E3: Neversoft Titles, Celebrities Highlight Activision Conference

Activision’s E3 press conference earlier today featured the expected cavalcade of upcoming titles, but surprised media in attendance with a parade of developers and celebrities - including skateboarding icon Tony Hawk and rock and roll musician Saul Hudson, more commonly known as Slash. The event was emceed by comedian Jamie Kennedy (Scream movies), who along with Neversoft’s Brian Bright spoke at length about Tony Hawk Proving Ground, the latest multi-SKU game in the company’s long running skateboarding franchise, due out this Fall. “Proving Ground is about choice,” explained Bright. “Your choice, your story, your game...it really depends on how you want to play through, what types of challenges you like to do, what types of storylines you want to go down.” Helping to illustrate this, Activison brought legendary skateboarding personality Tony Hawk on stage, who also offered praise of the game’s realism, stating “For me it’s the implementation… doing motion capture or skating on video and seeing it played on a game, especially on the new consoles, it looks real.” In addition, one of Activision’s most anticipated titles showcased during the event was Guitar Hero III: Legend of Rock, also due out later this year and in development at Neversoft, which was demonstrated to audience excitement. As part of the presentation, the publisher confirmed that the upcoming rhythm action game will feature former Guns N’ Roses guitarist and current member of Velvet Revolver, Slash as both the composer of the game’s title track as well as an in-game boss character. The musician was also invited on stage to talk about the arrangement, which he said came about after having become addicted to Guitar Hero on a tour bus. “I just fell in love with it, and at some point our merchandiser and my manager had a discussion about some of the interesting things that I might get involved with, and Guitar Hero was one of them,” recalled Slash, who added that at the time the developers were looking at three real world guitarists to include in the game “and I happened to be on that list.” He continued: “One of the things we wanted to do was just write some music, so we actually recorded the theme song [to Guitar Hero III]. I just tried to think of something that would be appropriate for the target, because it’s pretty epic, pretty exciting, it’s loud. Everything that Guitar Hero is.”