Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Guitar Hero 2: GotY

It's official: Guitar Hero 2 is a 12.

Because Guitar Hero was an 11, you see.

I haven't even finished the entire song list yet, and I can tell you that it's a 12. I'm currently sitting at the beginning of set 7 (Furious Fretwork), having just finished Stop by Jane's Addiction. I started on Hard, because I'm a pimp, and have yet to fail a song. Sure, I've 3 starred more than a handful, and been in danger of being booed off a few times, but I've made it through so far.

Set 7, however, is intimidating. I can almost guarantee I'm going to get booed off at least once during the set. But that's ok, because there's a practice mode in GH2. A practice mode that lets you set a slower tempo and/or play specific parts of a song without worrying about impressing a crowd.

That's not the only new addition. There's 3 button chords, there's easier hammerons and pulloffs, there's new characters/guitars/skins/venues, there's an expanded song list and more cohesive career mode, and most importantly, there's new and improved multiplayer modes. There's the cooperative mode that lets one player take lead guitar, and the other take bass or rythym guitar (depending on the song) for simultaneous rocking (with each player able to choose a different difficulty level). There's the face-off mode from last time where the players alternate parts of a song. Finally, there's the pro face-off mode where both players play the whole song, note for note, at the same difficulty level, in order to put those "I'm a better GH player than you are" debates to rest for good.

There's not anything that I can say bad about the game, honestly. It's harder than Guitar Hero, I think. Expert mode on GH1 was pretty hard, I still haven't completed it, actually. But Expert mode in GH2 is insane. I couldn't get booed off on a first set song in GH1 on Expert if I tried. But in GH2, it's hard not to get booed off on the second song. But that's not really bad, it just adds to replayability. If I could pick up GH2 and finish it in a week, that would suck. So I'm glad it's harder. Might it alienate new players? Perhaps. But they should just get GH1 and become a pro before going back to GH2.

In short, Guitar Hero 2 is the Game of the Year. Even if you don't own a PS2, you should buy one, just to play Guitar Hero 1 and 2. While there may have been killer apps/system sellers before, Guitar Hero is the only one that's actually worth buying a whole system just for one game (and its sequel).

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