If you're not familiar with how Guitar Hero plays, allow us to educate you: You're presented with a vertically scrolling bar with five grooves, featuring coloured markers which move down the screen as the music plays. Each of these coloured markers represents one of the different coloured fret buttons on the guitar peripheral. By holding the appropriate coloured fret button and hammering the strummer at the right time, you strum a note. Mess up the timing, and you're given a mangled, out-of-tune note in return. Single notes are shown with just a solitary marker, while long notes have a trail behind them, indicating that the appropriate fret button must be held for that length of time.
Rockin' on the 360.
While initially simple, things soon get more complicated when chords are introduced, and you have to hold two buttons at once and strum. Miss these notes and the ‘Rock’ meter in the bottom right corner of the screen will go down. Go too far into the red, and it's game over. On the flip side of that, hitting many notes in a row will start a combo. Every time you hit ten notes in a row, you will earn a multiplier to your score, ranging from 2x to 4x score bonus. In addition to that, there are special star-shaped notes littered throughout each of the songs. Hit these sequences without missing, and you’ll fill up your ‘Star Power’ meter. Once this is full enough, you can activate it by holding your guitar vertically, and instantly double your multiplier to as much as 8 times its normal score. This is obviously the key to gaining the high scores, but can also come in handy for getting out of trouble during the more difficult parts of songs.
Beginners to the franchise will appreciate the four difficulty levels in the game: Easy, Normal, Hard and Expert. Easy mode only features three fret buttons, Normal uses four, while the notes become more complex and the bar speed increases. Hard mode features all five fret buttons, and speeds the bar up again. The final setting, Expert, increases the bar speed and is an incredible challenge. Even if you never get to the Expert mode it's still rather satisfying completing a song on any difficulty level though.
Guitar Hero II comes bundled with a guitar peripheral, a replica of the Gibson X-plorer. It's a little bit different to the PlayStation 2 version, which came with a Gibson SG replica. Veterans of the series will instantly recognise the minor changes on the X-Plorer. A d-pad has been added, which makes it easier to scroll through the menus, and the Xbox Guide button has also been included. Start and Back are still on the guitar, but are a little more difficult to press. There's also space to plug in your Xbox 360 headset. If you played the PlayStation 2 version religiously, then you'll definitely notice the differences, but the X-Plorer is still sufficient. Disappointingly though, it's a corded controller, which feels like a bit of a step back. It's expected tha RedOctane will soon release a wireless version, but it would have been better if a wireless guitar controller shipped with the game.
Guitar Hero II is set up in such a way that you can jump straight into a song and be performing like a hero within minutes. If you're new to the franchise, there's a training option and some interactive tutorials. Having undertaken the tutorial last year for the PlayStation 2 version, we can say that the tutorial covers everything you need to learn about playing the game. There is also a Quick Play option, where you can select any of the songs you've unlocked in Career mode and play through them. The career mode is where you'll spend most of your time though. You'll start off as a nobody but, if you keep performing well, you'll unlock new venues, new sponsors and Achievements. As you progress through the career mode, you'll also earn money which can be used to purchase new outfits and characters. You can also choose the difficulty level for the Career mode, ideal for those who are just starting out with the game.
Equal opportunity, '80s style.
The Xbox 360 version includes ten new exclusive tracks. "Dead!" by My Chemical Romance and Possum Kingdom by Toadies are both masterful tracks. The other track inclusions are "Salvation" by Rancid, "Life Wasted" by Pearl Jam, "Billion Dollar Babies" by Alice Cooper, "Hush" by Deep Purple, "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo" by Rick Derringer, "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden, "Drink Up" by Ounce of Self and "Kicked to the Curb" by Noble Rot.
The Guitar Hero II pack only includes one X-Plorer guitar, but when you add another X-Plorer the game becomes even more enjoyable. There are three multiplayer modes - Face-off, Co-operative and Pro Face-off. In Face-off, two players have to compete against each other while playing on the same note chart. In co-operative play both players work together to try and get the highest possible score. One player plays the lead, while player two plays the rhythm guitar or bass guitar. With both the Face-off and Co-operative modes, players can actually play on different difficulty levels without being disadvantaged, which is great for when you're playing those who are new to the game. Finally, the Pro face-off mode has two players battling it out with the same note chart at the same time on the same difficulty level.
Guitar Hero II supports Xbox Live in a big way. The game includes support for downloadable content, meaning that in the coming weeks and months we can expect to see more songs up on the Marketplace. It's the Xbox Live features of Guitar Hero II that really set the game apart from its PlayStation 2 brethren; we're sure that the game will get a lot of downloadable content and the possibilities for the such extras are endless. The game also lets you view online leaderboards, so you can see whether you really are a hero or a zero. Unfortunately online co-op isn't supported, which is a little disappointing; we wouldn't rule out the idea of seeing this feature in the future though.
Look familiar?
We touched on it earlier, but the Xbox 360 version also includes fifty Achievements, worth a total of 1000 points. Rather than just award Achievements for trivial tasks, it seems that the achievements have been really well thought out. Points are awarded for beating the tours, unlocking areas, achieving certain scores and even for failing a song. Getting the full 1000 points out of the game is (as it should be) an incredible challenge.
The Guitar Hero franchise has never been about the graphics, but the game does look noticeably better on the 360. The character models have been improved, and as you'd expect, everything looks a lot clearer in high definition. Guitar Hero II isn't the type of game that you get tired of after only a few hours. The game will continually get dragged out at parties, and just about anybody who tries the game will thoroughly enjoy it. With plenty of songs, multiple difficulty levels, support for downloadable content, difficult Achievements and a two-player mode, this game will last you a long, long time.
Guitar Hero II may seem a little pricey, but with so much content and an extra guitar, it's one of the easiest games we've had the pleasure of recommending. Even those who normally don't consider themselves fans of music games will enjoy Guitar Hero II - it's just so easy to pick up and play, yet so incredibly difficult to put down and master. An instant classic and a great addition to the Xbox 360 library.
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