Guitar Hero III demo: Download. Burn. Insert. Play.

by Dustin Burg { Oct 18th 2007 at 3:45PM }

Tony Hawk's Proving Ground released to retail this week and, as promised, it features an exclusive Guitar Hero III demo inside. But now we're hearing about a new, hacker'ish way to gain access to the precious GHIII demo without shelling out the cash for Tony Hawk ... simply burn it to a CD.

Over on the Xbox Live the Guide forums, posters are reporting that the GHIII demo has been leaked online and can be downloaded off a popular fileshare website, be burnt to a CD or DVD and played on any Xbox 360. We've already heard of people being successful in their GHIII demo stealing ventures, but others are reporting problems with their 360s reading the burnt media. From what we know, those who are claiming burnt GHIII demo success have downloaded the demo's ISO file, burned it to a CD or DVD, and tada! Instant GHIII demo launched through the Xbox 360 games blade. We guess if there's a will, l33t Guitar Hero fanboys and the internet, then there will always be a way.

[Via Digg]

Tags: activision, ghiii, guitar-hero-iii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Jason D. @ Oct 18th 2007 3:50PM

Or you can get OXM. It is on the latest demo disc.

Tony @ Oct 18th 2007 3:53PM

I doubt many people want to spend $10 to access a demo, though.

xenocidic @ Oct 18th 2007 3:54PM

@2 what about the quality journalism? /duck

murph @ Oct 18th 2007 4:03PM

oh hot fire. someone please confirm and this will be the first thing i do when i get home tonight. Halo-what? Master-who? Axel Steel FTW!!

Sean @ Oct 18th 2007 4:06PM

Interesting. I wonder how long it will take for modders to figure out how the 360 allows this, and implement it into special ISO-releases.

Modeps @ Oct 18th 2007 4:06PM

this is pretty cool... I'll have to locate this demo because I sure as hell am not paying for yet another rehash of THPS or $10 for OXM.

Syko360 @ Oct 18th 2007 4:06PM

You access it through the games blade in the demos and more section. After burning the iso to a CD-R or a DVD-R you insert the disc and it reads as a "Mixed media disc" GH3 is in the demos list. If you try to launch it from the game tray directly it won't work. Pretty simple and a good way to get your GH fix until it comes out on the 28th. This worked for me no problem, been playing it for a couple of days. I thought the chaps over at Neogaf were blowin smoke about burning demos but it turns out it works! Pretty sweet game too, "The Metal" is hard as hell on Expert. Damn Triples!!

Paul @ Oct 18th 2007 4:07PM

so has anyone tried this yet? i am downloading the ISO file right now. i am going to use a CD-R to burn onto using Sonic RecordNow!...

Syko360 @ Oct 18th 2007 4:08PM

Also BTW, It is a timed demo so after playing about 4-5 songs it will time out after you finish the song. Kind of annoying but still well worth it. Love Even Flow too =)

failedminus @ Oct 18th 2007 4:15PM

where can you download it from?

Tiggle @ Oct 18th 2007 4:18PM

the question isn't where but rather how? I can't figure it out for the life of me... do I need a special download app?

james frazer @ Oct 18th 2007 4:19PM

XD @ 3

Won't MS start throwing the ban hammer around when people start playing the demo though? Or can they not tell?

Syko360 @ Oct 18th 2007 4:21PM

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5OX44D2U

Then enter the three letters at the top right(Next to where it says Megaupload) and it will start downloading in about 1-2 min.

If this isn't allowed...Sorry in advance =/

Boff @ Oct 18th 2007 4:24PM

Happy days!! Downloading now....

Thanks for the tip!

Rory D @ Oct 18th 2007 4:34PM

Is this considered theft and is it illegal? I would like to download it to try it out but I need to keep my nose clean legally.

Helloimbob @ Oct 18th 2007 4:34PM

Downloading now... If only it would go faster! 300k/s still isn't good enough!

Must. Get. Guitar Hero. DEMO!

Rob @ Oct 18th 2007 4:36PM

I can confirm it works, played it a bit yesterday and today. Good demo, it put to rest any worries I had about the game switching developers, it feels completely like Guitar Hero.

First I burned the iso to a CD-R, and while it works, it took _forever_ to load. A DVD-R was much, much faster.

pfoleen @ Oct 18th 2007 4:39PM

or you could wait till it's up for free on Live next wednesday

pragmatick @ Oct 18th 2007 4:48PM

Wooooh! Now I just need a controller...

Macroy @ Oct 18th 2007 4:52PM

#5: My thoughts exactly.

Peter @ Oct 18th 2007 4:56PM

Can someone upload it to a faster site? I don't want to wait 40 minutes @ 203kb/s when i can get a max transfer rate of 3.2mb/s. Thanks.

Don Wilson @ Oct 18th 2007 4:56PM

And now for a fun game for this to happen to...

James @ Oct 18th 2007 5:03PM

Is GH at all fun to play without the guitar controller? I wouldn't figure it would be, but I don't want to shell out close to a hundred bucks for what I consider to be a simple party game -- don't get me wrong, I know there's depth there, but I just don't have the time or inclination to "master" the game. It's fun to play a song or two on easy/normal difficulty, but the insane levels where you have to memorize every note to have a prayer of succeeding just seem stupid to me.

Tony @ Oct 18th 2007 5:09PM

It's worth the time like playing DDR or Samba de Amigo is with a controller... which is to say, extraordinarily little. I wouldn't bother in that case. Maybe a rental.

Also I made a comment, but it hasn't shown up for some reason. I think the character design shown here is mostly just horrendous. The lead male singer is one of the most horrible things I've seen in a game in quite some time.

SpaceGhostFlyer @ Oct 18th 2007 5:24PM

Any idea if this could possibly get you banned..?

Sunny @ Oct 18th 2007 5:33PM

Of course it works. MS made a point of this working before the 360 even launched. People were going to be able to get demos and the backwards compatibility updates from friends burnt onto a cd-r if they didn't have internet.

failedminus @ Oct 18th 2007 5:53PM

how do you make it run in the dashboard?

mark @ Oct 18th 2007 6:09PM

#5
that's what i was thinking ;D

ALSO, if you're worried about the ban hammer, why not just unplug your 360 while you play the demo?

Gavilan1010 @ Oct 18th 2007 7:29PM

Torrent...

http://btjunkie.org/torrent/Guitar-Hero-3-Demo-XBOX360/377685f1d4364752bea4ddbe90441300d74e3ede316a/download.torrent

I just got banned from teamxbox for posting it...

Paul @ Oct 18th 2007 7:41PM

so i downloaded it and burned it onto a disc using Sonic RecordNow and when i put it in my 360 it read mixed media disc like it should. however when i go to the demos it is not showing up. perhaps i didn't burn the disc right. i just chose to add files to the disc and then burned the cd. anyone who knows let me know please

DeadPlasmaCell @ Oct 18th 2007 7:43PM

Worked perfect for me. I burned it to a DVD using Nero and just burned the ISO straight ot the DVD. Popped it in the 360 went to demos and it showed up. Excellent!

Mutated Waffle @ Oct 18th 2007 7:48PM

@30

Use ImgBurn (find it yourself. it's freeware) set to 4x burn speed on a Sony DVD+R. RW's most likely won't work.

If you still have a problem, I have no clue.

R0b3rt @ Oct 18th 2007 8:00PM

does a cdrw work ok????

Hsith @ Oct 18th 2007 8:24PM

Megaupload wont work for me :(
Anyone knows or can upload to another site? like rapidshare.

Mutated Waffle @ Oct 18th 2007 8:33PM

@33

I'll go out on a limb and say no, it won't. Apparently, CDs load the game slowly anyway. Just try a DVD.

Nick Forti @ Oct 18th 2007 8:37PM

hey how come the disk burns(DVD-R) and it doesnt show up under demos ??? it says mixed media or whatever like its supposed too

im very frustrated

Paul @ Oct 18th 2007 8:38PM

ok i am using dynex cd-r's to burn on. i am assuming they are okay to use as it is all i have.....

Ryan @ Oct 18th 2007 8:57PM

I tried this on a CDR using windows vista to burn the disc at 24x - no luck.

However, I did find success burning the file onto a CDR using a program called imageburn at 4x speed - anyone know how to get the secret songs?

ncsu1 @ Oct 18th 2007 10:08PM

CD's didn't really slow it down that much for me

No more than 60 seconds first run.. after that its fine

Paul @ Oct 18th 2007 10:29PM

just to update you guys, i got it to work using imgburn and i had to change the burn speed to 4x. i used a cheap brand (dynex) of cd-r which worked fine. thanks for all the help.

Paul @ Oct 18th 2007 10:40PM

@ Ryan
what secret songs are u talking about? i want to get them as i have already beaten the 5 songs on hard....

rockeranimefreak @ Oct 18th 2007 11:20PM

haha this is awesome! :) i can't play it very well because i dont have the right controller! :) maybe we can get homebrew this way?

Jarred @ Oct 18th 2007 11:49PM

I burned the .iso using imgburn and my 360 recognizes the demo, but when I launch the game I get a "failure to update" error (or something like that). Do I have to be on Live for this to work?

King @ Oct 19th 2007 12:00AM

Are you guys sure this is legal, and i wont get banned any time soon by this?

drdre74 @ Oct 19th 2007 12:03AM

cool got it to work just now. I'm on a mac so i used toast to make a ISO disc and bam it worked.

gonzo @ Oct 19th 2007 11:30AM

get IMGBURN burn an ISO not just plopping the files and burning to CD/DVD

works for me but I guess it's a timed demo okay game, kinda turned me off of one of the more anticipated games forht e360 though. It's more of the same things, just with newer songs that they could have given as DL content.

this is turning ugly