The rise of the Guitar Hero franchise is one of the best success stories in modern gaming. The work of a small, relatively unknown development team with a resume full of cult hits, the game required an expensive peripheral to play properly and didn’t boast the most impressive presentation values. Regardless, the game became a mainstream sensation and has done more for the expansion of the videogame market than any motion controller or downloadable service simply by providing people who love music the chance to experience it in a new way. After a year and half of serving as Sony’s most valuable exclusive property Guitar Hero II has finally joined the multiplatform club and Xbox 360 gamers finally have their chance to rock out.
Gameplay
The Guitar Hero games follow the same general design as Dance Dance Revolution and other rhythm & music games: a musical track plays and the player must react appropriately to on-screen indicators that light up in time with the music. In this case the indicators on-screen are combinations five color-coded circles, each of which corresponds to one of five buttons arranged along the neck of the game’s special guitar-shaped controller. Players have to press the correct buttons on the neck of the guitar and hit the strum button in time with the music to actually play the chord properly – miss-time it, and the note comes off as a discordant screech.
Chaining together strings of perfectly-timed chords will rack up points and point multipliers, and players can quadruple their multipliers by tilting back the guitar and activating ‘star power.’ The challenge comes by way of the speed, rhythm and complexity of the chords involved with each track. Each of the four difficulty modes adds an additional layer of complexity to the songs – gaps between key chords are filled with increasing numbers of faster off-beat notes and sustained notes are complemented by shifting harmonious chords. If the player fails to play enough of the chords correctly then the performance will be cancelled outright amidst the boos of the in-game audience, but most players will have to try to get kicked off stage on the first two difficulty settings, especially since Harmonix has adjusted some of the tracks to smooth the difficulty curve. Hard and Expert modes on the other hand provide a great deal of challenge. As players progress through the campaign mode they’ll unlock new tracks and earn money that can be spent on new equipment, clothing and characters.
A game like Guitar Hero II lives and dies by its song list, and for the most part Harmonix did a fine job with the selections. The heavy metal, hard rock and alternative genres (or ‘the important genres’ as we call them) are all accounted for, but some of the choices seem a little odd. ‘Heart Shaped Box’ for example is a great song, but it’s a song that sounds great without relying heavily on exciting guitar work. Kurt Cobain’s voice provided most of the passion and energy in that song, leaving the player to deal with a fairly simplistic guitar melody. Harmonix obviously got the go ahead to use Nirvana material, so why not include ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ which is built on one of the most instant-recognizable, catchy, and energetic guitar riffs ever created? Thankfully those out-of-place tracks are counter-balanced by the likes of ‘Sweet Child of Mine’, ‘War Pigs’, ‘Mother’ and ‘Hanger 18’. Hell, even the cheesiest glam rock tunes are enjoyable when you’re the one hammering out the chorus.
Xbox 360 version also includes ten new songs from artists like Pearl Jam, Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, Rick Derringer, and My Chemical Romance among others, some of which stand out as some of the best tracks in the game. As great as bonus content is, nothing makes Xbox 360 owners as giddy as the prospect of downloadable content. Harmonix has confirmed that the entire tracklist from the first Guitar Hero will eventually be available for download, but there’s still no official ETA or inventory for the first DLC delivery. It’s also plausible that the Xbox 360 version will receive even more exclusive tracks by way of the marketplace. The revelation that the 360 version of GH2 would not feature online co-operative or competitive play was a crippling disappointment for many, but the developer has tried to dull the sting with detailed leaderboards that track stats for the entire career and specific songs, in addition to top-notch implementation of achievements. The drive to beat the top score and snag each and every achievement point should keep players’ minds of the fact that they can’t play online, at least for awhile.
Multiplayer
There are only two problems with the multiplayer component of Guitar Hero 2. First of all, it’s expensive. The game costs $89.99 bundled with the guitar and the game is hollow shell of its potential greatness without the peripheral. The second problem is that the game only supports two players at once; even if parties involved are willing to gather all the consoles, TVs and guitars necessary for a larger group via split-screen over system-link, the game doesn’t support it. Round robin works for groups larger than two people since those without the controllers in their hands usually manage to entertain themselves by singing along or encouraging/distracting the players, but considering how fun the game is with two, it could have been amazing with four. Hopefully the upcoming Rock Band will fill that void. As long as you don’t mind taking turns with the guitars, both the cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes provide hours of entertainment – and if you’re of age, adding alcohol to the mix only increases the fun.
Controller
Let’s be honest – even if the guitar included with Guitar Hero II were a half-assed effort that had a tendency to spontaneously combust during use, it would still make for a better experience than playing the game with a controller. Thankfully, Red Octane wasn’t lazy. The Xbox 360 guitar controller is based off of the Gibson X-plorer, and in addition to looking better than its PS2 counterpart it feels a lot more solid as well. The strum button doesn’t feel as loose as it did on the PS2 models of the guitar and the neck buttons stand slightly higher above the frets and feel stiffer. The Xbox 360 guide button sits alongside a d-pad on the base of the guitar and gives players the ability to navigate the dashboard without switching to a standard controller. The start and select buttons reside close by, but are placed so close together that trying to pause and restart a track is now a minor pain in the ass. Those that prefer to use the select button to activate star mode will probably take even greater issue with the button position. Finally, in addition to a jack for the Xbox Live Communicator the guitar features another mysterious input that most believe will connect to other peripherals like effects pedals. When all is said and done, Red Octane’s X-plorer guitar is easily the highest quality third-party peripheral available for the Xbox 360.
Audio/Visual
From a graphics standpoint, Guitar Hero II does nothing to push the Xbox 360 hardware. While it’s somewhat disappointing that Harmonix didn’t put more effort in bolstering the presentation values for their first jaunt onto a next generation platform, it’s actually pretty easy to forgive given the obvious care they’ve put into improving and extending the gameplay experience. Then there’s the simple fact that players will be spending most of their time focusing on colored buttons scrolling along the bottom half of the screen, and it’s not as though extensive bump-mapping or reflections would have made a huge impact. The characters rendered on-screen during the songs didn’t look great on the PS2, and still don’t look particularly appealing on the 360. They’ve received a slight bump in poly-count, some higher-res texturing and stand in better lighting, but they still belie the last-gen roots of the game’s graphics engine.
Bad covers are universally hated by music lovers (Madonna will never live down her ‘American Pie’ debacle), and they are the only major weakness in an otherwise stellar aural package. Some songs suffer more than others, but those that stand out will be extremely irritating for fans of the band. Zack de la Rocha was never the greatest vocalist, but guy covering him in Guitar Hero II will make you appreciate his range. Kurt Cobain’s voice is damn near impossible for singers to replicate since he learned to sing improperly (a fact that cost him his throat on more than one occasion), and that fact will be all the more obvious for Nirvana fans that have to bear the cover of ‘Heart Shaped Box’. For some reason, the covers for the Megadeath and Iron Maiden tracks are worse in Guitar Hero II than they were in the original Guitar Hero. Finally, all of the songs have been balanced such that the lead guitar parts are clearly audible – in some cases, this change has led the songs to sound less appealing than the original versions.
The Xbox 360 hardware gave Harmonix the chance to give the audio in Guitar Hero II a major overhaul and they sure as hell didn’t let the opportunity pass them by. Every single track has been re-mastered to take advantage of the console’s DD 5.1 support and they sound amazing blasting out of a surround sound system. Those without surround sound set-ups will only hear a subtle improvement over the PS2 version.
Overall
More songs, better sound, a sexier guitar and online functionality. The Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II is the definitive entry in Harmonix’s phenomenal rhythm and music game series. Hardcore fans that have already played the game on the PS2 should give this version a look now for the ten new tracks, or in the very least keep their eye on it until the first batch of completely new songs hits the Xbox Live Marketplace. Anyone that hasn’t had the chance to experience the hottest franchise in gaming today should close their eyes, take a deep breath, hand the cashier the $90 and get ready to rock.
