Guitar Hero II
Activision
(Xbox360)



From the moment you put the strap over your shoulder, grasp the neck and rest your hand near the whammy bar, you feel like a Rock God. You instinctively take up the rock pose, recalling those hours of Rage and MTV you've watched, dreaming of being on stage with a guitar in your hand. And this is before you've even turned the console on! This is 'Guitar Hero II', and it rocks!

If you've never played 'Guitar Hero', it's a simple concept to grasp. It's a rhythm game like 'Dance Dance Revolution', 'Elite Beat Agent's or 'Donkey Konga', where you have to press buttons in time with musical notes on a screen. Unlike those games, 'Guitar Hero' isn't a beat based game, but relies on guitar chords played on a guitar shaped controller. Instead of pushing buttons, stamping your feet or hitting a drum, you play a guitar by holding down "fret buttons" and strumming in time with the action on the screen.

Never before have a game and game controller felt so perfect. Although the guitar looks like what it is - a cheap plastic toy - once the music starts playing, once the notes start scrolling down the page, once you start strumming, once the digital crowd starts screaming, you forget the plastic and you're on stage, holding a Gibson, rocking with the best. The combination of strumming and pressing buttons, and having to sometimes slide your fingers to nail a chord (two buttons at once) or hammer down a sequence with perfect timing is the ideal approximation of guitar playing, and feels so natural and exciting.

And unlike other rhythm games, the music that goes with the game is simply faultless. Guns'N'Roses, Nirvana, Janes Addiction, Motley Crew, Kiss, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Rage Against The Machine... the list of fantastic rock bands goes on and on. The Xbox360 version features 12 new tracks including Hush by Deep Purple, The Trooper by Iron Maiden, as well as Dead! by My Chemical Romance. And, with the Xbox Live service, the game will remain fresh by offering new songs in the near future. What those songs may be remains a mystery for the moment, but it's a good bet that we'll see 'Guitar Hero I' songs soon.

The other great thing about 'Guitar Hero II' is the multiplayer. Other rhythm games rarely offer anything but a competitive mode, and 'Guitar Hero''s Pro Face-Off mode will make the meekest person into an Olympic styled competitor, its co-operative mode is where it really shines. One can opt to play rhythm or lead or bass, and together you can rock out to the absolute max. The feeling after you and a friend nail a really hard song and get four or five stars is incredible.

Unfortunately you can't compete or co-operate over the Xbox Live service, although the online leader boards that allow you to compare career scores as well as individual song scores will have you trying to beat your friends score - I've already tried and I usually hate this kind of competitiveness! Plus the Xbox360 version looks much slicker. Not that you take too much notice when playing, but the characters playing on screen as you're playing look much more realistic, the concert halls you unlock are much more animated, and overall the game looks slicker and cleaner than the PS2 version.

Simply put, this game was one of the best on the PS2, and it's one of the best on Xbox360. Everything that was great about the PS2 version is in this version, and add new songs, great animations, downloadable songs and online leader boards, you've got an even better version to upgrade to. Anyway, enough reading; just go out and get this game! I'm going back to crank it up to eleven and rock out!


Julian Cram