There are over seventy songs in the game and you are sure to find something you like whether it be from the 70s or today – hits like Crazy on You, Heart Shaped Box, Sweet Child O’Mine and Message In A Bottle are all included. Unfortunately most of the songs are covers which is a disappointment. The Toadies’ song “Possum Kingdom” however is the original song, which is fantastic. The cover songs range from passable to downright awful. Just like in the PS2 game the Nirvana cover is not very good from a vocal standpoint. Neither is the new for the Xbox 360 Pearl Jam song, “Life Wasted.” The vocal for this song seems muted and the music overpowers the vocal, which definitely doesn’t happen in the real song.
Thankfully this game really isn’t about the vocals, it’s about the music and the game shines here. It’s like playing air guitar, rocking out to your favorite music, but actually having a guitar. The game will give you some hand cramps, so take your time and take a break (unlike the pitcher for the Tigers last year who had to skip a start because of Guitar Hero tendonitis – check out the credits for a cute comment about this). With the multiple difficulty levels, anyone will be able to enjoy this game. If you already are familiar with the songs, you’ll have an edge because you’ll know right when to strum if you have any sense of rhythm. For me, songs like Message In A Bottle were much easier to complete than Psychobilly Freakout, because I already knew the beats. No matter what happens, finishing the game on hard mode or better really gives you quite a sense of achievement.
The game’s training mode is very helpful to new players and there’s also a practice mode where you can take any song you like at any difficulty level and focus just on an area that causes problems for you. This comes in extremely handy on the expert levels.
As mentioned before, the game does not have online multiplayer but does have offline multiplayer. With two players you can play co-operative or competitive. In co-operative mode, one player takes the role of guitarist and the other player will play bass. It is a lot of fun, but only if you shell out another $60 for a second guitar, making this a very expensive game. Of course, the assumption is that more games using the guitar controller will be made, which will reduce the effective cost over time; however at this point for one game it’s pricey.
The game has quite a few achievements; the drawback with this is that each achievement is for a small number of points. Achievements include the mundane like viewing the credits to the more challenging like play a song as a lefty and score one million points on one song. There are quite a few multiplayer achievements so it’s best you have a friend with a second guitar to help out.
If you’ve never played a game in the Guitar Hero series, this is definitely the game to get of the three games released It is expected to have downloadable content of even more songs (rumor has it some of the original Guitar Hero 1 songs will be released) and there’s still a hope that online multiplayer will be available. Even if it isn’t, if you have any appreciation for music and ever wanted to play guitar without all those expensive and time consuming lessons, Guitar Hero 2 rocks and is definitely the game for you.
