Guitar Hero Live Launches Rival Challenges

Just like with a real guitar, when you've played Guitar Hero long enough, you start to master the songs. But unlike a real guitar, you're not going to bust out your skills on stage for anyone, because it's still just a game. When you've got friends over, it's always fun to challenge them to a head-to-head match. But what about when you want to have that same kind of fun, but there's no one else around? Well, there's a new mode for that.

Developer FreeStyleGames has announced a new feature for the latest installment of the Guitar Hero franchise. Rival Challenges give you the chance to go head-to-head with a stranger for glory, and XP. When you're playing in the GHTV channels, you'll periodically get matched up with someone of similar skill for a guitar battle.

The battle will be a random song, chosen by the staff at FreeStyleGames, so you'll need to stay on your toes. The battles will occur twice during every half hour show, so there are plenty of opportunities for a challenge. The winner takes home an extra 100 Status XP.

The developer also announced two other nice features for the game. The first is the ability to "favorite" a song, to easily go back and play some of your most-loved tracks. They also announced a daily reward of three free plays, for anyone who logs into GHTV with no available song play tokens. They hope that this will make it easier for everyone to play more of the songs that they want. All of these new features go live today.