Sure, you can kill zombies with your keyboard, but did you know you can kill zombies with your Guitar Hero or Rock Band guitar, too? Behold Rock of the Dead!!

There are mindless beasts that take basic three- or four-strum combos to take out, but then there are ones that’ll lob projectiles at you – these knives/bombs only take a couple of fret flicks to get rid of, but unless you take down the guy that’s throwing them out at you, you’ll just be endlessly downing those objects. When the screen fills with a half-dozen beasts at once, you have the ability to discriminate and target specific ones by “typing” out the combo of the one you want – the game’s smart enough to know which beast you’re “aiming” at because it locks in on the enemy as you’re pushing out its fret button code.

Periodically you’ll have to take down larger enemies in rhythm fashion: this is basic Guitar Hero/Rock Band gameplay as the notes must be played to the beat of the background music to take down the threat.

The game has extra geek cred because it features voicework by Neil Patrick Harris and Felicia Day, too. If you don’t know who those people are, I forgive you.

Unfortunately this game is Wii-only, which means I won’t be able to play it — but it sounds awesome, and I totally support destroying zombies with the power of fake plastic rock!

Imagine the joy of finding a copy of The Beatles: Rock Band or Guitar Hero 5 under your Christmas tree this year. Now imagine what you’d feel like if, instead, you unwrapped a copy of an ultra-chintzy, bottom dollar Guitar Hero knockoff. Behold.

Guitar Superstar

(picture courtesy of the always-excellent Rock Band Aide)

Featuring, according to the box, 12 “hit” songs:

• Santana – “Stormy”
• Motorhead – “Fight”
• Fall Out Boy – “Dance, Dance”
• Alice Cooper – “Billion Dollar Babies”
• System Of A Down – “Forest”
• The Vines – “Get Free”
• Aerosmith – “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing”

There must be multiple versions of this thing, because this one features the song Granite Man. Not Iron Man, mind you, but … Granite Man.

Oh, but wait, there’s more!

Shredmaster Jr.

This one has a similar tracklist, but a totally different gameplay UI.

• Smoke on the Water
• I Love Rock and Roll
• Iron Man
• You Give Love a Bad Name
• Billion Dollar Babies
• Hotel California
• Paradise City
• Smells Like Teen Spirit
• Paranoid
• Master of Puppets

I’m not sure which one is worse. I don’t think there can be a winner when both are so bad. This is gameplay that would have been barely acceptable in the 8-bit NES era, and “songs” that are painful, barely recognizable MIDI deconstructions of the originals.

There’s even a drum superstar, though it’s so profoundly bad I couldn’t find any details on it, or videos of it in action.

Any kids who got these crappy knockoffs for Christmas instead of the real thing, you have my condolences. I’m sorry your parents don’t love you!

With less of a bang than a whimper, tomorrow is the release date for Guitar Hero: Van Halen.

I’ve had this game since the first days it was available as a Guitar Hero 5 pre-order bonus. Although I am kinda-sorta a Van Halen fan, have to admit that it was a bit of a letdown. In all honesty, I had more fun playing Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. There’s something about the Van Halen catalog that just isn’t … deep. It’s just sort of basic rock music. Outside of the Eddie guitar virtuoso wankery (aka Eruption) and the top 5 Van Halen hits you’re probably thinking of, there is no “there” there.

It’s also a shame that this disc doesn’t import at all into Guitar Hero 5, like World Tour, Smash Hits and Band Hero do. Well, partially, anyway.

Guitar Hero: Van Halen is probably worth getting if you’re a massive fan of the band, though it is nowhere near the intimate fan-centric portrait of a band like Guitar Hero: Metallica, much less The Beatles: Rock Band. If you are a genre enthusiast like myself, I can recommend picking it up once it drops to discounted levels. It’s mostly Van Halen, but there are a handful of other interesting songs on there as well — check out the song list and see if anything appeals to you. I expect it to tumble in price quite rapidly.

Even if you have no interest in the game proper, there is a little bonus for all fake plastic rockers — an official Eddie Van Halen “frankenstrat” faceplate!

The frankenstrat is Eddie’s famous guitar, a combination Gibson / Fender with a very distinctive paintjob.

I’m pretty sure the frankenstrat is probably the single most copied faceplate design in the history of fake plastic rock. So having it as an official faceplate design is a good thing. The faceplate is available as a promo bonus from some sites, or also sold directly for $10.

And here’s my own bonus to you — a video from the Legion of Rock Stars covering Van Halen’s Jump.

They’ve done a ton of these covers, which are available here. Bring your earplugs, and a sense of humor …

In all the excitement over Lego Rock Band, I almost forgot about Band Hero, which is also launching soon.

The full 65 song list was recently unveiled along with the fantastic news that all but four of the songs will be exportable to Guitar Hero 5! (Oddly, you can also go in the reverse direction, importing 69 Guitar Hero 5 songs into Band Hero.) It’s hardly the access to the nearly 1,000 song Rock Band 2 DLC library that Lego Rock Band offers, but it’s a start.

Now that’s the kind of importing we wanted! Oh, and on the incredibly rare chance any Activision excutives happen to be reading this blog, I’m still waiting for fuller Smash Hits and World Tour importing in Guitar Hero 5.

Click through to see YouTube videos of any song, if you’re not familiar with it.

While I’m much more partial to the Lego Rock band setlist, I can’t deny that Band Hero has a whopping 20 more tracks, and there are some definite gems in there. It also uses the Guitar Hero 5 engine, which is a massive improvement over the Guitar Hero 4 (World Tour) engine, even the tweaked versions of it that appeared in Smash Hits and Metallica. Playing Guitar Hero 5 does not make me want to cut myself with my plastic instruments in quite the way that Guitar Hero World Tour did, so that’s … a plus.

Band Hero is scheduled for release November 3rd, which just so happens to be the date Amazon is telling me I’ll get Lego Rock Band as well. Coincidence? :)

Remember that Mad Catz full-size Stratocaster guitar controller? I couldn’t resist its siren call. I am now the embarrassedproud owner of my very own sunburst fake Stratocaster.

The first thing you need to know about the Mad Catz Rock Band Wireless Fender Stratocaster Replica is that IT IS ENORMOUS. It is made from an authentic Stratocaster body, so it is truly a 100% full size guitar. Those other guitars you thought were “authentically sized”? Not even close! See for yourself:

That’s the Mad Catz Wireless Fender Stratocaster Replica next to the previously reviewed Logitech Wireless Guitar and the classic GH3 Les Paul guitar controller. (I didn’t show the GH5 / GH4 guitar, but it’d be a bit larger than the Les Paul.)

The Mad Catz Strat isn’t just full size, but full weight, too. It tips the scales at over 7 pounds with strap.

OK, yes, it’s huge and expensive, but it is also a thing of great beauty.

It even comes with a Fender strap (the same one that’s included with the much cheaper Wireless Bass, but who’s counting.)

Everything here is authentic — all metal bits and real knobs throughout. There’s even a connection port for the overdrive pedal (the guitar includes the necessary 1/4″ step-down adapter.)

All the standard Rock Band 2 guitar features are present and accounted for, including the effect switch. The strum is of the clicky variety, with the premium Mad Catz “2.5 million cycle” switches.

Flipping it over to the back, we can see the battery compartment (takes 3 AAs, included) and a back cutout. I was initially a little perturbed by the frankenstein-like patchwork on the back of the guitar, but even a real Strat has a similar (albeit smaller) back cutout, as you can see in this picture.

The headstock, like the body, is from a real Strat guitar, so of course it includes real metal tuning pegs.

The only part of the guitar that’s plastic is the fretboard; the back of the neck is wood, but the front face is plastic. This is a Rock Band guitar, so the buttons (both solo and normal) are of the standard flat Rock Band variety.

If you’re concerned about the strategic use of plastic in the fretboard, don’t be. It looks fantastic, and the faux wood effect with metal detailing is first rate. In fact, one of the things I didn’t like about the Logitech Wireless guitar was the odd (and visually jarring) melding of real wood and plastic in its fretboard. The Mad Catz Strat neatly sidesteps this problem by making the fretboard one seamless length of cleverly detailed plastic. The fret buttons themselves feel identical to those of any official Rock Band 2 guitar, with the same action, stop edges and tiny embossed finger position dots.

OK, so we’ve established that this is a guitar so handsome that it utterly blurs the line between fake plastic guitar and real guitar. But how does it play?

The first thing you need to decide is whether you prefer your fret buttons flat (Rock Band style) or embossed/raised (Guitar Hero style). If you love or hate a particular button style, this guitar, despite its awesomeness, will not change your mind. Yes, the “premium” strum mechanism is a bit stiffer and perhaps a bit clickier than a stock RB2 guitar, but it’s a Rock Band guitar through and through. It plays pretty much identically to any other Rock Band style guitar, except it’s substantially larger and heavier. So how much you like it will depend on how you feel about flat fret buttons.

Beyond that, this guitar is large. Did I mention that it’s large? Yes it is VERY LARGE! And HEAVY! I thought I was a fake plastic guitar tough guy, having played with my own custom weighted guitars, and the 6 pound Logitech Wireless guitar with no problems at all. But after playing my first 10 song set with the Mad Catz Strat, my shoulder was killing me. And that’s with a nice aftermarket guitar strap!

If you want a truly full size guitar, be prepared to pay the price in training in your body and shoulders to handle it. Given the size of the neck, you may also need to stretch to reach the fret buttons a bit more than you’re used to. It’s not a deal-breaker (for me at least), but it does take some time to get used to it. And that goes double if you’re a smaller guitarist!

The only real difficulty I had when playing with the Mad Catz strat is with the whammy bar. I guess this is an artifact of the real guitar component locations, but it’s ridiculously easy to hit the back and start knob with the whammy, and it takes some conscious planning to use the whammy without hitting any knobs. The whammy also hangs down much more freely than I’m used to with my other guitars, so it has to be wrangled a bit in use. Don’t get me wrong, overall the whammy works great, but you will have to adapt your whammy style to this particular guitar.

Is this guitar worth $299? If you absolutely love Rock Band style (flat face button) guitars, and you want an awesome looking and great playing full size axe, then absolutely. Well, assuming you’ve got $299 burning a hole in your pocket!