02-16-2007
AGiR: Guitar Hero II
Have you always wanted to be a killer electric guitar player in a crazy-insane-rock band? Me neither, but never-the-less I found myself with a red axe slung over my shoulder jammin’ away to Rock and Roll hits from the eighties, nineties and the todayties. Guitar Hero II places you in the stud-encrusted leather high-heel boots of a lead guitar player for an up-and-coming band, and the outcome is about as good as it gets where interactive gaming is concerned. “Wii? We don’t need no stinkin’ Wii!”
Out of the Case:
Upon opening up the over-sized game box, there’s an added sense of excitement as you almost feel like you’ve just purchased a real guitar. The creators put together a pretty decent toy here, and even added a few non-essential bells and whistles. (Yeah I know, any “bells and whistles” would be non-essential to a guitar, but I’m short on cliches today.)
As you can see, the guitar consists of 5 colored buttons representing frets/notes, a switch-button used for strumming, start and select buttons, and a whammy bar. (This is probably my favorite part, but we’ll get to that later.) It also includes a most necessary shoulder strap, as well as some not-so-necessary stickers. “Stickers? We don’t need no stinkin’ stickers! OR a Wii!”
Plug it in, and you’re ready to rock!
Can you hear me rockin’:
The game is about as simple as it comes in regards to setup. You select a file to save your progress on, pick a band name, and select your preferred mode of play. Of course there’s a single player campaign (where you work your way up from playing in basements and garages to auditoriums and stadiums by unlocking and beating new songs), multiplayer (go head-to-head for the best score, or play together playing separate parts like lead/bass/rhythm and try and get a combined high-score), and a practice mode where you can make as many mistakes as you want without penalization. The game has a variety of characters and guitars that you can unlock and purchase, but in the end these are all but pointless as you never have time to look at anything other than the scrolling notes that are flying your way. Did someone say “game mechanics”? Oooh, let’s!
Instructions (English)
The way the game is played is just like any other music-based interactive game. Colored notes descend along the neck of the “virtual guitar” towards stationary buttons with positions and colors corresponding to those on the gui-troller. You must have the correct button(s) pressed when the notes match up with the buttons to successfully pull off said note. In addition, for every note/chord set, you must also hit the strumming switch, or the note won’t play. You’ll know the second you miss a note, because the game separates the tracks of the music, meaning you’re actually “playing” the song, as it were. If you miss a note, the guitar track mutes, and gives you a not-so-nice sounding “plink” indicating that you just totally screwed up in front of thousands of people. Way to go, jerk. Now we won’t be able to make rent.
Each note/chord is worth points, and for every 10 you play in succession, you get a score multiplier. Throughout the song, the circular note icons will change to stars, and if you hit all of the notes during this time, you’ll be awarded “star power”, which will slowly fill up the blue gauge above the “rock” meter. Once this gauge is filled half-way or more, you can activate the “crowd boost”, which doubles your score multiplier. To do this, you actually have to tilt your guitar up in the air like you’re about to rock the house, and an internal level activates the boost. Very cool in theory, but if you’re not that experienced it can cause you to mess up your next note. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to activate without fear.
There are 4 different levels of difficulty: Easy, medium, hard and expert. Easy uses only the green, red and yellow buttons. Medium adds blue, and hard and expert add orange. Also, the harder difficulty level you have, the more notes you have to play, and at a faster rate. I tried a song on expert, and the game told me my controller must be experiencing “technical difficulties”. It wasn’t. I was just a geek who thought I could play guitar.
yes whammy, yes whammy, yes whammy, ROCK!
The wammy bar brings and extra sense of realism to the table, and really increases the fun, too. As you can see from the above image, some notes are longer than others, indicated by a long bar. When you reach these longer spots, press that bar down for some most-excellent sounding vibrato. The whammy bar isn’t a vital part of the game, but it does “extract” more star power if you use it during long star-notes. This is the part of the game that makes you think you’re actually a great guitar player. But you’re not. You’re just a geek. A geek who thinks he can play guitar).
Al in all there are over 60 tracks, with 40 by artists and bands that we’ve all head of. With song’s like Kiss’ “Strutter”, “Message in a Bottle” by The Police, and “Carry on Wayward Son” by Kansas, the quality of the songs is top-notch. There are also 24 songs from bands that you’ve probably never heard of. Included in these (much to my surprise and joy), is a full version of “Trogdor” performed by our favorite shirtless, mask-ed, glov-ed boxer… Strong Bad. (click for video)
Curtain Call
When I first heard about this game I really didn’t think it was the type of tea that I’d put in my cup, but I was happily mistaken. GHII is a comprehensive, fun and addicting ride that’s just as much fun to play on your own as it is with a friend. The game will undoubtedly help you with your rhythm, though staring so incessantly at the screen can lead to burning eyes, as well as a freaky optical illusion from watching those notes scroll by for 4 minutes straight. When you look away at another object, your eyes make it look like it’s being compressed from top to bottom. But, all in all, this title accomplishes everything it sets out to do, which is to make us think we’re really good guitar players. But we’re not. we’re just geeks who think we can play guitar.
SCORE: Burninating
Posted by Jordan in Video Game Reviews | RSS 2.0
It certainly was… eerie watching you play. I must admit I’m just not cool enough to try it myself (or maybe it’s that I already play guitar, so I don’t need to pretend?)
Oh, and while it sounds like Strong Bad, I assure you that it’s actually Limozeen who performs Trogdor.
Dude. You need a stinkin’ Wii. :p
dude i’ve played GHII and i honestly think that GHIII is like much better. But rock band is like 1000 times better
Could you possibly give me a free copy of GHIII lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With the game system you play it on lolololololollolololololololololololololololololol.
search trudycouldeatyou on youtube and look at those videos hes pretty good
Well said.
gh2 is realy fun so why don’t all of u give him a brake/ tom morello and slash and joe perry for life!!
I really can’t believe that people are still leaving comments 1 year and a half after I wrote this article… :p