Guitar Hero III to get Dropkicked for free

While Activision's Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock can't match MTV Games' Rock Band for sheer quantity of downloadable songs, it has the competition soundly beat in the freebies department.

Activision celebrated the announcement of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith by making one of the classic rock group's biggest hits, "Dream On," available as a free download. The company also celebrated Christmas by releasing "We Three Kings" as a free track, and provided Xbox 360 owners with a complimentary version of the Halo 3 theme song.

Today Activision announced plans to double the amount of free content it has released for Guitar Hero III to date, as the publisher will celebrate St. Patrick's Day later this month with a free downloadable track pack of songs by Irish punk band Dropkick Murphys for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game. The three songs included--"Famous for Nothing," "(F)lannigan's Ball," and "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya"--are all master recordings pulled from the band's latest album, The Meanest of Times.

Gamers who can't wait for a free fix (or just don't feel right rocking out to the bodhrán) can instead shell out for the "Modern Metal" track pack, which should be available for the Xbox 360 and PS3 today. That pack will include the original performances of Deftones' "Hole in the Earth," Avenged Sevenfold's "Almost Easy," and Thrice's "The Arsonist." The Modern Metal pack is available for $6.25 (500 Microsoft points).