[BabeSlayer]

Guitar Hero 2 Review by Masta Shake

GUITAR HERO II
by Masta Shake. (Let me know what you think.)


Q: Who wants to be a rock star?
A: Everybody!

Enter, Guitar Hero II, for Xbox 360. The new music game complete with guitar shaped controller from Red Octane puts players center stage in their very own rock band.

With obvious similarities to other music games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Frequency, Guitar Hero takes the concept of matching button presses to colours to a wole new level

First off is the new controller. Shaped like a Gibson X-Plorer, the controller feels just like a real guitar, albeit a bit smaller and lighter. Players must sync the coloured buttons on the neck of the guitar to the notes on screen, at the same time as strumming, an action replicated by the novel strum bar. Four different levels of difficulty allow the player to customize the game to their own playing level, from easy (only 3 buttons and no chords) to expert (all five buttons and three button chords.)

Musically, there is something for everyone. The soundtrack is largely classics (Alice Cooper, and Black Sabbath), but with a fair mix of newer songs (think Foo Fighters, and Wolfmother) Red Octane has said that the songs were picked based on their playability, and levels of fun. This means that every song has great riffs and fun guitar solos.

While the game has no Live capabilities at this time, except downloaded content and leaderboards, GHII makes up for this with it’s amazing co-op play. Simply plug in a second guitar to go head-to-head with a friend in competition for points, or play co-operatively, with one friend playing lead and the other playing rhythm or bass in an effort to maximize points.

While playing gigs, the player earns money as well, allowing you to buy new characters, new guitars and even new songs. On top of the 64 songs available in the original set list, players can buy an additional 24 songs to play for fun, points, and achievements.

Speaking of achievements, GHII does not pull any punches. There are the obvious easy achievements (beat a song on easy, fail a song on easy, etc…) to incredibly hard songs (Champagne Room VIP = get 500,000 points in a song) and even achievements that can only be had by playing in two player co-op.

Guitar Hero II has something for everyone, and short of buying a Wii is probably the most fun party game to be released on any next-gen console.