Tomorrow, RedOctane will be making a formal announcement to offer up some key details about the forthcoming Xbox 360 release of Guitar Hero II. Among them is the confirmation of a March 2007 ship date.

The press release will indicate “over 70 finger-melting tracks,” though a person close to the company told TeamXbox that the game will include 74 on-disc songs—the 64 tunes that made up the PlayStation 2 Guitar Hero II song list, as well as 10 more that are exclusive to the Xbox 360 game. RedOctane’s announcement is expected to reveal five of them (and the artists that made them famous):

* Billion Dollar Babies (Alice Cooper)
* Dead! (My Chemical Romance)
* Hush (Deep Purple)
* Life Wasted (Pearl Jam)
* Rock N Roll Hoochie Koo (Rick Derringer)



TeamXbox was also told that three of the remaining five exclusives are Possum Kingdom (Toadies), Salvation (Rancid) and The Trooper (Iron Maiden), all of which will be part of the main gameplay. The remaining two are currently unannounced, though they will only be unlockable through gameplay. Additionally, Dead! and Possum Kingdom will be “master tracks,” meaning that they’ll be the respective bands’ original recordings, rather than the studio remakes that make up the rest of the tunes in the game.

The other key section of the announcement will revolve around plans for downloadable content through Xbox Live. While RedOctane’s announcement won’t provide details on what will be offered—beyond stating it’ll include “achievement points, download themes, picture packs, and, most importantly, new songs through Xbox Live Marketplace”—TeamXbox was told that the publisher expects to make a batch of songs available on the day that the game hits stores, so players can immediately expand the playable song list. A RedOctane spokesperson stated that he expects the company to announce aspects about the first batch of downloadable tunes some time in February.


(As we indicated in our November Guitar Hero II preview, the rumor is that the first downloadable songs will give Xbox 360 players a chance to catch up on the franchise by offering the song list from the first Guitar Hero game. However, a RedOctane spokesperson said that the contents of the first downloadable offerings haven’t been nailed down yet, so for now it all remains something to speculate on.)

We were assured that, as you’d expect, Guitar Hero II will have a standard offering of achievements through gameplay, which we assume will comprise 1,000 Gamerscore points. Also, the game will include online leaderboards, so players can “track their high scores and share bragging rights with their friends and other top rock gods.” A RedOctane spokesperson said that leaderboards will likely be set up for weekly and monthly stat tracking, though more details will follow in that regard before the game ships.