New Guitar Hero II Companion Games Unveiled

- GameSpot, August 15, 2006 - Boston, MA

In an unexpected press release, it was announced today that in addition to releasing the new videogame “Guitar Hero II” this Fall, Harmonix will release two companion products that it hopes will take its popular franchise to new levels.

“I loved the original Guitar Hero,” Ravi Shankar told us. “I thought it was a very novel idea, but I wasn’t very happy to have beat it on the expert level in just under 2 weeks. I thought, they should ramp up the difficulty on this bad boy with a sitar version. Before I knew it, I was on the phone with Greg over at Harmonix pitching the idea.”

“When Ravi called I actually hung up on him,” said Greg, Vice President of Product Development at Harmonix, “I thought it was IBM support playing a joke on us. When I realized that we don’t use IBM support, I was horrified and called Ravi back immediately. Luckily for us, Ravi was pretty cool about it, and I’m glad he was. Without him, Sitar Hero would be just another idea instead of the signature edition game that will inevitably return the sitar to it’s rightful place in popular music.”

“That’s right. He did hang up on me,” chuckled the 85 year old Shankar, “But he called right back and the project took off. We have been working hard to keep the whole thing quiet, but while hanging out and playing a little Guitar Hero with my buddy Herbie Hancock, I accidentally let the Sitar Hero idea slip. I remember his jaw just hit the floor, and he immediately missed like thirty notes in a row, allowing me to solidly wail him on “Cowboys From Hell.” When he snapped out of it, he wanted to know if I would mind if He called Greg with a similar idea. I told him to go for it.”

“When Ravi told me about Sitar Hero, I lost it, because if there is a forgotten instrument that needs resurrection, it’s the keytar. The sitar has been around for thousands of years, and has had plenty of popularity. The keytar, on the other hand, danced America right through the 80’s, only to get dumped like a pair neon leg warmers as soon as the 90’s rolled around. If I didn’t have to play 15 more rounds of GH with Ravi to prove that I’m the bigger hero, I would’ve called Greg sooner, but I called him as soon as I got home the next morning.”

“You’re not going to believe this, but I actually hung up on not only Ravi, but Herbie, too. I mean it’s not that often that two legends call me in the same week. This time, I thought it was Mike cranking me from the conference room. I actually said, ‘Whatever, Love Bug, call me back after your next tune up,’ and then just hung up. Before I could finish (accidentally) filling Mike’s cube with Styrofoam peanuts (Sorry, Mike!), Herbie called me back. Herbie is one serious dude when it comes to the Keytar and I have learned to respect that. After his rendition of Rockit, I wanted to be a Keytar player myself, and I had to give Keytar Hero a solid green light.”

The company is keeping quiet on the track listings for the games, but they have said that both “Rockit” and “The Final Countdown” will appear on Keytar Hero, while “(Listen To The) Flower People” and “Up, Up and Away in my Beautiful Balloon” will grace Sitar Hero.

To keep the experience uniformly great, Harmonix has stated that the current Gibson guitar controller will not be compatible with the companion games, which will require their own unique controllers. The companion products will be released in the US in November 2006.