Company: Activision/Red Octane
Platform: Playstation 2
Genre:
Rating: Teen
Buy on Amazon.com link

Red Octane’s mega-hit is back with the second installment of Guitar Hero and this time they have Activision covering their backs. How could they possibly top the first one? With more songs, more characters, more features, more guitars and just about more of everything.

The first time that I placed my lanky fingers upon the Guitar Hero controller in Best Buy last year, I was hooked. I found a good deal on E-Bay and played the living hell out of the first one. When I heard that a sequel was already in the works, I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas morning and I don’t get excited about too many games anymore. Almost immediately following the announcement of Guitar Hero II, song wishlists began popping up all over the Internet. Everyone wanted their favorite band that no one has ever heard of to be included in the game and everyone else wanted (insert name of uber popular mainstream radio friendly band here) to be included. Well the people at Red Octane must have been listening because they took the playlist and upped it to 60+ songs and have included something for just about every music fan in the world…unless you listen to techno and we all know that techno just plain sucks. The list of songs is ridiculously great and much more varied than in the first game if that’s possible. There are also a couple of master tracks or original recordings by the original artist scattered into the regular song rotation. Guitar Hero 2 seems to focus more on indie bands and metal. Of course, the classic rock takes center stage but the 80’s are much more represented than before with bands like the Police, Motley Crue and Warrant but to equal out the 80’s cheese fest, real music fans will be glad to see that the “sounds of the 90’s” rock out harder than before. Alice In Chains, the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots, Danzig, Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Primus, and Janes Addiction make their presence felt. Much to my surprise, one of my favorite bands, the Living End, was a later addition to the playlist before the game was released. Also included were songs from Internet icon Stong Bad as well as Adult Swim’s Dethklok from Metalocalypse. Personally, I like the variety of GH 2’s song list but the shear star power (pun intended) of the songs in GH 1 has yet to be matched. Those songs were B-I-G and most of the stuff in the sequel seems B Level at best. I’m also disappointed that there have yet to be any Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Green Day Guitar Hero sightings yet but hey, Van Halen and Guns N Roses and I’m happy.

Besides expanding the playlist, Red Octane decided to include different ways to play a song. Now you can play the lead guitar, rhythm guitar or bass on whatever song you like. I was mislead into believing that you could do this during the regular career mode, but unfortunately this option is only available in the multiplayer and practice modes. So if you don’t know anyone else that clunked down eighty bucks on GH2, you’re kinda screwed. Practicing a song gets boring pretty quick. Speaking of practice mode, that’s another new feature to Guitar Hero 2. You can slow down or speed up a song or just select and play a certain part of a song that’s been giving you trouble. Practice mode is just on of the multitude of new modes that have been added. There are also new multiplayer modes such as Cooperative, Face-Off, and Pro Face Off. With Cooperative, you can play one of the three guitar modes with a friend and your slow friend can play on Easy while you rip through a song on Expert. The time for sympathy for your idiot friend who still can’t go from green to red on Easy is over!

Now one would think that the addition of a crap load more songs and a handful of new play modes would be enough for most developers to call it quits and push the game out of the door. Nope. We’re not done yet. Many of the shredders from Guitar Hero past reappear in the sequel as well as a handful of new players such as a rockabilly character, a death metal guy and a Jimi Hendrix-like character. Oh yeah, and the Grim Ripper is back and badder than ever. On top of the new characters are the new venues that include way more animations than in the previous game with much more going on in the background. A Warped Tour venue even shows up complete with a graveyard theme. Last but not least and in my mind the coolest addition to Guitar Hero 2 is the new encore feature. After playing the last song in your set before you continue on to the next group of songs, you are now given the option to unlock and play an encore song for your gracious and adoring fans. They sure did pick some kick ass songs for the encore too…”Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N Roses, “Last Child” by Aerosmith, “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath and “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight” by Spinal Tap. Yes, I said Spinal Tap complete with exploding drummer.

To wrap things ups, Guitar Hero 2 took the groundwork that GH 1 laid and like any good sequel, improved upon it drastically. With a zillion different modes, a slew of songs along with new characters, venues, animations, etc., the second installment of Guitar Hero brings a lot more to the table in just about every category including fun factor. The multiplayer modes as well as the various degrees of difficultly give the game great replay power. At times it is frustrating with how hard some of the songs are on the higher difficulty modes and it is odd that you have to really practice hard just to play a video game, but for this kind of game, that’s just how it is. If you play the game a lot, which you will, you’ll get a great sense of accomplishment when you’ve made it through the harder difficulty levels because, well…you’ve earned it. And your friends will no doubt be most impressed. So gather all your friends, head over to the friend with the biggest TV and sound system and fantasize about rocking all that exists from the comfort of their living room.

Bottom Line: The innovations keep coming for this innovative game. Innovative. I like that word.
Favorite Aspects: Playing the bass parts is fun, rocking out to Van Halen, the Living End, Aerosmith, Nirvana, Alice In Chains and the Foo Fighters, performing the encores, two words Free Bird
Cheats: Air Guitar Mode:
Press Yellow(2x), Blue, Orange, Yellow, Blue at the Main Menu
Overall Rating: