I know a lot of you have played this and enjoyed it. But I also know a lot of you are turned off by the idea of swinging around a plastic guitar. Because let's face it, you look like a total dumbass with it. At first I was skeptical too, but I didn't realize how addicted I'd become to the game.
The first time I experienced Guitar Hero was at Best Buy. As I said, before I was very wary of the game, as it looked pretty stupid and I couldn't see how anyone could actually have fun with it. When I went to Best Buy, they had a PS2 and Guitar Hero set up. I was bored and had nothing else to do in the mall, so I thought "Meh, what the hell." I picked up that stupid plastic guitar and started playing. The first song I chose was I Love Rock And Roll, as it was the first song there and I figured it'd be the easiest. I failed it very quickly, as I hadn't figured out the controls until it was way too late. After that, I picked Iron Man on Easy and played that. What a blast. It was incredibly simple and intuitive, almost like my fingers were moving on their own accord. I didn't think, I didn't ponder, I just played. After playing those two songs at a Best Buy booth, I knew I had to buy this game. So a month later in September, me and my brother eventually conjured up enough spare change to buy the first one.
We took it home, and I popped it in automatically. I played my ass off that week, and got to playing Hard songs within the first 3 days. After a week I moved up to Expert. That was when it really got to be fun. Playing through easy powerchord riffs just to lead up to an impossibly fast solo kept me coming back constantly. The solos were actually extremely hard, as hammer-ons and pull-offs didn't register very well with the controller. Another unique touch was the "Star Power," in which tilting your guitar controller upright doubled the score of each note hit for a period of time. I couldn't get off it, and it was then I realized I had become just another hopeless addict to this incredible game.
My EGM arrived that same month, and what was on the cover? That's right, an exclusive story on the new Guitar Hero II! I was psyched. I read that same article over and over and over until I had it practically memorized. After that, my mom and I went straight out to EBGames to preorder it.
Those two months were a long, long wait, lemme tell you. Of course, I had the first Guitar Hero to preoccupy me, but there were only 50 songs in that game and it was getting kind of old. Not to mention I still couldn't hit those pesky solos. I still waited, though, waiting for that fateful November 7th, when I would be receiving possibly the greatest game of all time.
Eventually, after two long months I got the game. I was stoked. Again, I popped it in immediately, and began to play. The first thing I noticed is that there was a much bigger diversity of songs to play in the game. Whereas in the first game most songs were exclusively hard rock, this game contained everything from Avenged Sevenfold to the Allman Brothers Band. The other, most incredibly helpful improvement was the fixing of hammer-ons and pull-offs. It now made it much easier to rip through those blazing solos I got so stressed over on the first game.
Not to say the game was any easier, however. In fact, the difficulty was ratcheted WAY up for this game. The expert songs I was playing on the first game matched the difficulty of the hard songs on this one. While it was easier to nail notes on the solos, getting your fingers to twist around in such a way as to nail all those notes was an extreme challenge.
The greatest thing about this game, and probably the biggest hook, is that it gives you options based on how you enjoy games. The single player game is one of personal improvement and trying harder. There's no competition, only a drive to improve yourself, and that's one of the things about a game that makes me love it. But for all those competitive guys and gals who care more about beating someone else than playing by themselves, the new Guitar Hero had a very much improved multiplayer mode. Now people could choose between Face-Off (where two players play a song against each other to see who can get the highest score) and Co-Op (where two people team up to conquer the same song, with one person on lead guitar and the other on either rhythm guitar or bass). I've played both modes and can tell you that each one is equally satisfying.
And that's about all I have for my review of Guitar Hero II. I recommend you all buy it if you have a PS2, it's the best 80 dollars you'll ever spend. If you don't have a PS2, buy one and then get this game, it's the best 200 dollars you'll ever spend.
Discord
Light Style