Awesome Rock Band

Veteran video game journalist Blake Hester catalogs the rise and fall of Guitar Hero and the music game genre as a whole. The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom is a 352-page hardcover featuring interviews with some of the designers, developers, and founders of Harmonix.

Mario, Fafa and Gorilla load up a copy of Rock Band and attempt the play Iron Maiden’s finger-blistering Run to the Hills. Needless to say, things don’t go quite as planned.

With all the stuff you need to play a game of Rock Band, your living room probably looks more like a record studio than it should. Grab this ottoman, and get all your instruments under control.

In Rock Band 3‘s Pro Mode, players use either the Mad Catz button guitar controller, or the Squier Stratocaster guitar – an actual guitar that doubles as a controller – to play actual notes.

This electric guitar/synth works as a controller for your computer’s music apps, and you can play it stand-alone if you don’t want to connect a PC or Mac. You can even use it to control Rock Band.

Make Rock Band and Guitar Hero sessions more realistic with Omega’s GM-1 System, which hooks up to a real drum set via a MIDI or accessory cable; it also includes 2-3 cymbal triggers.

Yoko Ono takes an avant garde-axe to John Lennon and company with this brilliantly hilarious Rock Band Beatles parody, which envisions freshman Fab Four playing Call of Duty 4.

Tapping on Tap Tap Revenge’s shoulder, Rock Band is now available on the iPhone and iPod Touch: it features single and 4-player (via Bluetooth) modes, 4 instruments and 20 songs.

With a road-worn finish that screams attitude, the Rock Band Wireless Telecaster Player’s Edition guitar also features Shredderz fret buttons, upgraded Strum Bar and Bigsby whammy.

If you’re too lazy to tilt your Rock Band 2 controller to kick things into Overdrive, Electro Harmonix’s Overdrive Pedal lets you toe-tap it out with a foot-activated switch and 10′ cable.