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Guitar Hero II

Published By: Tristan Clark On: 20/11/2006 10:00
Rating: PG Difficulty: Medium Learning Curve: 15 Min

THE SCOREBOARD

9.1
Excellent

Gameplay	9.0	"GH2 improves on its predecessor in almost every way."
Graphics	7.0
Sound	9.0
Value	9.5

By Tristan Clark

My hands have been crippled: I just played Freebird, a song with an amazingly long solo. And yet, despite the pain, I want more; Guitar Hero II is just that much fun. Seriously, this is one of the most fun PS2 games ever, and if you don’t at least check it out, there’s something wrong with you.

In case you missed out the first time, the Guitar Hero series is based around a collection of rock and metal songs, and a custom guitar controller to play them on. Notes will come towards you on the screen, and you have to hold down the correct buttons on the neck of the guitar while strumming at the right time. There are five difficulty modes, which range from exceptionally easy (to help you get your feet wet) to nigh-on impossible. By the time you get up to the last set of tracks, things start to get a little crazy.

This time around, there are 40 licensed songs to play (up from 30 in the original Guitar Hero). Highlights include Guns ‘n Roses’ ‘Sweet Child of Mine’, The Police’s ‘Message in a Bottle’, and Van Halen’s ‘You Really Got Me’. Overall, it’s a solid lineup, and has a few outstanding tracks, but only time will tell whether it holds up to as much thrashing as the original game did. There are also a whole heap of surprisingly enjoyable lesser-known songs that can be unlocked. I strongly recommend checking these ones out – they’re a lot of fun, and in some cases are better than some of the ‘official’ tracks. One particular highlight is Trogdor, as made famous by Strong Bad. Seriously, this for me alone would almost be worth the price of admission.

There are a number of new features and improvements in Guitar Hero II, including the ability to perform a lefty flip without having to go through a lot of menu screens (okay, so not many of you will care about that, but I’m left-handed, so that option is really awesome). Widescreen and progressive scan are now supported, so you can keep on ignoring what’s happening in the background, only this time it’ll look prettier as you completely fail to notice anything other than the deluge of notes heading your way.

Probably the biggest improvements can be found in the multiplayer modes. Simply put, they’re pretty much everything you could ever want. Whereas in the original Guitar Hero you had to play a song on the same difficulty, meaning a pro would have to play on easy when squaring off against a beginner, this time around you can set individual difficulty levels. The other major improvement is the ability for the two players to play different instruments on the same song – depending on the track, one person will play lead, and the other will play either rhythm or bass.’

Other than that, and a few other welcome changes, Guitar Hero II is very similar to its predecessor – and that’s definitely not a bad thing. While it won’t have quite the same impact as the original did when it was released, it improves on it in almost every way you can imagine, providing an amazing amount of fun and replay value as you work your way up to expert difficulty and learn, just as I did, that Freebird is an exercise in pain. But hey, it’s the kind of pain that is worth spending $160 or so to experience!

In case you wanted to know, here’s the lineup of main tracks:

1. Opening Licks

• "Shout at the Devil" - Mötley Crüe
• "Mother" - Danzig
• "Surrender" - Cheap Trick
• "Woman" - Wolfmother
• "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" - Spinal Tap (Encore)

2. Amp-Warmers

• "Strutter" - KISS
• "Heart-Shaped Box" - Nirvana
• "Message in a Bottle" - The Police
• "You Really Got Me" - Van Halen
• "Carry On Wayward Son" - Kansas (Encore)

3. String-Snappers

• "Monkey Wrench" - Foo Fighters
• "Them Bones" - Alice in Chains
• "Search and Destroy" - Iggy Pop and The Stooges
• "Tattooed Love Boys" - The Pretenders
• "War Pigs" - Black Sabbath (Encore)

4. Thrash and Burn

• "Cherry Pie" - Warrant
• "Who Was in My Room Last Night?" - Butthole Surfers
• "Girlfriend" - Matthew Sweet
• "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" - The Rolling Stones
• "Sweet Child O' Mine" - Guns N' Roses (Encore)

5. Return of the Shred

• "Killing in the Name" - Rage Against the Machine
• "John the Fisherman" - Primus
• "Freya" - The Sword
• "Bad Reputation" - Thin Lizzy
• "Last Child" - Aerosmith (Encore)

6. Relentless Riffs

• "Crazy on You" - Heart
• "Trippin' On a Hole in a Paper Heart" - Stone Temple Pilots
• "Rock This Town" - Stray Cats
• "Jessica" - The Allman Brothers Band
• "Stop!" - Jane's Addiction (Encore)

7. Furious Fretwork

• "Madhouse" - Anthrax
• "Carry Me Home" - The Living End
• "Laid to Rest" - Lamb of God
• "Psychobilly Freakout" - The Reverend Horton Heat
• "YYZ" - Rush (Encore)

8. Face-Melters

• "Beast and the Harlot" - Avenged Sevenfold
• "Institutionalized" - Suicidal Tendencies
• "Misirlou" - Dick Dale
• "Hangar 18" - Megadeth
• "Free Bird" - Lynyrd Skynyrd (Encore)