Guitar Hero Modern Hits exposed by ESRB

It’s the time of year again when Activision-Blizzard decides to release yet another installment of one of its key franchise. As you probably surmised from the headline, Kotaku has uncovered via the ESRB that the next Guitar Hero installment will be titled Guitar Hero Modern Hits and will be released on the Nintendo DS. No release date was given but we do have an ESRB rating of Everyone 10+. Wait, can they call it “everyone” if people below the age of 10 shouldn’t play it?

Anyway, this will mark the third installment of the portable music-rhythm game in less than a year, if 1UP’s calculations of the first two games (Guitar Hero On Tour and Guitar Hero: On Tour: Decades) releasing less than six months apart is correct. Should Modern Hits follow suit, that would place the release window sometime in April, right before Nintendo launches the Nintendo DSi worldwide. The DSi will be ridding of the GameBoy Advance cartridge slot which the portable Guitar Hero games used as in input for their fret peripheral.

The ESRB listing revealed that “some song lyrics contain references to violence” with a few specific examples (“drop dead a bullet to my head,” “turn the rich into wine,” “we stole and drank champagne” and “if your body matches what your eyes can do”) which lead to 1UP discovering that the track list might (nothing is official yet) include:

• Still Waiting by Sum 41
• The Fallen by Franz Ferdinand
• Paralyzer by Finger Eleven

As for Activision’s exploitation of the portable franchise, they really have no choice but to release quick installments. As of right now, there isn’t a way to provide downloadable content on the Nintendo DS but that will be rectified with the DSi. Except, as I stated above, the DSi will be getting a rid of the fret controller’s input slot. So in the end, Activision will be just trading one problem for another.

Read [Kotaku] Also [ESRB] Also Read [1UP]