Guitar Hero II
Added April 12th, 2007 by Joel Kownacki
I’ve always wanted to be part of a rock band. At a young age, my brother bought me a bass guitar and for himself, an electric guitar. We wanted to form a group and rock out, but that never came to be. A few years later, we sold the guitars on eBay. Parting with my desire to become a rock star was a tough one. My dream was revived in spring 2007 with Guitar Hero 2. The Guitar Hero franchise debuted exclusively on the PS2 back in 2005. As an exclusive Xbox gamer, I was never exposed to the brilliance of the Guitar Hero series.
Guitar Hero 2 is somewhat similar to Dance Revolution in that you have a series of songs you have to perform, but instead of stomping the dance pad with your feet, you tap buttons on the fret board (handle) with your left hand and strum with your right. You can play notes with single button taps or chords by holding multiple buttons at the same time. There are five different colored buttons on the fret board. When a color appears on screen and passes the time bar, you need to hold the corresponding button down and flick the strum bar to successfully play the note. If you miss a note, you’ll instantly know it as a “not very musical” note blares from your speakers. When you hit the right notes there’s nothing like it; you feel like a musical god, among the best guitarists in the world, even though you’re playing with a little plastic guitar. That tells you something about the immersion factor; it truly is unrivaled in this type of game.
To the left of the on-screen fret bar you have your point count and multiplier meter. The longer you play without missing a note, the higher your multiplier shoots up. You can obtain a max of 4x (increases every point you get by four). To the right of the on-screen fret bar is your Star Power gauge and the audience approval meter, known as the Rock Meter. The Rock Meter has three different sections: green, yellow, and red. As you successfully hit chords, the pin points to the green section signifying that the audience is loving you. The more you mess up, the pin falls to the red and by that time, you’re setting yourself up for a failed performance. The Star Power gauge can be filled up by accurately nailing a series of notes with stars around them. Every time you complete a series of these star notes, your Star Power meter fills up a bit. Once you’re happy with how full your meter is, you can throw the guitar vertically and enter Rock Out mode. This mode doubles any multiplier you have on your points gauge and for an extra points boost, you can jam your whammy bar into the guitar while rocking out. Rock Out mode also increases the crowd’s enjoyment of the performance.
If you’re a newbie to Guitar Hero, like I was, the tutorial is very useful. It’s well laid out, shows you basic and advanced techniques, and allows you to slow down songs to three different levels to try out and memorize difficult riffs.
The main gameplay is Career mode, which takes the player though quite a few sets of songs to play at venues. After you complete a set, it’s off to a different venue. The songs become tougher as you progress through the Career mode, but the increased challenge isn’t too dramatic. Each successfully completed song earns you a few bucks, unless you’re playing it on the easy difficulty, in which case you earn a pat on the back. You can buy new outfits, guitars and songs with the money you make. Red Octane did a good job implementing the achievements into Guitar Hero 2. You have your standard “beat the easy difficulty to unlock 20 point” goals, but you also have “watch the entire credits” goals. I would recommend going afk for that one.
Guitar Hero 2’s visuals get the job done. No, it doesn’t push the 360 to its limit and it doesn’t need to. The menus remind me of paper cutouts, which I like, and are very quick to move through. The loading times were never longer than three seconds, something I greatly appreciated when I’m feening to rip a few cords. On-screen action is colorful, well lit and very atmospheric. My only gripe about the in-game visuals is the stiff and repetitive animations. They should have been overhauled before landing on the 360. With 73 tracks total, the game is beefy. There is music for everyone, from the hardcore fans to soft rock lovers; Guitar Hero 2 offers a great mix of tunes. Throwing in a few more modern songs would have been great, but there’s always downloadable content that should be coming in the form of song packs any day now.
Summary:
Guitar Hero II is an amazing game. There is no better party game on the 360, or any console for that matter. I found myself getting up early just so I could rip a few tunes before I had to leave the house then just as quickly getting back on as soon as I returned. The lack of online multiplayer is a bit disappointing and the game does have a few minor faults, but I would be hard pressed to recommend a game to you more than Guitar Hero 2.
I think $2 is the prime price point.