Guitar Hero II

"Trogdor"

In this day and age, the Guitar Hero franchise needs no introduction. In name alone, it's easily a multi-million dollar franchise. But who needs those technical details? The only reason it's doing so well is due to the massive support of the series' legions of fans, the overall coolness involved in playing a guitar-looking controller, and, hey, all those nice critical awards and recommendations couldn't hurt.

Guitar Hero II came out shortly after the breakthrough success of the original, and, unlike most people, this was my first foray into Harmonix's series. Now I'm particularly fond of Harmonix and their work on music games. I was particularly into Amplitude and the innovative gameplay and work put into that. Red Octane, peripheral maker of such things as DDR mats of all things, worked on the guitar controller and, upon the first few seconds of attaching the strap and holding it in your hands, is as smooth and intuitive as you could ever believe. Its design is simple and its color a sharp, tonal red. On the neck of the guitar are five fret buttons, each in its assigned different color, and then there's the strum bar, which you manually push down (or up) in succession with the fret button you're assigned to press on screen. Simple enough, eh? There's also a Whammy Bar of all things attached to this guitar and though I found it of little use most times, it does provide a cool change to the sound of the song and it does break (if even for a second or two) the monotony involved with the constant button mashing.

Now, that there is already the basic meat and bones of the game. Plug in the controller, select one of the given modes present onscreen, and follow the colored fret marks onscreen and 'rock out' those motions with your bare hands. Its not overly complex, to be quite honest. If you're at all familiar with the KONAMI Dance Dance Revolution games, then you should be able to pick this up almost immediately like I did.

Modes available for play include the basic Story Mode, which lets you select a character and a guitar for them as you rock out to the game's songs in select venues all around the world. The venues themselves are nothing special, but one in particular will give you quite the chuckle if you're at all familiar with the Rob Reiner film, This is Spinal Tap. Each venue is broken up by 4 of the main game's songs and you must complete a certain amount to play an encore song to go and move on to the next sect of songs. Again, very simple; and the loading times present provide some good humor and info to guide you to the end (Remember, no Stairway!!).

There's also Quick Mode to choose from, which lets you quickly play through any of the game's song without having to go through the trouble of going through Story Mode. It's particularly useful if you're just trying to play through a song quickly, or learn its particular nuiances all the more intuitively. Practice Mode is also present and, though its presence is non-existent when you first start out, you'll constantly refer back to it on the harder difficulty levels.

And harder difficulty levels indeed. The game lets you choose between 4 different difficulties; Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert. Easy is basic and I never even needed to resort to it at all. In Easy, you only use the first three buttons of the guitar controller -- meaning, only those three colors will show up on screen. On Medium, you'll use four of the fret buttons and the pace starts to quicken a bit and you'll be rocking out quite a bit here. With the exception of three-note chords (where you must hold down all three fret buttons at once), everything you need to know about playing Guitar Hero is present in this difficulty. And then there's Hard and Expert difficulty levels. The names speak for themselves here; in here, you'll use all the fret buttons on the guitar and you'll basically be rocking out to just about every single note and rhythm you'll hear. It's not for the weak of heart, to be sure.

Now, however, I'm afraid I must speak out against this game (alas, it was bound to happen sooner then later). The said difficulty for one is a bit too extreme for people like me who haven't had much experience with the first game. There's no song here that's really a good transition from the Medium to Hard to Expert difficulties. You could be able to nail more then half of the songs perfectly on one difficulty, and then still get your ass kicked switching to the next. Frankly, having to play six-plus minute songs over and over to just advance in story mode loses its edge quick.

And then there's the songs; ahh, yes the songs. Now I find them all to be quite decent, nothing terrible to be honest, and hey there's even some really great stuff here. Now if you're familiar with the series then don't get fooled into thinking all those bands you see on the box art to be actually in this game, in fact there's very little actual masters used here. Most songs are covers, but some aren't half bad to be sure. Hearing someone do Ozzy besides Ozzy himself is strange, but with the music pretty much spot-on it's hard to complain. Covers of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Heart, and the Allman Brothers Band are just as good, with the former's 'Freebird' being the game's final song; rocking out to the solo because you couldn't do it on actual guitar has never been so damn fun!

But a lot of the other songs are more or less hit-or-miss. You're sure to either like them or completely hate them, hard to make out which it was for me but I'm in the middle of the road there. Nothing stands out and I personally feel there are better songs from the respective artists that could've been used that may have had more hypnotic riffs and hooks throughout their construction. The game also has a lot of 'specially recorded' songs in it as unlockables, but frankly most of these are complete duds (I rarely had any incentive to play any of these in any of the game's modes).

Multiplayer is present as well and this is where the game can particularly shine. With the series becoming more and more popular that means more and more people will have this game with its respective controller. You'll have lots of fun, basically, in either the co-op or head-to-head offered here. This is where the replayability factor of this game comes in, but if you don't know much of anyone willing to plow the $70-85 this game will cost them then look to playing lots of endless nights alone.

Again, there's nothing really bad here; it's all opinion but apparently this has led to this game becoming considered one of the best of its generation. Strange really, but single-player just gets so boring so quick that you might begin to wonder why you ever gave out so much to buy it. A lot of it is mainly the songs' fault, but alas nothing that could be redeemed there. There are a few unlockable stuff to be had but nothing's really too special. Different guitars, characters, songs, and even bonus videos are all to be had here. The videos were especially nice, but the humor constantly fell flat; just look into them for other purposes in that case, I assume.

Being a music game, this game is an audio wonder. Everything just sounds so nice and smooth that regardless of what sound system you're running it on, it's guaranteed to blow you away. Audibly, it's one of the best games one might have to bestow upon their collection. The graphics are no slouch either. Everything looks wonderful here, with nicely-detailed arenas and beautifully textured characters that bring the experience to life.

Finally, Guitar Hero II is a game that needs to be played. It's as simple as that. Only you yourself can make an opinion of this game, since you may either like/love it or find it completely overrated and blown out of proportion in its endless hype. Like the aforementioned Dance Dance Revolution, this franchise is going to continue to have endless installments so its never too late to get in on the craze while it's still hot and fresh. Just do yourself a favor first and look at the songlists between this, its predecessor, and its successors. Only then can you really begin to judge this game to the best of your ability.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/19/07