[VP Rewind is a quick look back at the important events of the past week or two that should have been on Venus Patrol had it actually been alive.]

Publicly revealed for the first time ever at New York’s recent Babycastles Summit, this pitch video for what could have been Guitar Hero III, had legal-entanglements not stripped the franchise from Harmonix before landing it at Activision.

Created by Joe ‘@codeloss‘ Kowalski and Steven Kimura over the course of a weekend in the summer of 2006, Rockapocalypse was going to take all of the awkwardness of Guitar Hero‘s narrative (aka “why is a what essentially amounts to a half-decent cover band rising from nothing to go platinum?”) and give it amazing form.

In its post-apocalyptic future, where rock has been banned, a literal band-of-outsiders emerges to take the mostly-forgotten anthems-of-yore, passed down through generations like folktales, and give them back to the population at large.

So, in essence, kind of the coolest game ever, and — if you’re paying close attention — probably not the biggest leap to learn that Kowalski’s next post-Harmonix job was at Double Fine, where he spearheaded the fantastic “gatefold album” user interface for Brutal Legend, viewable for your remembering below the fold.

Expect more on Kowalski’s upcoming indie effort Third Rail soon, because he’s promised me a look, and the Santa Ragione boys say it’s shaping up to be real, real nice. [via Joe Kowalski]

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