heroes

What's the best way to get the word out about your upcoming video game? If you're displaying your wares at E3, it's a time-honored tradition to hire a few celebrities to, if not downright endorse it, then at least to stand near your product and mention it a few times.

We saw this at Microsoft's press conference, featuring Paul and Ringo, along with Steven Spielberg and Tony Hawk; and later at Ubisoft's press event, with guest appearances by James Cameron and Pele (yes, the soccer player).

Microsoft's evening press event, featuring The Beatles: Rock Band, plus playable demos of Halo: ODST and Left 4 Dead 2, continued the celebrity theme. We got a chance to play "Back in the USSR" and "Taxman," but the real excitement started when we left the stage and were replaced by the unlikely combo of Dhani Harrison and Christopher "McLovin" Mintz-Plasse. … Read more

Rock Band has gone portable, kind of: MTV Games, Harmonix and EA have officially shipped Rock Band Unplugged to stores, meaning you'll finally have a new UMD game for your dust-gathering PSP. Although the game won't go on sale until June 9, we thought we'd give you an idea of what to look forward to just in case you find someplace putting this on the shelves a little early.

With 41 tracks on disc and a full World Tour mode, the band creation and unlockable wardrobe/swag are everything you remember from the console versions. But what, you may ask, has been done about all those plastic drums, guitars, and whatnot? Does it come with fancy mini-instruments that interface with the PSP?

How can Rock Band be portable?… Read more

The Guitar Hero franchise has traditionally seen flagship installments launch right around Halloween in the U.S., with Guitar Hero III and World Tour coming in about a week before and Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II about a week after. Such will not be the case with Guitar Hero 5, however.

Activision Blizzard has revealed through the game's official Web site that the latest four-piece rhythm game will take to the main stage on September 1, exactly one week before archrival The Beatles: Rock Band strums its opening tune on September 9.

Along with revealing a release date, … Read more

If plastic guitars were 2007 and drums 2008, then the 2009 plastic-peripheral throwdown of choice is definitely the turntable. Whereas Activision showed off their goods in a Twitter leak a few weeks ago, Genius Products waited to spill the reveal of their Numark-designed rig, the Scratch Deck, until the days before E3. It's the centerpiece peripheral for the upcoming Scratch: The Ultimate DJ. First impressions suggest it's more compact than Activision's plasti-turntable, while also bearing greater similarities to the old Konami Beatmania controller.

The Scratch Deck has a spinning, "touch-sensitive" turntable, as well as a … Read more

The closer you can come to feeling like a real rock star in Guitar Hero or Rock Band the better, right? As long as you don't have to deal with the occasional drug overdose or huge bills from angry hotel managers, life is good. Now, two dudes on the Internets bring us slightly closer to living our fantasy.

YouTube user adderd019 posted a video of what is believed to be the world's first light beam gaming guitar. The guys took a gaming guitar, removed the strum bar, and replaced it with a single infrared beam, projected by a … Read more

If you've ever wondered what it would take for Wilson to finally snap, well...it's today. After getting a load of flack for "spoiling" the "Star Trek" movie on last Friday's show, Wilson retaliates. You gotta hear this. We also take a crack at the Guitar Hero reality show, Disneyland noodies, chatting with strangers, and wolf shirts guaranteed to give you magic powers!

After forcing Wilson to bite his tongue re: "Star Trek" spoilers, we talk about Disney laying off employees in charge of screening mid-ride pictures for nudity before they're displayed and sold to the parkgoers. Larger men are particularly excited about this because it means that they can finally let their moobs fly free, but something tells me parents won't appreciate the sneak peek.

We go into detail about why this might be a bad idea, although I had no idea they even employed people for this specific job in the first place. What do you even call that? Nude-person-picture-watcher-outer? Get a real job, Grouch.

Well, well, wellllll--look who decided to join the Konami code party: FACEBOOK. Literally weeks after ESPN used the code for its unicornery, Facebook comes along and does it to its site too, but on a much smaller and more irritating level.

Now, when you enter in the famous code (I shouldn't have to tell you what it is), a couple of cheesy colored orbs pop up on the screen and follow your cursor around like an annoying little mutt. Granted, I don't know how they could have topped UNICORNS and RAINBOWS, but they could've at least tried.

Here's where it gets ugly. Calls From the Public today is sponsored by Wilson freaking out on everyone for getting mad at him about spoiling a certain cameo...actually two. We got several voicemails and countless e-mails about our Tang-a-lang, but when we give Wilson a chance to apologize to our beloved fans, he lashes out and says a few things that might rile you all up.

Now we all know that Wilson gets a lot of hate on the show, but it was a joke! That said, listen to today's show and let us know what you think. Leave us a voicemail at 1-866-404CNET or e-mail us at the404[at]CNET{dot}com!

If friends and family don't make up a big enough audience for your at-home rock concerts, rumor has it you may get to parade your Guitar Hero skills before all of America one day. Asked about the future of the wildly popular Hero franchise, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick told the Hollywood Reporter "it might make for a good TV show or a good concert tour."

We don't know exactly what a Guitar Hero reality TV show would look like, but if it sticks to the standard reality format, it will probably be full of backstabbing, … Read more

The 404 crew goes to see the new "Star Trek" film by director J.J. Abrams. It's a reboot of the venerable Star Trek television series that most geeks grew up watching. Our good buddy and Photoshop contest winner Jacky W. Chen came with us, along with Edouard, our new bouncer.

We try to keep the show spoiler-free today, but in case you didn't know from the movie poster, Tyler Perry is in the movie. Overall, we think it's a great, fun film, but there are some deep plot holes you could fly the Enterprise through. Check out our video wrap-up from the opening here in New York on CNET TV.

On today's show, we find out the origins of the name Twitter. Apparently, its etymology is whale-based. The Natural History Museum Whale also follows us today. In more crazy news from the Web, "DJ Hero" comes out soon to ensure that the next generation of children will not know how to play a single real musical instrument.

In more video game news, Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier is rated T for teen, but on the box, it contains "alcohol references, fantasy violence, mild language, partial nudity, and suggestive themes." We wonder what you have to do to get a M-rating now. Finally, if you're still living your mother's basement and playing World of Warcraft, we've got a gadget for you that will ensure that you will never get a girlfriend. It is a hut that will let players isolate themselves from the outside world, feed them, and possibly even wipe their butts. We're not sure if the last one is really a feature, but it's definitely in the same vein.

Keep calling into the show at 1-866-404-CNET (2638). We love your voice mails. Next week, we've got Molly Wood joining us on the show along with the equally lovely @LizMoney from the Gadget411 and Anna David!

Forget new consoles: if game publishers got their wish, we'd stick with the system we have and just buy endless peripherals. Activision's latest announcement in its ever-growing Hero series is DJ Hero, a new game focusing on the joys of being a turntable-spinning club god.

While the idea could be pretty fun--in fact, Konami already semi-explored it in Beatmania--the new turntable accessory, while pretty, is yet another plastic device to tuck under the television and get dusty.

Activision claims that a big part of DJ Hero is the live remixing of popular songs across genres, as would … Read more