neversoft posts

Just one day after Activision Blizzard admitted to a large financial loss for its last fiscal quarter, the publisher did some quick cost cutting to save some money. Unfortunately it looks like those actions will cost a number of Activision game developers their jobs. Gamasutra reports via unnamed sources that 90 members of Radical Entertainment have been laid off. The developer created the open world action game Prototype which was a solid hit for the publisher in June 2009.

In addition, Neversoft has also reportedly been hit with large layoffs. Two more internal Activision game developers, Luxoflux and Underground Development, reportedly are shutting down entirely. It was founded in 1997 and was bought by Activision in 2002. Various web sites got an official response from Activision after the internet rumors hit but the company did not directly admit to the layoffs saying only that, " . . we are realigning our resources to better reflect our slate and the market opportunities." One wonders why Activision failed to announced these layoffs during their financial conference call on Wednesday.

The Guitar Hero franchise has almost exclusively been a console experience. There have been a couple of exceptions. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, a 2007 port of the console game by Aspyr wasn't a huge sales success. Neither was that game's expansion pack Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Now GameSpot confirms via a GDC demo that Aspyr will try again with a PC version of the latest game in the series, Guitar Hero World Tour.

The PC port is due out in June and will come with the game and one guitar controller. If you want to add the game's drum kit you will have to buy the PS3 version which will work with the PC game (any USB microphone will work). The PC port will contain all of the included songs in the console version as well as World Tour's feature of creating new songs. Being able to download and purchase new songs, however, hasn't been confirmed (although the previous PC Guitar Hero game did not have that feature).

Last year Aspyr Media released a PC and Mac port of Activision's music-rhythm game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock only a few weeks after the console versions from Neversoft and Activision shipped to stores. Today the publisher announced that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, the stand alone add-on that was released to consoles last June, has now shipped to stores for the PC and Mac.

Just in case you are not familiar with the game, Guitar Hero Aerosmith contains over 40 new songs for Guitar Hero III fans, including 25 Aerosmith master tracks along with other artists like Stone Temple Pilots, Run DMC and others. If you haven't bought the original game you don't need it to play this title. However if you want to buy both Aspyr will ship out a bundle containing both games on November 4.

Guitar Hero 3, while not as good as some other entries in the genre, is a solid rhythm-music game with a good song selection. While it may suddenly become impossible around the last set or lag when you perform star power, it still has the necessary Guitar Hero chops to be fun. For those who decided to pick it up on PC, good news! There is a new patch for the game, adding optimization for laptops and a "Front Row" camera to reduce framerate lag. Now all they have to do is make Through The Fire And Flames possible, and the game will officially be for the everyman! You can pick up the patch in our very own downloads section.