Screenshots :.
Guitar Hero 2
PS2
Jay
13-04-2007
"Rockin' out!"
"Thrash your mates!"
Ah yes, it’s time to rock! What better way to do it but to invite family and friends around, cane a bottle and a half of red (not encouraged) and watch everyone make complete tits of themselves. Ok, so that’s my recipe for rocking out, make your own. Guitar Hero II not only improves on it’s predecessor, but causes some sort of weird addiction involving your girlfriend actually liking…a computer game!
Getting passed the syncing problems with the first one and that God awful ‘Cowboys From Hell’ track, the 2nd improves greatly with not only a more comprehensive track and a manic multiplayer mode – with pro features…yes that’s right, you can look like you’re going through your mid-life crisis in multiples. Groovy.
You’ll start the game with the basics. Once you’ve completed your not-so-comprehensive training session (if you’ve got the patience rockers!), you can go straight into your career as a wanabee-rocker. In this mode you’ll go to a variety of venues and get to play your choice of 4 tracks for the venue. Usually you’ll have to complete 3 out of the 4 tracks at which point you’ll get an encore (Think of it as a hidden track) which you can unlock. The tracks get progressively harder regardless of which difficulty setting your attempting your career on (Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert).
You’ll find that your hand-eye coordination starts off a little on the lame side, which is why ‘Easy’ will have you focus your attempts on the first 3 notes of the guitar. Medium will push you further by introducing note 4, chords and more notes. Hard will of course bring out the final note and feature a variety of ways to hold chords and push your limitations with a hell of a lot more notes. Expert is just silly. This setting is for people who have no lives, who want to spend their entire day in front of a T.V. doing the same damn track over and over again. I’m currently working through Expert at the moment sure, but that’s because I have a natural affinity for the guitar…what?
When you’ve got to grips well enough to not feel like a complete arse in front of your mates and family, you can go one step further by having a multiplayer session. If, like me you’ve managed to spread the word on this ridiculously addictive game, several of your mates will go out and get themselves a copy too. At this point, jack in the other guitar and get ready to go toe-to-toe against your friend-for-not-much-longer or work through cooperatively to complete a track. What’s more, the really nice thing is each player can do it on whatever difficulty he or she feels comfortable with.
Undoubtedly the music in this game is excellent. Each track has been tailor created for the game, and some of the vocalists do a really good job to copy the artists – most impressive for me was Police’s track ‘Message in a Bottle’. However, it’s not just that, but it sounds great through my Dolby set up, and annoys the hell out of the neighbors…which quite frankly is the most important part of this game.
The band all react to the music and animate in accordance with what they should be doing, be that playing an amazing, multi-fingered solo or singing those high notes. You not only get a score and a aren’t-I-doing-well-multiplier but a rock meter and some Star Power to boot. Please the crowd and your rock meter stays in the green, play like a deranged muppet and it’ll go into the red…and then you’ll fail…and die lonely. So keep it in the green, and hit all those stars! Yes that’s right, hitting stars gives you some strange ability to become possessed by the God of Rock and double your multiplier, making everyone love you even if you were playing crap 5 seconds ago. Genius.
So is there actually a downside to all of this? Well…not really. The only pain-in-the-arse factor of this game is if the CD stuggles* to read for a micro-second. At this point the track will go out of sync with no way of getting back into sync without quitting out of the track and going back in. Ultimately this is a combination of an abundance of dust and scratched CD’s…seeing as my CD was perfect I’ve thrown the PS2 at the window in true rock fashion and bought a new one. End of.
I could continue to waffle about this, but basically you should just go out and get a copy. Invite your family around and watch as they make a complete mockery of themselves at your expense.
* Matt liked the typo so much he made me keep it. Bully.
Getting passed the syncing problems with the first one and that God awful ‘Cowboys From Hell’ track, the 2nd improves greatly with not only a more comprehensive track and a manic multiplayer mode – with pro features…yes that’s right, you can look like you’re going through your mid-life crisis in multiples. Groovy.
You’ll start the game with the basics. Once you’ve completed your not-so-comprehensive training session (if you’ve got the patience rockers!), you can go straight into your career as a wanabee-rocker. In this mode you’ll go to a variety of venues and get to play your choice of 4 tracks for the venue. Usually you’ll have to complete 3 out of the 4 tracks at which point you’ll get an encore (Think of it as a hidden track) which you can unlock. The tracks get progressively harder regardless of which difficulty setting your attempting your career on (Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert).
You’ll find that your hand-eye coordination starts off a little on the lame side, which is why ‘Easy’ will have you focus your attempts on the first 3 notes of the guitar. Medium will push you further by introducing note 4, chords and more notes. Hard will of course bring out the final note and feature a variety of ways to hold chords and push your limitations with a hell of a lot more notes. Expert is just silly. This setting is for people who have no lives, who want to spend their entire day in front of a T.V. doing the same damn track over and over again. I’m currently working through Expert at the moment sure, but that’s because I have a natural affinity for the guitar…what?
When you’ve got to grips well enough to not feel like a complete arse in front of your mates and family, you can go one step further by having a multiplayer session. If, like me you’ve managed to spread the word on this ridiculously addictive game, several of your mates will go out and get themselves a copy too. At this point, jack in the other guitar and get ready to go toe-to-toe against your friend-for-not-much-longer or work through cooperatively to complete a track. What’s more, the really nice thing is each player can do it on whatever difficulty he or she feels comfortable with.
Undoubtedly the music in this game is excellent. Each track has been tailor created for the game, and some of the vocalists do a really good job to copy the artists – most impressive for me was Police’s track ‘Message in a Bottle’. However, it’s not just that, but it sounds great through my Dolby set up, and annoys the hell out of the neighbors…which quite frankly is the most important part of this game.
The band all react to the music and animate in accordance with what they should be doing, be that playing an amazing, multi-fingered solo or singing those high notes. You not only get a score and a aren’t-I-doing-well-multiplier but a rock meter and some Star Power to boot. Please the crowd and your rock meter stays in the green, play like a deranged muppet and it’ll go into the red…and then you’ll fail…and die lonely. So keep it in the green, and hit all those stars! Yes that’s right, hitting stars gives you some strange ability to become possessed by the God of Rock and double your multiplier, making everyone love you even if you were playing crap 5 seconds ago. Genius.
So is there actually a downside to all of this? Well…not really. The only pain-in-the-arse factor of this game is if the CD stuggles* to read for a micro-second. At this point the track will go out of sync with no way of getting back into sync without quitting out of the track and going back in. Ultimately this is a combination of an abundance of dust and scratched CD’s…seeing as my CD was perfect I’ve thrown the PS2 at the window in true rock fashion and bought a new one. End of.
I could continue to waffle about this, but basically you should just go out and get a copy. Invite your family around and watch as they make a complete mockery of themselves at your expense.
* Matt liked the typo so much he made me keep it. Bully.
10/10