Guitar Hero 2

Get the game and start to rock -- but don’t rock too hard, you may hurt yourself.

Guitar Hero 2 contains a hell of a lot of awesome. A good chunk of this awesome lies in the replay-ability, as well as the songs and the sweat you build up when you play it properly.

If you haven’t played the original, watching Guitar Hero in action will remind you of Dance Dance Revolution’s ascending arrows. Instead of stomping on a giant D pad in time with music timed icons, you hold down the fret buttons on the controller and strum in time with music timed icons. Unlike DDR though, a selection of fine rock tracks ensure you will feel like the opposite of a tool in the process.

The songs ramp up in difficulty, from slow and melodic, to fast and melodic, to slow and complex, to fast and complex and finally to ‘put the ambulance on standby’ difficulty. Hitting a string of notes on time will not only increase your score and multiplier, it will give you a bonus ‘Star Power” mode which you can engage by swinging your guitar vertically. This will increase your multiplier again and send the crowd into a frenzy.

If you miss a series of notes, you’ll lose your multiplier. Miss enough and your Rock Meter (which indicates crowd approval) will drop, and if it drops far enough you’ll fail the song and have to restart it, or head off and practice it or the solo that sent you into the red, and then off the stage.

You play against a backdrop that represents the success of you and your band. They range from a school battle-of-the-bands setting all the way up to theatres and then the final scene, the definitive cradle of rock, Stonehenge. You can play at these locations in multiplayer once you’ve unlocked them, in co-operative or one of two versus modes: side by side guitar clash or song section battle.

Like the original, it’s a beautifully simple game that is easy to pick up, ramps up to frustratingly difficult, and is thoroughly satisfying from start to finish – that is if you ever finish, which is highly unlikely.

In the face of the countless different kinds of awesome, there are only three things that hold it back. You can’t watch or save replays of your performance, which would be nice after a particularly crowd melting performance or for some ghost competition. There’s also a difficulty divide: medium is too easy, hard too hard. It’s out of place when put next to the difference in difficulty between easy and medium and hard and expert.

The last problem is beyond the game’s control. There are certain people, who we’ll refer to as blasphemers, who will utter the words “why not play a real guitar?” and refuse to play the game after you try to convert them invite them to play. How you deal with these people will separate you from the other rock gods.

What's one better than Guitar Hero 2, we hear you ask? Guitar Hero 3 of course! Check out our preview here to see what's new, what's changed and why you should consult a finger and hand specialist in your area for when the Dragonforce variant of carpal tunnel syndrome sets in. You'll also find out what the Dragonforce variant of carpal tunnel syndrome is.