Guitar Hero II Review (X360)

The Guitar Hero games represent two of the most addictive and fun games to come out in the last several years, and now we can finally experience the fun on Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II includes extra songs, downloadable content, leaderboards, and enhanced graphics that set it a step above the PS2 version. There isn’t any sort of online play and we’re not really fans of the new guitar design, but Guitar Hero II on Xbox 360 is still an amazing game that is highly recommended.

Features

Guitar Hero II features 74 songs, most of them covers rather than the master track from the real artists, but they all sound pretty good. There is a nice mix of major labels, smaller bands, and many different genres of music that is sure to keep everyone happy. Music games rely 100% on the strength of their soundtrack, and Guitar Hero II has one of the best soundtracks ever. There are a handful of modes including career, quick play, and a practice mode where you can adjust the difficulty and speed of the songs and even play bass or rhythm guitar instead of lead. And then there is the multiplayer mode. You’ll need two guitar controllers for multiplayer, but it is worth it. You can play competitively to try and get a higher score than your friend, or you can play co-op where one of you is lead and the other plays rhythm/bass. Co-op is nice because you both have different parts to play rather than just playing identical notes. You can also use different difficulty levels between the two players in co-op, so if one person is a hard/expert player and the other person isn’t, you can scale them back to easy/medium so they can enjoy themselves too.

Gameplay

The gameplay is Guitar Hero II centers around the guitar controller you use. There are five fret buttons on the neck, and a strum bar down in the body of the guitar, and the idea is you have to hit the correct fret button and strum at the same time as colored notes scroll down the screen. It is very similar to Amplitude or Dance Dance Revolution. As you play, you will also come across special notes that fill your “Rock Meter”. When it is filled, you can activate “Star Power” by holding the guitar straight up in the air. This gives you a score bonus and also can save you from certain doom if you are close to failing a song.

There are four difficulty levels, ranging from easy to expert, and the learning curve is perfectly balanced. The more you play, the better you get, and the higher difficulties you can tackle. You will also learn how and when to utilize more advanced techniques such as hammer-ons and power-offs, which will make those seemingly impossible solos much easier to beat. It really is all about taking your time and letting the game come to you. I guarantee you that if you jump straight into hard or expert, you will be overwhelmed. But if you start on easy and work your way up, by the time you get to hard and expert you’ll have the skills you need to beat it.

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