GH II, Blue Dragon DLC rocking XBL

Earlier this month, Activision happily announced that its three-song downloadable packs for the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II had been downloaded more than 650,000 times. In particular, the publishing giant noted that the second three-pack of brand-new songs from emo rockers My Chemical Romance had burned through more than 50,000 copies during its debut week in August.

Today, Activision has added the third three-pack of exclusive tracks for the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II. Diverging from the primarily mainstream bands found in the rest of the game, Activision has tapped three underground acts for the Indie Label Pack. In this download, fantasy fretters will find Trivium's "Detonation," Atreyu's "Ex's And Oh's," and Protest the Hero's "Bury the Hatchet."

They may be indie artists, but Activision isn't cutting gamers a break on the admission fee. The Indie Label Pack is available at the same rate as its other bonus-track downloads, 500 Microsoft points ($6.25). A free Indie Label Pack Trailer is also available for those unfamiliar with these acts' underground sounds.

For those who like their DLC at the price of free, Microsoft has added the Ultra Hard Mod for Mistwalker's Japanese role-playing game Blue Dragon. Three new difficulty settings have been added to the JRPG with the download. Game Plus lets players begin the game afresh with the character data saved from near the end of the game. The other two modes--Hard game and Impossible game--ramp up Blue Dragon's, with the former doubling the challenge level and the latter scaling the game to suit player level 50 or higher from the beginning.