Guitar Hero II Review

Title: Guitar Hero II
System: Playstation 2
Publisher: Red Octane, Activision
Developer: Harmonix
Date Added: 05/07/2007

I really like the Guitar Hero series. The one problem I had with the first continues here, which maybe isn't really a problem as much as a taste, is that I'm not familiar with a lot of the songs on here. A lot of the rock doesn't fall into the genre of music of which I would choose to listen. On the other hand this does open me up and expose me to those things. For those not familiar with Guitar Hero, you have a guitar shaped controller that has five fret buttons of different colors, a strum bar where you'd strike the strings and a whammee bar to change the pitch. As the song plays, different colored notes approach you and you have to hold down that corresponding fret button and strum the bar. As you continue to hit notes consecutively you rack up multipliers. If you hit all of the star shaped notes in a row you increase your star power-meter level which, once	Use the colored fret buttons on the neck to hit the respective notes.
New venues include this higschool gymnasium.	filled, can be activated allowing missed notes to go by without consequence as your selected character performs various guitar stunts on stage. The mechanics stay the same from the first Guitar Hero with the addition of a practice mode where you can take specific parts of songs (maybe the solo) and work on that loop over and over again and even slow it down to help you get it. Additionally, the two player mode has been enhanced with instead of two people splitting the guitar part, there is a bass guitar line and sometimes a rhythm and lead so the two players will have the chance to choose between each of those three parts. You can do so cooperatively or in versus mode. In the single player mode they have added encores. You
must play 3/4 or 4/4 songs in a set and then for the fifth song you stay on stage. Once completed you unlock its availability. There are eight venues to work through in one player mode, using 40 songs to work your way up to the top. There are four difficulty modes and this time your cash earned from each song is put into a pool for all difficulties. No rewards for Easy, but increasing amounts as it gets progressively difficult. There are characters, bonus tracks, costumes, guitars, guitar designs and behind the scenes videos to purchase which will take completion of the different difficulties to obtain enough cash. I will continue to purchase this game series even though now we're moving to the next generation and I'm going to have to buy two new guitars for the move to 360 with Guitar Hero III. In the mean time, the 80s edition should be hitting PS2 soon.	Unleash star power once your meter is full for double points.

Rhythm/ Peripheral Based
Challenge	20	\	20
Fun	25	\	30
Music	15	\	20
Peripheral Quality	7	\	10
Replayability	15	\	20
Overall Score	82	\	100

Challenge - Four difficulty modes from super easy to insanely difficult. Excellent learning curve.

Fun - The new co-op mode makes this game even better.

Music - Good selection of music with 40+ songs. Pretty much every song is rock, unlike a few blues tunes from 1.

Peripheral Quality- The guitar is fairly sturdy, but the strum key is already starting to squeak.

Replayability - I get the urge to jam occasionally, especially multiplayer.