So the results are in- Guitar Hero II won two awards at the Interactive Achievement Awards at DICE this year. What did we win? Well the first one is a no-brainer - Best Soundtrack. The second one was kind of a surprise but equally awesome- Best Family Game. As was mentioned internally today Harmonix put out the family game of the year and managed to sneak some Anthrax and Lamb of God into it. Just when it seems like it can’t possibly get any more awesome over here it gets more awesome!

We finally got around to posting Kasson’s answers for the questions you had for him. It is an extremely in-depth portrait of the Harmonix mad scientist that all you elder Freqs will find fascinating. Hit the jump for the full interview -

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Awesome news this morning- Guitar Hero 2 is nominated in four categories for the 1oth Annual Interactive Achievement Awards! We were nominated for

-Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack
-Family Game of the Year
-Console Game of the Year
-Overall Game of the Year

The winners will be announced on February 8th at the DICE Summit. Keep your fingers crossed. These are awesome awards to win, as you are nominated by your peers.

Last night we were featured on the 10 o’clock news on Fox. Watch and learn about the dangers of playing Guitar Hero and Producer Daniel Sussman advises “moderation in all things.”

This past summer Sean and I had an intern working with us. His name was Will, but we called him Biller. He was our cute little tech art intern. See…isn’t he cute? Anyway, he did a bunch of excellent work for us over the summer and before he left I asked him to do a little write-up about his time here. Kind of like one of those things you’d write on the first day of school after summer vacation. “My summer at Harmonix” is what I called it. Well, he did, and now I’m presenting it to you. I give you Biller, the boy who couldn’t grow a mustache…

During my last days at Harmonix, I thought that I would reflect fondly on my experience there, about all the new friends I’ve made, and all the things I’ve learned. It didn’t take much of this pondering to come to the conclusion that I hate everybody (except Kendall, even though he tried to fire me), and that my time there has resulted in severe psychological trauma, the treatment for which I expect to be paid in full.
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So we are pretty high up in the rankings for the Gameshadow Innovation in Games Awards! Get us up into the top rankings by voting here. When you vote you are also entered into a contest for a bunch of sweet PC gear.

Make Guitar Hero tops for innovation!

Rock,
Sean

Metacritic has GH2 listed among the top rated PS2 games of all time! There’s links to reviews there as well.

Also, gamerankings.com has collections of reviews. Chekkit!

GH2 Trailer

Also, we’re having a private release party a couple of weeks from now and we’re auctioning off two tickets to the party on ebay, with the proceeds going to a very good music charity. The link for the auction is below…

Ebay GH2 Release Party Auction

Jason: So, big day at Harmonix, huh?
jason: Yeah, I guess you could say that. But not a whole lot has changed. I’m working on the same stuff I was working on yesterday.
Jason: Really? What exactly are you working on?
jason: Wish I could tell you, but it’s top secret.
Jason: It’s still a music game, right?
jason: Music games are definitely our focus right now and for the forseeable future. It’s what we do best.
Jason: Is there anything else you can say about what’s going on there?
jason: Just that we’ve got some exciting stuff in the works and I’m not aware of any plan to change that. To be perfectly honest, I’m pretty psyched about what’s going on around here. Read the rest of this entry »

This week we continue with Harmonix employee’s dreams. What terrors still await? I’ll give you a hint- Seinfeld, Michael Myers, a shopping mall of the dead, and an evil frog of death. Due to the shocking, unbelievably frightening and revealing nature of the following dreams I felt the need to approach this with some backup. Assisting me again this week is Foster, a designer at Harmonix. Once more step into the minds of Harmonix’s best and brightest. If you dare.

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