James Cunningham

Step right up ladies and gents and see the wondrous new content available on Xbox Live for the amazing, astounding Guitar Hero II! We’ve got three incredible packs available at the low, low price of 500 points. That’s a mere $6.25 in real-world money, and what does your hard-earned cash get you? Three whole songs with all-new bass or rhythm tracks added to each one, specifically with the wonders of multiplayer in mind. Each song was culled from the original Guitar Hero for your hard-rocking enjoyment.

Hucksterism aside, a little math shows that the new downloadable content actually costs more than the songs in the standalone game. That’s right, a game in a huge box with a peripheral is cheaper on a per-song basis than downloadable content. $90 divided by 74 songs is $1.22 each, and while that values the non-licensed tracks equivalently with the fully licensed material, Trogdor and Deathklok alone make averaging it out mathematically logical.

For those who got rid of the original PS2 Guitar Hero in anticipation of downloading the songs from the Live marketplace, this is what you get-

Pack 1: Bark at the Moon, Hey You, Ace of Spades

Pack 2: Killer Queen, Take it Off, Frankenstein

Pack 3: Higher Ground, Infected, Stellar