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Guitar Hero has had an amazing ride in just two games. Its solid start two Novembers ago quickly bloomed into a full-on gaming phenomenon by the end of that Christmas season, and the sequel only brought in more fans and fanatics. The Guitar Hero style of rocking out with a plastic guitar captured the hearts of both the hardcore and casual gamer, and deserved every bit of attention it got on the PS2. Now Guitar Hero II is available on the 360, and the transition has made it even better than before.
The basic gameplay is the same, of course. What looks like the belt from a treadmill scrolls down the screen carrying colored pips that correspond to the five fret buttons on the guitar. Hold the fret button on the guitar's neck that corresponds to the one on screen, strum the bar on the guitar's body, and do it on the beat. Some notes have a trail after them, indicating the fret needs to be held, and sometimes frets come in pairs for a chord. The rock meter keeps track of how well you're doing, and the score multiplier keeps the points rolling in. Put it all together with some great music and you've got Guitar Hero, one of the best music rhythm games ever made.
It's the kind of pure fun that makes the higher difficulties look like a great challenge rather than hard work, and there's no better kind of gaming addiction than that.
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Guitar Hero II adds some new twists to the original's formula. First and foremost are the enhancements to multiplayer, and especially the addition of co-op. Each player chooses their own difficulty and whether they want to play lead or bass/rhythm guitar, and then they work together to make loud and beautiful music. Both players share one rock meter, and activating star power means both need to hold the guitar up at the same time. There's competitive too, and it's even set up so that both players can work the exact same note-track for a fair score comparison, but nothing beats the fun of working with a friend to get through a great co-op song. About the only way to make it better would have been online play, but that's going to have to wait for the sequel.
The game mechanics got a few small tweaks as well. Nailing a rapidly ascending or descending chain of notes with only one strum (hammer-ons and pull-offs) is a bit easier this time, with a somewhat more forgiving timing in changing frets. This is offset by a harder difficulty level, with songs being slightly trickier this time around on Normal, and much more evil on Expert. Toss on three-note chords and there's plenty to keep your fingers flying. As hard as it gets, though, it's still easier than playing a real guitar.
For the 360 version of Guitar Hero II, ten new songs have been added that nicely offset the extra $10 in price over its PS2 version. The soundtrack still comes off focused on loud, crunchy guitar, such as "Killing in the Name" or "Shout at the Devil," though. There are a handful of tunes like "Jessica," "Crazy on You," and the brutally tough "Misrilou" to balance it out, but the track selection just doesn't come off as diverse as the original Guitar Hero's.
But that's where the downloadable content comes in. At time of writing there are three available packs with three songs apiece, all from the original game, priced at a wallet-gouging $6.25 a pop. Oddly enough, downloading has to be done from the 360's front-end, with no in-game option at all. Still, once retrieved the new tunes show up at the bottom of the track list, below the regular tunes and the bonus songs. With 74 songs available in the main game, it's a long ride down to the downloads.
A few menu issues and questionable download decisions aren't enough to hold the core game of Guitar Hero II from greatness, though. Guitar Hero sets out to rock hard and succeeds perfectly. The new songs on the disc are a great bonus, and the upgraded graphics are nice to see, but this is just icing on a ridiculously fun cake. The central gameplay of Guitar Hero conveys the feeling of rocking out better than anything short of being on stage in front of a crowd of thousands, guitar in hand and years of practice ingrained in the soul. It's the kind of pure fun that makes the higher difficulties look like a great challenge rather than hard work, and there's no better kind of gaming addiction than that.
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