Guitar Hero II

Guitar Hero II thankfully has all of the extras missing in its predecessor, Guitar Hero. Not only do you have cooperative play added for rhythm and bass guitars, Guitar Hero II also steps up play tremendously with riffs that are a lot harder than in the original. While Guitar Hero II doesn't have the fantastic list of hard rock favorites that the original did, you will still be able to conquer the stage with learned songs and be challenged to perform thosesongs withexpertise. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. Practice mode has been included in this version of the video game which allows you plenty of time to master a particularly difficult solo, or series before you attempt the live test. Guitar Hero II is packed with speedy solos, and lightening riffs. Once you've learned a song, you know it inside and out.

The video game uses a guitar controller which has a strum button, and whammy bar. Play consists of using the fret buttons on the controller and strumming while keeping time to the music. If you miss too many notes, you will fail the song. If you are really rockin', you gain star power with each song played skillfully. The song selections in the game range from Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil to Van Halen You Really Got Me along with some good picks from Aerosmith, Guns 'N Roses, The Police, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Nirvana, The Rolling Stones and others. As you progress in play, you can unlock other songs to learn. There are 40 major songs, and 24 from bands not quite so famous, but definitely rockable. The lead singers for the bands sound reasonably like the original artist, with a couple of exceptions. There are only a couple of songs that feature the original singer. The rest are covers.

Guitar Hero II has a huge difference in level of difficulty than Guitar Hero did. The difference between medium difficulty versus hard versus expert is expansive. The hard difficulty level for many songs compares to the expert level of Guitar Hero.

Solos abound in this version, and you'll find yourself hard-pressed to keep up due to the increased emphasis on speed play and difficulty of some of the more insane solos. Most of the songs are geared toward playing fast and furious and hard. Not only do you have to keep up, but the additional chord button requires even more dexterity and focus to master certain songs. A plus that has been improved for the game is the technique to perform hammer-ons and pull-offs has been reworked which helps for some of the crazy solos combinations.

Practice mode is a fantastic addition to this game. Not only can you break a song down by speed ( slow crawl ), you can also break a song into sections to master some of the trickier stanzas. You can start at any section you like, and test yourself on it to see if you need more practice in that particular section.

You'll spend most of your time in career mode unlocking songs, guitars, costumes, and other characters. You can earn money to spend at the store on whatever you want. Some very cool unique items wait to be unlocked, like Gibson guitars and other specialty items.

You can still play multiplayer mode, but it has been revamped to allow players to play an entire song together instead of having to trade off sections of the song. The cooperative play allow players to play a different instrument, like bass, and also allows each player to select their own difficulty level for the instrument chosen. A definite plus for those less with less experience.

In cooperative play mode, the bass is harder to hear, but players are given a visual meter to display how they are doing. The meter is shared as is the star power given for successful song completion. The down side is if the other player is playing badly, you both could fail the song.

Guitar Hero II visually has had many improvements for stage sets, costumes, and characters. It is bigger and better all around with the exception of some of the musical selections included with the game. Look forward to 11 solos, and several songs that are extremely lengthy to play. If you decide to try this game, keep in mind for this go around its all about overcoming the advanced difficulty levels. The tracks included aren't quite as good as Guitar Hero, but you get to rock on with a greater challenge.

Summary

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