Gaming Signal: Guitar Hero 2 is not all that?

Guitar Hero 2 is not all that?

I will admit I have very little coordination for that game, but it is still something I want to pick up. But based on some feedback that I have recieved, I may simply go with the older Guitar Hero versus the new version. I will let the words of our good friend Kevin speak for themselves (well they can't speak so you will have to read them, but you get the idea):

I had a few minutes this weekend, so I finally finished off Guitar Hero 2 on Medium mode (for the Playstation 2.) I must say that I was overall very disappointed with the song selection. I would say that there were at least 2/3 of the songs I'd never even heard of - a lot more heavy metal in the mix.

I played GH2 on the XBox 360 at Gamestop when I was there on Saturday, and from what I saw, the songs were shuffled around from the PS2 version - I'm not sure whether they added any better material, though.

That got me motivated to conquer this Judas Priest song in the middle of Hard mode in GH1 that's been kicking my butt for about a year and a half. Got through it the second time I tried, and was able to plow through another whole set!

In short, I'll work on Hard mode in GH1 before I ever pick up GH2 again.

So I would be interested to see what other folks think about this - is GH1 better than GH2? And given the lack of postive response to the song packs on the 360, what does that mean for future iterations of this game?

It's a love/hate thing for me. I love the game, I am mildly irritated with the overall song selection, and down right mad about the XBOX Marketplace download-able songs.

I do love the game though. I play it at least once a day. It's a great game when you have only 30 minutes or so of free time to play.

I'm close to getting all perfect on the easy setting on all songs. (5 RED stars!) not just 5 stars. RED starts mean you didn't miss a single note. I have only the last play set to get all songs perfect on to get that achievement.

I'm finished with the Medium game, but now I'm working on getting at least 5 stars on all songs in Medium. I have only the first set completed with RED stars.

I have played the first set in Hard (5 songs) and guess what?!?!? IT'S HARD!!! I can even play a real guitar and this is hard! They throw you some real curve balls here. OK, guitar lingo alert! When the 5th button gets introduced in Hard mode they throw you the expected "hammer-on's" and "pull-off's" using the 5th key but they expect you to shift position back up to the top 4 buttons for a "power chord" like hand position and that rarely occurs with a real guitar. On a real guitar you can usually play the power chord lower on the fret board or at a higher octave with strings 4,5,6 without a positional hand shift on the guitar neck. Not so in Guitar Hero! But ya know what, it's a game, and I'm glad there is difficulty still even for a guitar player. So I'm not too fussed.

All in all though, I'm quite happy with the game.

Posted by Trent on Monday May 21, 2007 at 3:17 PM

Yup, that 5th button makes all the difference. That said, I'm about 1/2 through Hard mode on GH1, but some of the songs I barely skid through with the guitar smoking.

I'm sure I'll never attempt Hard mode in GH2 simply because of the poor song selection.

Posted by Kevin on Tuesday May 22, 2007 at 8:20 AM

I finished GH1 on Easy mode with perfect on absolutely none on my PS1 just to see what all the songs were and I was somewhat dissapointed by the ones in the middle. The last set ends strong, but Burning Brides, Incubus, and The Exies are not my ideal for rock guitar.

But because of this post I looked at the GH2 song list for the first time and figured I'd see more of the same. But wowza! The songs on 2 feature some awesome guitar parts and seem tailor made for GH.

Heart Shaped Box (Nirvana), Institutionalized (Suicidal Tendencies), Crazy on You (Heart), Carry Me Home (Hush), the hits just keep on coming!

AND then there is Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight (Spinal Tap), Shout at the Devil (Motley Crue), and YYZ (Rush) as encore songs. Wow.

John the Fisherman (Primus) is new for the game, so I can understand nobody knowing that one. And the 360 gets bonus tracks for each set that I think is kinda lame because the PS2 doesn't get them, but luckily most of the songs aren't that special (with the exception of Billion Dollar Babies (Alice Cooper) and Hush (Deep Purple)).

Posted by Scottsh on Tuesday June 12, 2007 at 10:23 PM