I have a couple of confessions to make before I begin the review of Guitar Hero II (GHII). First is that I have been playing guitar for close to twenty years now (yes I'm getting old). I've been in several bands, had songs played on the radio, performed at gigs, recorded in a studio and countless other "band" moments. I'm not Eddie Van Halen or Steve Vai but I "like to play" guitar and can say that I do have some chops. The second confession is that I've never played the first Guitar Hero and only played the PS2 version of GHII once at a store demo. I read all of the glowing reviews and praises for GHII on the PS2 and figured it was time for me to find out what all of the fuss was about with the 360 version of the game.

For those that haven't played GHII the premise is simple enough: you play the role of an up and coming guitar player trying to make it big with your band. Instead of this being a simulation game, GHII is a straight forward music game. I'm sure you've seen the Dance Dance Revolution games in the arcades or at a game store. GHII plays out essentially the same way by you having to "play" the notes at just the right time as they scroll across the screen.

Now you don't have to jump up and down on a dance pad in GHII, instead you're provided with your own miniature guitar. The guitar is composed of five colored frets/buttons on the neck. The guitar also includes a strum bar which mimics the legendary guitar pick thrown out by guitar gods after a concert. A whammy bar is included to bend and shape some of the notes during a song. An Xbox Live guide button, select/start and directional buttons complete the available features on the guitar. Even though I didn't play GH on PS2 I can tell you that the guitar for the 360 version is a different guitar. The 360 guitar is based on the legendary Gibson Explorer while the PS2 versions are based on the Gibson SG.

As I mentioned earlier the game is played by hitting the correct button/frets on the guitar at just the precise moment as they pass at the bottom of the screen. The more notes you hit correctly the higher your rock and score meter will increase. The rock meter lets you gauge just how well the crowd thinks you're doing with the song. A green level indicates you're rocking out, yellow tells you that you're phoning in your performance while a red level tells you to get your butt off stage and back to practice. The score meter will show the points you've earned by hitting the right notes and by hitting several notes in a row earns you point multipliers (starting with a 2x up until an 8x). Once the song is over you're rated on your performance by how accurate your performance was and given a star rating for the song. You can earn up to a five star rating and get 100% accuracy on a song.

If you think about it, GHII is really just another rhythm game that is all about accuracy. But what I found to be the best part of the game was the atmosphere. I can tell the designers are very passionate about music and either had been in bands or knew enough people that have been in a band. I loved the quotes between each performance that would offer words of wisdom about playing guitar or being in a band. Classic lines such as "a mini fridge being more important than a bass player" were always cracking me up. Some of the quotes might go over the heads of gamers that have never been in a band. But if you've never been in a band, watching Spinal Tap, Behind the Music and as many rock documentaries as possible should help out to get some exposure to the wackiness that is playing in a band.

I loved the fact that you start off by playing the Battle of the Bands at the local high school and then tour across the country to various clubs and locations for the gigs. I would have preferred some more down and dirty locations because I sure don't remember all of the clubs I played being as extravagant as the clubs in GHII. I don't want everyone to think you're going to play to a packed house of screaming fans every night. A true test of band solitude is when you go out to play your show and find out that no one has shown up. You look out from the stage and see the bartender looking back at you with the look of "Sorry bro.".

From the reviews and comments that I've read about the PS2 versions of the game, one of the biggest issues of debate are the songs. Well I can weigh in that I can finally understand the frustrations of some players. The game does include over seventy songs for you to practice your chops with but the songs are a mixed bag of great, classic songs to songs that most gamers have probably never heard. For each "Cherry Pie", "Sweet Child O' Mine", "War Pigs", and "Mother" song you get just as many songs such as "Tattooed Love Boys", "John the Fisherman", and "Soy Bomb." I'm sure the developers wanted to include some variety besides just a bunch of metal/hard rock songs but many of the songs really break up the momentum of playing the classic songs. If I was in the crowd for one of these shows I would probably hit the bar if someone went from "Cherry Pie" to "Tattooed Love Boys".

Another issue I had with the songs was the lackluster performance on some of the tracks. Only a few of the most popular songs in the game are the original version by the original artist. What you get in the game are performances of songs "Made Famous" by certain artists. The one song in particular that stuck me the wrong way was "Mother" by Danzig. Glenn Danzig has a very unique voice and hearing someone who doesn't sound anything like Danzig trying to sing the song wasn't pleasant. Just be prepared to hear the songs you know by heart sounding a little different.

Well now I really get to play the role of the bad guy. In my opinion the difficulty in the game is broken in a way that will probably frustrate many gamers. If you start off on the easy mode, you're treated to playing simple single notes at a reasonable pace. As you move farther along in easy mode you're forced to play more notes at a faster pace. Then the medium level bumps up the difficulty just enough that you should be able to finish most of the songs without failing. But once you get to the hard mode, all bets are off. The speed of the songs seems to be doubled with notes flying all over the screen. Just one wrong note could kill you because you might not be able to get back into the pace of the song until after you've missed a ton of notes.

Once you get to the hard mode and expert mode it really showed, at least in my opinion, the difficulty of replicating the feel of a real guitar with the Explorer controller. The strum bar is way too thick to duplicate the fast picking necessary with a real guitar pick. I had to start picking like a bass player by using two fingers to hit the strum bar as fast as the notes on the screen. Then I started noticing that I wasn't hitting the fret buttons properly since I wasn't able to perform a hammer on and pull off fast enough to hit all of the notes. A fret on a real guitar isn't as thick as the buttons on the GHII. Notes that I could pull off without any problem on guitar felt next to impossible in the game. I was screaming, cussing and gesturing towards the TV and the guitar controller that I was right and it was wrong.

Just as I was about ready to call it quits with the game on hard and expert mode, the game offered me the chance to practice. Why didn't I think of that? Practice makes perfect and practicing is key to mastering any song or performance. Thankfully the practice mode lets you play any of the songs at manageable tempos. You can play at a very slow speed or let it rip at full speed. I loved the attention to detail in the practice mode by having a drum machine playing the drum parts. I wish I would have done that during band practice because dealing with a moody drummer isn't always fun.

Even though I have some issues with the game I must admit that Guitar Hero II is still a blast to play. The game throws in just the right amount of references for guitar geeks and non-geeks to enjoy. From Spinal Tap, 80's hard rock, to UFO's there are just enough jokes and clichés to keep you laughing all the time. There are plenty of songs that most gamers should recognize to keep you interested. While the difficulty can become a road block at Hard and Expert, practicing can help to eliminate these blocks. The amount of customization in the game is another great feature, from buying new guitars, new costumes for your rocker, new songs and new characters. The multiplayer modes vary from jamming on the same song to a full riff off against each other. Guitar players and non-guitar players should get plenty of fun out of Guitar Hero II.

Apr 19, 2007 | 0 comments
Brian