Schafer + Rock n' Roll = win. Everything he's ever worked on has been amazing. Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Psychonauts...

Plus! The main character is voiced over by Jack Black; as well as Lemmy, Rob Halford and fucking Dio having rolls in the game. Hopefully It doesn't get cut with the Activision Blizzard merger... None of Schafers projects should ever get cut -- ever!

Looks like Activision is making another money grab. This game is being developed by Treyarch (CoD 3), not Infinity Ward (CoD 1, 2, and 4).

this is from the contest Activision are doing, to get "yourself" into te next game LOL

But I have to *beg because, this is amusing

Because Atari wouldn't treat their employees with a little respect, they earned themselves a competitor: Activision.

Activision created Pitfall and Atari's pitfall was Activision.

Not just the top, but those pants, these wideband homoriffic transmissions should be cleared with the FCC. Also the sheer eighties sensation is very strong in this one. I believe I need to play a game of Activision Pitfall now.

1972 Pong (Atari, Arcade)
1980 Space Invaders (Atari, Atari 2600)
1980 Defender (Williams, Arcade)
1980 Adventure (Atari, Atari 2600)
1981 Pac-Man (Namco, Arcade)
1981 Ultima (California Pacific, Apple II)
1981 Frogger (Konami, Atari 2600)
1982 Pitfall (Atari, Atari 2600)
1983 Centipede (Atari, Atari 2600)
1983 Pole Position (Atari, Atari 2600)
1983 Microsoft Flight Simulator (Microsoft, PC)
1984 Donkey Kong (Nintendo, NES)
1984 King's Quest (Sierra, PC)
1985 Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo, NES)
1985 Duck Hunt (Nintendo, NES)
1986 Bubble Bobble (Taito, Arcade)
1986 The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo, NES)
1986 Space Quest (Sierra, PC)
1986 Metroid (Nintendo, NES)
1987 Leisure Suit Larry (Sierra, PC)
1987 Final Fantasy (Nintendo, NES)
1987 Afterburner (Sega, Arcade)
1987 Castlevania (Konami, NES)
1987 Maniac Mansion (LucasArts, PC)
1987 Mega Man (Capcom, NES)
1988 Double Dragon (Tradewest, NES)
1988 Battle Chess (Interplay, PC)
1989 Prince of Persia (Broderbund, PC)
1989 Tetris (Nintendo, Nintendo Gameboy)
1989 SimCity (Maxis, PC)
1989 Golden Axe (Sega, Arcade)
1990 Commander Keen (ID Software, PC)
1990 Secret of Monkey Island (LucasArts, PC)
1991 Civilization (Microprose, PC)
1991 Micro Machines (NES, Codemasters)
1991 Lemmings (Psygnosis, PC)
1991 Out of this World (Delphine Software, PC)
1991 Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega, Sega Genesis)
1991 Zelda: A Link to the Past (Nintendo, SNES)
1992 Sensible Soccer (Sensible Software, PC)
1992 Dune II (Westwood Studios, PC)
1992 Wolfenstein 3D (ID Software, PC)
1992 Flashback (Delphine Software, PC)
1992 Indiana Jones & the Fate of Atlantis (LucasArts, PC)
1992 Super Mario Kart (Nintendo, SNES)
1992 Alone in the Dark (Infogrames, PC)
1992 Street Fighter II (Capcom, SNES)
1992 Mortal Kombat (Midway, Sega Genesis)
1992 Minesweeper (Windows Desktop Game)
1993 Sam & Max Hit the Road (LucasArts, PC)
1993 Doom (ID Software, PC)
1993 Myst (Broderbund, PC)
1993 FIFA Soccer '94 (Electronic Arts, Sega Genesis)
1993 SimCity 2000 (Maxis, PC)
1994 The Settlers (Blue Byte Software, PC)
1994 Earthworm Jim (Shiny Entertainment, Sega Genesis)
1994 Need for Speed (Electronic Arts, 3DO)
1994 Donkey Kong Country (Nintendo, SNES)
1994 Worms (Ocean, PC)
1995 Command & Conquer (Westwood Studios, PC)
1995 Rayman (Ubisoft, Atari Jaguar)
1995 Daytona USA (Sega, Sega Saturn)
1995 Virtua Fighter (Sega, Sega Saturn)
1995 Ridge Racer (Namco, Playstation)
1995 Tekken (Namco, Sony Playstation)
1996 Tomb Raider (Eidos Interactive, Sony Playstation)
1996 Quake (ID Software, PC)
1996 Super Mario 64 (Nintendo, Nintendo 64)
1996 Resident Evil (Capcom, Playstation)
1996 Dead or Alive (Tecmo, Arcade)
1997 Ultima Online (Origin, PC)
1997 Age of Empires (Microsoft, PC)
1998 Unreal (Epic Games, PC)
1998 Half-Life (Sierra, PC)
1998 Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo, Nintendo Gamecube)
2000 The Sims (Maxis, PC)
2000 Crazy Taxi (Sega, Sega Dreamcast)
2001 Halo (Bungie Studios, Xbox)
2001 Grand Theft Auto III (Rockstar Games, Playstation 2)
2002 WarCraft III (Blizzard, PC)
2003 Call of Duty (Activision, PC)
2004 Wario Ware Inc. (Nintendo, Nintendo Gamecube)
2004 Rome Total War (Sega, PC)
2005 World of Warcraft (Blizzard, PC)
2005 God of War (SCEA, Playstation)
2005 Guitar Hero (Red Octane, Playstation 2)
2006 Final Fantasy XII (Square Enix, Playstation 2)
2006 FIFA Soccer '07 (Electronic Arts, Xbox 360)
2007 Gears of War (Microsoft, Xbox 360)
2006 Wii Sports (Nintendo, Nintendo Wii)
2006 Viva Pinata (Microsoft, Xbox 360)
2007 MotorStorm (Sony, Sony Playstation 3)

yeah 1zin1, i was about to make the same post.
that's a GREAT line. rotflmao.

btw, i had some activision cartdriges on my atari, but i don't remember their names.