May 07, 2009

By By Antony Bruno, Denver

Activision Blizzard is releasing three new music-based games this year: DJ Hero, Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero, and also confirmed the existence of Guitar Hero: Van Halen.

Few details were provided for any of the games. DJ Hero, which was previously confirmed, still doesn't have a full set list in place, but the company has released new details about the controller. It will be a single turntable device with three colored buttons similar to the five fret-buttons featured on Guitar Hero.

Band Hero is positioned as a more family-oriented version of Guitar Hero, focusing on top 40 hits. Guitar Hero 5 is expected to be similar to all previous installments, but with the ability to "drop in and out of songs and change band members, instruments and difficulty levels on the fly."

The company confirmed the development of Guitar Hero: Van Halen to videogame blog Joystiq. It is scheduled for release in the second half of the year. No specific tracks were listed, but Activision said it will include music from guest bands like Queen, Weezer, blink-182, The Offspring, Queens of the Stone Age and others.

It's also not clear which band members will appear as avatars within the game.

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