Guitar Hero II

"Fans of the first game will still find a lot to like but will also be disappointed after seeing everything there is."

I'm certain everyone has played Guitar Hero. Well, everyone under 40 years of age. It's always at Walmart, Gamestop, everywhere you go it will be there. It's definitely a very fun game and I am now reviewing its sequel, Guitar Hero II for the Playstation 2. (As well as Xbox 360, but that version has a few differences).

Guitar Hero really is the same game with different songs. There are a few different game modes including Career mode which is the main mode. In Career you choose your difficulty and then you play the game through that difficulty. The better you do on songs the more money you get and you need to beat a certain amount of songs to unlock the next set of songs. Career mode is good fun and it can get very challenging if you are playing on the Hard or Expert difficulties, but it's too similar to last year's. Also, in Career you can choose a character to play as and you make a band name and character name. None of these mean much in the game though.

The other modes include a Quick Play mode which is exactly like it sounds. You start with less than a dozen songs to play and you can play any songs that you unlock in Career. Which also brings me to this, you can buy songs in GHII, just like in GHI. When you get cash from playing in Career you can go to the store and buy a ton of bonus tracks. Some of these bonus tracks are pretty nice and some you've heard before, but the majority you probably haven't. In addition to new songs, you can buy new guitars, new guitar skins, new characters and more at the store.

Multiplayer is present and much improved than last year. Last year had a 2 player multiplayer mode in which you would play portions of a song, and then your opponent would. In GH2 that is still there but you can also play the entire song against each other and play co-op too. In co-op one person plays rhythm guitar while the other person plays bass. Bass parts are obviously quite a bit easier. (You don't need a special bass controller to play, the normal guitar controller works). Online multiplayer, sadly is not available.

The song list in this version is my biggest gripe with the game. While this game has its fair share of good songs, and a lot more bonus tracks, it just isn't as good as the first game in that aspect. Still there is enough here for everyone and it overall has a pretty good list. Expect to see bands like Rage Against the Machine, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Van Halen, The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighter, Nirvana, Janes Addiction, even Strong Bad, and much more. Overall, it's a pretty solid list but a little disappointing.

The graphics in this game are nothing to write home about. Technically, they aren't terrible. They're not great either and the art style is borderline horrendous. I don't see why anyone would like this because the rocker stereotype as portrayed by this game is downright annoying and offensive. The level designs aren't bad and they are detailed enough but still they give that dumb impression of rock music. The character designs just piss me off but if you can just ignore all that like I eventually learned to, that you'll get by just fine.

So overall, Guitar Hero II presents itself as a nice, fun, enjoyable, great, but disappointing game. Fans of the first game will fall in love all over again but well be left with a somewhat sour taste in their mouth after they've seen everything the game has to offer.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/12/07

Game Release: Guitar Hero II (US, 11/07/06)