Guitar Hero II

"Even better than before. If you disliked the first GH, read this."

I'm going to do a lot of comparisons to the first Guitar Hero, but I think they are necessary.

Everything I asked for in my review of Guitar Hero came true. I complained about the fact that they needed a DDR-style practice mode, more songs, a sometimes hard-to-see blue button, and wanted easier hammer-ons and pull-offs. They fixed all of that. The game now plays perfectly.

Let's go over the basics for you people out there who haven't seen the first Guitar Hero. You use a guitar controller to play a rhythm game. As you strum the guitar, you hold down the proper notes as the notes go by. There are 40 official songs and a large amount of bonus songs unlocked by playing through the game. It's fun. Playing this game makes you believe, more than any other musical game out there (with possibly the exception of Karaoke Revolution or one of those keyboard games) that you are really part of a music-making experience instead of just reacting to musical beats. It's all simulated of course, but being a simulation rather than a reaction game makes it a whole different experience. Most of the songs are in different genres under the general rock category. Nothing in terms of hiphop or dance, but since rock depends on technical guitar prowess, it is only fitting.

Some hardcore Bemani fans out there thought that the first game was too easy. I would have to agree to a point. On expert mode, Guitar Hero was more difficult than GH haters gave it a chance for, but nothing you couldn't overcome with lots of practice. But Guitar Hero 2 fixes that as well - it's way more difficult. If you thought the final Guitar Hero song Bark at the Moon on expert was hard, you'll be interested to hear that you don't even have to get close to the last song on Guitar Hero 2 to find a challenge harder than that. The level of difficulty between the four difficulty modes is much greater than in the first game. Think of Guitar Hero 2 as the perfect difficulty progression from the first to second game. Expert mode on the first few "easy" songs are about as difficult as the harder expert songs in the first game. If you practiced a lot in the first Guitar Hero and think you have it down, be prepared because Guitar Hero 2 will throw you for a loop, guaranteed. You will not be bored, you will face new challenges. And don't worry, you will still enjoy yourself without getting frustrated. Don't fret, new players. You'll have no problem playing this even if you didn't play the first. Like I said I'm just comparing. In fact I might almost say new players might want to start with GH2 because even though the difficulty is cranked up, the gameplay is easier.

Even though the hammer-ons and pull-offs are much easier, the songs are so much more difficult in this version that you still have to be careful how you play, so while button-mashing theoretically works moreso in this version in a few areas, more songs are so much more intricate that mashing won't help. Try button mashing your way through the guitar solo in Thunderhorse on Expert. You won't be able to do it. Sure you'll definitely get through the song without failing if you are in good health, but you'll mess up your note streak and you'll just look like an idiot. And there's NO way you're beating Jordan on Expert by button mashing.

The difficulty on some of the songs is up there with the hardest DDR songs. There are a few songs that are so insane I can't imagine anyone even beating them. Let's talk about that for a minute, the word "beat". That's almost a new concept for Guitar Hero. See, the Bemani freaks who hate GH couldn't get past the idea that you could "beat" every song on GH. And let's face it, the first GH may have been difficult on expert but even so the first 2/3 of the songs were "beat"-able if you just stumbled through them. HOWEVER, the difference between just "beating" a song and actually "nailing" a song is what makes Guitar Hero fun. You could get through a lot of the songs on both GH games on hard mode without trying hard at all, it's true. However, if you get through a song but made a fool of yourself because you didn't nail the solos or generally made the song sound bad, you may have "beaten" the song but in essence you've failed. The game's reward isn't just beating the song, it's making the song as good as you, the player, would like to play it, hear it, or perform for your friends. That's the thing GH haters out there simply DO NOT GET. To Guitar Hero players, the point of the game isn't "beating" a song, it's making the song sound good. I can stumble through a DDR game but if I dance really well and impress everyone watching, as long as I make it through the song it's a success. If I'm not trying to impress an audience, I'm trying to beat a song or beat a score, but that's about the end of it. The song still plays regardless if I miss the notes or not. But anyway, for you Bemani snobs out there, yes, some of the songs in this new Guitar Hero 2 really are extremely difficult on expert mode.

They added 3 note chords, which may sound relatively minor but almost totally changes the way I play, at least. I used to shift my pointer finger to play the first 2 buttons, but now I'm having to really shift my hand up and down and be aware of where all the buttons are because you have to use all your fingers in new combinations. Not only do the 3 note chords force this on me, but the songs themselves are so much harder that it's necessary. Makes the game more fun though. Some user on GameFaqs once complained that they didn't like the fact that there were 5 fret buttons rather than 4. To you I say, you must not be a good video game player if you want things to be that easy. 5 is fine, 4 would be way too easy. Come on, Pump it Up has 5 buttons and you can play that. Most games today use upwards of 8 buttons. Don't tell me 5 buttons is too much and then say in the same breath that GH is too easy.

Some of the songs are even longer than the first game, which is fine because if you really wanted to you could just play in practice mode and select just part of the song to play. But anyway, playing an entire song lends to the music-making experience. Again, I will repeat myself, this game is about the music-making experience. You want to be a cover band rock star but you don't have a band, so you play this instead. If you don't want to play 7 minute songs, go play DDR.

I like the song selection to a degree. I think it is slightly better than the first game but not by that much. Some of the selections are kind of bland but a few of the songs are real humdingers. They put in a few songs that I really loved as a teen which makes me happy. I think the bonus unlockable song selection is considerably better this time around. I'm almost more fond of that section now than the normal songs. Give them a chance if you haven't yet. Adult Swim already publically announced Dethklok's Thunderhorse. There's a few other gems.

The guitar work of course is wonderful, but they did a worse job with the singers. In Guitar Hero most singers sounded at least close to the original singers. In Guitar Hero 2 almost half of the singers sound less than perfect, either nothing like the originals or a bad copy. Half of them are decent and a few are so-so. Even so, all the songs are at least tolerable. For example, even though I don't like the singer on 'Killing in the Name of', I still love playing the song and that's the important part. If you accept the fact that you are listening to covers, it should be okay.

I love the addition of bass and rhythm guitar in this game! It's so much fun to play this cooperative with someone else. This doubles the length of this game because now you can learn bass or rhythm for the songs.

Next time I think they should release cheaper games based on this same model that concentrate on certain genres like country, blues, or metal, like what Karaoke revolution did with their country release. I think bands should commission their own versions too, like Metallica or the Rolling Stones or etc.

Last time I gave Guitar Hero a 7 with an added point for incredibly high replay value and fun factor for a grand total of 8. This time I'll give it a 9 because they fixed everything and made it even more fun this time around with the same replay and fun factor kudos. The bad singers keep this from a 10. By incredibly high replay value, I mean a long time. It'll take you a day to beat the game on medium difficulty , but you'll keep playing the game for months because it's really just that much fun.

I challenge you very few people out there who didn't like the first Guitar Hero to play this one and see if you have the same complaints. That is unless you don't like the genres of music represented in Guitar Hero, in which case there's no argument. But seriously, there's literally a hundred games out there dedicated to dance, j-pop, hip-hop, and top 40s and only these 2 games dedicated to metal and rock, so don't get all upset that your teen music isn't here and don't play it. Don't get me wrong, I love j-pop, but I can play DDR or beatmania if I wanted that.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/06