Gitaroo Man

"frustrating,but insanely fun as well."

Gitaroo Man-mix the great riffs,add some frustration,addictivenous,and bake for 20 minutes

First off,Gitaroo man is a really fun game made by Taito,who brought you great games before [with Acclaim] like Bust-a-move,and is a strange and fun benami music game,starring U-1,whose alter ego Gitaroo man appears when U-1s talking dog throws the guitar at U-1.sounds strange? you better believe it! Did I mention you have to fight aliens,flying sauces,sharks and bumblebee men? You hurt them by playing kick-ass sounds and riffs,killing them.

GAMEPLAY:
simple to follow,easy on paper,but hard when you play the game.basically,as the action goes on,various sizes of 'notes' come at you, [I say notes but their really just long orange bars] and you point the analog stick in the direction they come from.then when the 'notes' get to the dot in the middle of the screen,you hold the O button for as long as the bar/note goes on.if it wiggles,or changes direction during the song,you have to change the analog sticks direction accordingly.thats basically it for that section of the stage/songs in Gitaroo man,named the charge/battle sections. Then theres the even more frenzied sections,where the enemy/s fling attacks at you,making different buttons fly towards the dot in the middle. The buttons are triangle,square etc. and naturally you have to press the corresponding button.miss a button and you will lose a little health. [you and your enemy both have beat em'up style health bars] Then you play notes at the enemy [dont ask] to get rid ofs its health,until you win.Thats basically it for the gameplay section.
RATING: 9/10

GRAPHICS:
great.very functional,but also very crazy and vibrant,as it has a very wide colour palette.sometimes you get distracted by the action going on in the background,but its stil fine.the graphics are crystal clear.
RATING: 8/10

SOUND:
This is where the game excels in. The sound in this game just blew me away.the sounds are great,and the tracks are amazing.I have a wide variety of gaming music tastes,i enjoyed Jet Set Radios soundtrack,Final Fantasy's soundtrack,and this is no exception. Theres a different track for each level,from Flying-0's pop track style [Flying-0s are flying saucers with faces and keyboards built into them] to the Reggae stylings of Ben-Ks level, [Ben-Ks a giant robotshark] all the tracks will have you humming along and tapping your foot,as all the tracks are great.All the levels are difficult,but dont really get frustrating,as they're insanely addictive.
RATING:10/10

LIFESPAN:
It takes a while to complete the game if your not good at it,but with collection figures to collect [info and a picture of each character] and an extra difficulty level to unlock,this game will keep you entertained for ages.Its also got a vs. two player mode,which is great,with one player as the 'good' part [gitaroo man] and the other player playing the enemies part of the song,providing great fun.
RATING:8/10

RENT OR BUY??--BUY!!
in my opinion,You should snap this up as fast as you can.its pretty cheap now [£15 over here in Scotland] and provides party fun,solo fun and is an amazing game.

OVERALL RATING:9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/03, Updated 04/13/03