Under strict orders from my son, I was to go to Best Buy on Election Day a couple weeks ago to pick up our pre ordered Guitar Hero II the day it came out. My son has been rocking out on Guitar Hero since last Christmas when I bought the game for him. He has long ago beaten it on Expert, and continues to play it. He liked Guitar Hero so much that he was very excited to get Guitar Hero II.

Game Basics Guitar Hero II is a game in which you use a controller shaped like a Gibson SG to follow along and play your favorite songs. The Controller is similar in concept to the Dance Dance Revolution Pad, except instead of putting your feet on the right pad at the right time, you push down on the right fret button and hit the chord when indicated. Frets are Green, Red, Yellow, Blue and Orange, and a button sits where you would normally pluck your strings. Green Red and Yellow are the only chords you need worry about in easy, normal mode adds Blue and Hard mode adds Orange. Expert mode adds more notes that have to be hit. Leftie like Hendrix? No worries, the guitar controller can be programmed to play left handed as well. Oh, and speaking of Hendrix, you also get a whammy bar which has the same effect as a real whammy bar, you can hear the notes bend as you use it.

What are you Trying to Do? If you played Guitar Hero, it is the same game play, if not, you try to gain points by playing songs as accurately as possible. I.E. hit all the notes when you are supposed to. The better you play and the more your applause meter goes into the green, the better your review. If the applause meter goes into the red for too long (by hitting wrong notes) you are booed off stage and the song fails. As you finish songs, you unlock items, like new guitars, characters and guitar finishes. You also unlock more songs. Getting five star reviews unlocks even more goodies. Getting five star reviews in Expert mode gets you sore fingers and the satisfaction that you rock! (and yes, more good stuff)

Did I mention Star Power? If you hit enough notes in the proper order, you build up star power. You unleash it by bending your guitar upright. Then the crowd goes wild for the next part of the song, boosting your applause meter into the green. In co op mode you both have to tilt your guitars at the same time to unleash star power.

The Players Like Guitar Hero, you get a variety of guitar heroes to choose from. Guitar Hero II adds more. You get a variety of players from punk rockers and heavy metal heroes to sassy rocker chicks, long haired classic metal players and funky 70s ax masters. Most get a couple outfits to choose as well. Play well enough and you can unlock the Grim Reaper and his sickle guitar to match.

The players you can choose are:

Axel Steel is a hulking metal player with a spiked shirt and a black Other Shirt. He is huge.

Clive Winston, the long haired, handlebar mustached classic rocker.

Lars Umlaut looks like what Marilyn Manson might appear like if he ate at McDonalds every day. He makes Meatloaf look thin. And yeah, Umlaut is spelled with Umlauts over the u's.

Izzy Sparks looks like Slash of Guns n Roses. You can even choose a top hat for him.

Judy Nails is a tough punk rocker. She's kind of cute, you know for a video game character. She's really cute when you unlock her skirt and pigtails outfit.

Eddie Knox is a lounge singer with a James Dean haircut. He has two looks, Reno and Vegas.

Johnny Napalm is a punk rocker, He has spiked hair, or spikier hair.

Pandora is another hot rocker chick you can dress in a leather outfit or one that makes her look like some sort of pixie.

Casey Lynch is the final rock n roll woman, she is part Chrissy Hines, and part Pat Benatar and all rock.

Xavier Stone is the 70s hip rocker that looks like a cross between Hendrix and Lenny Kravitz.


The Guitars There is no shortage of guitars here either. Gibson Les Paul, Flying V, Firebird, Thunderbird, SG and an odd assortment of specialty guitars are available to play in a variety of finishes from sunburst to leopard skin. Apparently Gibson paid to be a sponsor here and Fender did not, there is nary a Telecaster nor a Stratocaster in sight. Almost every Gibson you can imagine is here, even Jimmy Page's double neck, a large BB King Style Guitar, and one that looks just like Kirk Hammets Jackson (Jackson must have been inspired by Gibson). When you add various finishes to the guitars, your choices are very varied from the black and white target style for the Les Paul of Zack Wylde, to a cherry red or a flame job for your SG. Several guitars come in natural finishes, cool paint jobs or a "worn" look. Thenovelty guitars like a fish, a coffin and such are comical. One looks like a map of the United States even!

You also get a collection of five bass guitars you can unlock, including several Gibson basses and a Hoffner bass. My favorite was the Gibson Thunderbird bass. Gibson is a sponsor of this game.

The Songs! What could be added to Guitar Hero to make it better? Fans of the game (including my son and I) said MORE SONGS! Rock out to Aerosmith's Last Child, Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil, the Van Halen version of the Kinks's You Really Got Me, Kansas Carry on my wayward son, Spinal Tap, Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight, Heart Shaped Box by Nirvana, Can't You Hear Me Knockin by the Stones, Surrender by Cheap Trick, YYZ by Rush, even Institutionalized by Suicidal Tendencies!

You were hoping for Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird? or Guns n Roses Sweet Child of Mine? Yes, they are there too, with Tatooed Love Boys by the Pretenders, Message in a Bottle by the Police, Jessica by the Allman Brothers and Warrant's Cherry Pie. Like 50's style then rock out with Miserlou or Rock this Town by the Stray Cats. Even groups like Heart get heard with their song Crazy on You. I have NOT given you a complete list of songs here, there are quite a few more including many bonus songs by esoteric bands and up and coming bands. The soundtrack for Guitar Hero II rocks and YOU ARE PLAYING IT!

What Else is New?

Well, if you recall, Guitar Hero let you do competition mode in which you and a friend each tried to play the same song to see who did better. Guitar Hero II does one better, CO OP mode. In co op mode, each song is broken down into two tracks on your screen, lead guitar and bass or rhythm guitar. The song is seamless, but two sets of notes slide down the screen for each of you to follow your part. I joined my son (albeit in EASY mode) to unlock all the bass guitars in co op mode (including the Hoffner bass made popular by SIR Paul McCartney when he was just Paul McCartney).

I had a blast playing simple songs like Rock This Town by the Stray Cats. The bass beat was easy to follow along as I went up and down the scales yellow red green yellow red green. Other songs, even in EASY mode, tested my skills to the max. I had to play rhythm guitar on Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird. Wow, this song goes and goes, it may be easy to listen to, but to play it is something else. Especially towards the end when the band really rocks out. What is really cool though is that you can really clearly hear your part, whether it be bass or rhythm against the lead guitar. Listen closely and you can pick out the melody and the beat of your guitar (or bass) part and with practice you get down into a groove. Jessica by the Allman brothers was also quite a difficult song with changes every few bars that I had to quickly match. The bass lines in heavy metal songs were actually pretty easy to follow along on, they just get played fast. I had fun even with complex bass lines like Heart's Crazy on You and the Police Message in a Bottle once I got the beat down.

While I held my own in EASY mode on Bass or Rhythm, Nick was insanely hitting notes and chords as they flew down in complex arrays in Hard or EXPERT mode. Yet, each of us were getting 85-97% notes hit. Sigh, my eleven year olds fingers move way faster than my 41 year old fingers. If you read my review of Guitar Hero, you will know that it inspired my son to take real guitar lessons. I am happy to report that with the purchase and playing of Guitar Hero II, he is also still playing the real guitar, and has learned the first few chords of Stairway to Heaven (which sadly is not here).

In short, My son and I had a blast rocking out on a pair of Gibson SG shaped controllers playing everything from classic heavy metal, speed metal, rock, alternative, garage, grunge and hardcore tunes present on Guitar Hero II. We may purchase a separate product which is a wireless Gibson Flying V that can be used with this game.

Face Off and Pro Face Off

In face off, my son and I could trade licks on our favorite songs. Notes to play alternate from the right track to the left track, and they are also played on the corresponding speaker. Both of you play guitar, and you may pick your mode, player and guitar.

On the Allman Brothers Jessica for example, the first few guitar notes of the solo wail from the left speaker as he plays effortlessly in Hard mode. Thanks to the games allowing each player to choose their own level, I am able to do a decent job to following up with the next solo that I jam out from the right speaker in EASY mode. We trade licks and solos back and forth 'til the song is done, it made us feel like we were really playing. My son and I like this mode, not so much as a competition, but because we can each just listen as the other plays as we trade the guitar parts back and forth. The counter keeps track of each of your scores.

In Pro face off, you are both at the same level, and you must both play the entire song. At the end the score tells you who won.

Practice Mode

YES, this is a great new feature of Guitar Hero II. Now you can pick whatever section of a song you are having trouble with and practice it. You can slow it down to get the basic rhythm down too. Practice mode lets you select from normal speed, and a couple slower modes. Also, when you play a song in career mode, if you look at your additional stats, you can see exactly which section of the song you nailed the notes on, and which sections you missed a lot, so you know exactly what you need to practice.

Graphics The graphics are fun, you get to watch your character rock out on stage with the outfit and guitar (or bass) that you picked. I liked Clive Winston for classic rockers, because he had the long handle bar mustache and long hair of classic rock stars. I also liked the three rock chicks (especially Judy Nails, she is hot in her pigtails and skirt) and the Slash lookalike Izzy Sparks. The players do all the things on stage that they do in real concerts, the rock back n forth, the guitar in the air, windmills, and even smashing and burning guitars after a song. The camera occasionally pans out to see the whole stage and at other times zooms in on your avatars face as he or she blisters their fingers along the fret board.

The graphics as you move from venue to venue during your progress are a hoot too. Check out the "sound effects" as your van, bus or luxury tour bus arrives at each new venue!

Sound Even though the original artists don't sing the songs, they all sound great. I have my PS2 hooked up through my stereo system, and the songs really rock here. It is also great because you can clearly hear the part of the song that you are following. It is much better and easier to rock along if you pay attention to your part of the song while you watch the notes, because then you get the rhythm down, and are much more likely to hit all the notes and get a great review. When we first hooked this up (we just moved to a new house), I only had it hooked up through the TV speakers. Sometimes the low bass was hard to hear using the cheesy sort of speakers that are in the TV. (most TVs have this problem) Guitar Hero II is worth hooking up to the stereo system because it really opens the songs up. You really cannot appreciate this game fully without hooking it up to your stereo. Not only could I clearly hear and listen to the bass beat when playing, but I could feel it. I also really like that the parts for each side are clearly from the left or right speaker. As we slammed out Message in a Bottle, my son's guitar lead wailed out of the left speaker, while Sting's deep bass riffs (performed by MOI!) rocked out from the right! The fact that the individual guitar or bass parts come from your speaker in coop and face off mode make it easy to follow along with your part. Even being the bass player ROCKS when you have Guitar Hero II hooked up to a proper stero system! The only thing that sounds bad is when you miss a note!

Summary Guitar Hero is one of the most original and fun games to come out on Playstation in ages. Guitar Hero II gives us more of the same and the added bonus of playing together. Even if Guitar Hero III and IV (please Red Octane, I want a III and IV) only came with another set of 50 plus songs each, I would go out and buy them. It is more fun than air guitar and not as complex as playing the real guitar. Maybe next they will come out with a keyboard controller, or a drum and saxophone controller and you could have a whole PS2 band!

In any event, Guitar Hero goes up to II (playing on the Spinal Tap joke, my amp goes up to eleven) and it gets a full five stars from my son and I. I have to go now, we are playing Jordan by Buckethead in co op mode. That song rocks!


Related Review:

Guitar Hero


Recommended: Yes