Not having played the original Guitar Hero, it was a bit difficult to understand all the excitement and hype surrounding its sequel, appropriately titled Guitar Hero 2. The critics were ranting, raving and gamers began to eat it up as the months went by. What was so special about it? You pick up a fake plastic guitar and press colored buttons that correspond with the same colors shown on the TV screen as they scroll downward. It sounded neat, but did it actually end up being any fun? Once I had played the game for myself, it was shockingly clear how easy it was to spew out an endless stream of praise about the game. The first Guitar Hero was an excellent, innovative take on the "music game" genre and its mass appreciation is well deserved. For its sequel, Red Octane has kept its formula intact and has refrained from going overboard with any dramatic gameplay changes. Innovation is great, but its unreasonable to expect a revolutionary gameplay experience from every single product on store shelves and at times this is taken to heart a little too closely and the changes in a game aren't exactly things fans end up liking. Guitar Hero II ups the ante by including a whole new roster of songs, more options and most of all, more of that fake guitar playing that we have come to love.



The first thing to note is of course, the controls. If you happen to buy the bundled version of Guitar Hero II, you will get both the game and a red guitar. The guitar is once again solidly produced and the buttons feel just right. The controls for Guitar Hero II are fairly simple to explain, but once you play the game, you will notice thats pretty much all thats "simple". The guitar features a strumming button at the base and five colored fret buttons along the top. As you play a song, those same five colors will be scrolling down the screen and you must press the proper fret buttons and strum at the same time. If you can perfectly hit a string of starred notes you will gain star power, which is activated when you tilt the guitar after the meter is filled. Star power allows you to gain double the points for each note you hit. If you happen to go in the complete opposite direction of achieving star power and end up bumming too many notes, you can eventually be booed off the stage and be forced to repeat the song. The included guitar feels really great to hold even if it isn't real, because as far as unconventional game controllers go, this pretty much tops them. Where playing Guitar Hero II gets tricky is that you will be constantly switching between the colors, even using more than one color at the same time in sequences. The newly added three button chords (which has you holding down three buttons at the same time) should add enough fresh challenges for veterans of the first game, but may prove a little too difficult for newcomers. In very fast songs, it can be very difficult to get along, but the game's challenge is what fuels its almost endless replayability.

It has a great controller and all but, how is the game itself set up? Well, the meat of the game is the career mode which has you advancing through several different venues and gaining money for your performances, which can be used to buy new characters, guitars and songs. There are several difficulties including easy, medium, hard and expert. If you haven't played Guitar Hero before, lets just say you might want to camp out at the lower difficulties for a while because things get fairly hectic fast on hard and expert. There are 64 songs all together with about 40 of them being licensed songs and the rest being from lesser known bands. As with the first game, the licensed songs are handled by cover bands (with the exception of two songs that feature original master tracks). Just like before, most of these covers are performed excellently with only a few feeling out of place. As for the song selection itself, the game features tunes from Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Guns n Roses, Van Halen and more. Some of the actual songs that were selected from these bands may cause a few to scratch their heads but most of the songs in the game are generally top notch. As for the game's overall difficulty, the songs themselves seem to be a more challenging bunch and it isn't as easy as it was before to ween yourself into higher difficulties. In the bigger scheme of things it just means the game will take some more practice and as stated before, the game can provide you with endless replayability depending on how much you take to the concept and practice. It can take months to master the majority of the songs and even then, expert mode will make you think twice about even dreaming of the real thing.



As far as multiplayer goes, Red Octane has expanded the component in a few areas, namely how you play with your friend. The competitive face-off mode is back, which has you trying to best your buddy by having you and your friend playing different parts of a song. Its just as fun as it was the first time, but where people will probably have the most fun is with the new cooperative mode. In this mode, one player takes control of the lead guitar and the other takes care of the rhythm guitar or bass. Not only this, but you can each choose your own difficulty level to complement your respective skill levels, making for a much more balanced affair. Lastly, in order to take advantage of gained star power, both players need to pull it off together for it to be effective. Sometimes having the secondary role can be a bit boring because the notes aren't always as interesting, but typically the excitement of playing simultaneously with a friend makes up for it.

The last significant addition to the game is the inclusion of a practice mode. Practice mode is something that apparently many fans of the first game have been craving for. With this mode, you are able to play any of the available songs to your heart's content without having to worry about being booed if you many bum too many notes. Not only that, but you can also slow the songs down so that you can take your time learning some of the more difficult songs at your own pace. The mode has been integrated into the game excellently and is a great place to take some risks if you are afraid to do so in the game's main modes.



Considering that you will spend most of your time looking for the right notes to hit, the graphics in Guitar Hero II may not be noticed all that much. Though, if you do happen to guide your eyes to a different part of the screen, you will see some cleverly designed menus and appropriately exaggerated player models that complement all sectors of rock 'n' roll. The concert venues are also pleasant to behold. (they even included a new stage for the Vans Warped Tour). The visuals aren't the most technically impressive sights you'll see this year on the Playstation 2, but then again, they are nowhere near the worst. Considering the game would have still been as insanely addictive as it is already without the polished presentation it has now, its nice to see that the developers made the extra effort anyway. As for the sound, well, we already went over how excellently produced the soundtrack is, so there isn't a whole lot to dwell on. Lets just say that if you don't happen to like rock music, the game will probably get a bit grating to you after awhile, but even then, the gameplay alone should make more than a simple impression on you.

Whats the final word on Guitar Hero II? Well if you have the money to pick up the bundle and have even a passing interest in either rock music or games that require a lot of practice to master, this game has the potential to blow you away. It may not feel as fresh to you if you already mastered the original, but this is a game you will buy if you still have the urge to master a few more tunes. The game isn't perfect as we have pretty much stated no game is. Guitar Hero II can be a bit frustrating at times with a more difficult song selection and a menu system that gets tiring to look at after awhile. But amidst all that, it has far more positives that help it to rock all the way to the bank. Red Octane has struck gold with this franchise and its fairly obvious that we will not have seen the last of it by the time you master Guitar Hero II's final song. Along with the new "next-gen" consoles being released this holiday season, Guitar Hero II is an equally impressive choice that ranks along side them as an excellent gift to give this season (or keep for yourself).