Oh jeebus! I promised Pachoey that I'd have the Guitar Hero 2 review on his desk by Monday morning. Well…it's an ungodly hour (4am) on Tuesday and I'm still finishing this thing up. I figured I could blow through the game over the weekend and type up the review Sunday night. Popped in the game on Friday night played for, um, 4 or 5 hours. Called up some friends on Saturday to try out the multiplayer. There went that whole day. By time Sunday night came around I was seeing little different color notes everywhere and Kurt Cobain's imitated voice bellowing in my noggin' (more on that later.) Just gonna play a few more songs…can't stop. Ack!

It's strange that a simple rhythm game mechanic – hitting the correct colored notes on said plastic guitar at just the right time – can have such an effect on someone. Maybe it's because the game makes you feel like such a rock 'n roll god. I dunno. I'm leaning towards subliminal messages in the songs myself.

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Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright
When I first played the GH2 Demo at E3, the game just felt like the original Guitar Hero but with different tracks. While that's not too far from the truth, the finished GH2 does follow the usual progression from original to sequel. You get better animations, more songs, and more modes of play. The biggest changes are in the multiplayer area which added a Co-op mode, allowing you and a friend to play different guitar tracks of the same song. This may not sound like all that big of a deal, but this tiny addition to the game takes it from making one person feel like a "Rawk God" to you and a buddy becoming the "Ultimate Rawk Band"! While it would have been nice two to play the Career mode together, the Co-op is still a very welcome addition.

The new song list is huge and has almost 20 more songs than the original. The bands range from Foo Fighters to the Allman Brothers. There's also Mötley Crüe, Stone Temple Pilots, Megadeth, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Rush, and many more. While I would have gladly traded Megadeth for Metallica (the old Metallica, before they went to counseling or whatever happened to them) I can't complain. There's plenty enough tracks on the list and lots of good ones at that.

You can just feel the love in this game. Everything from the goofy animations to the song list just oozes with developer love. GH2 caters to just about everyone from the metalheads to the light rockers; heck, someone even shoved some Strong Bad and Dethklok tunes in there for the Internet geeks. Red Octane/Harmonix tried their darndest to appease as many of the fans as they could and it shows.

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Just seem a little weird
One of Guitar Hero 2's few flaws is that some of the covers not only don't sound like the original vocalists, but they border on karaoke bad. I don't have an audio clip for ya but here's my impersonation of the Kurt Cobain, uh, impersonator:

"I've been locked inside your Haawart-Shaped box for a weeaak"

Yeesh! Matthew Sweet sounds kinda like Weird Al Yankovic as well. While there are a handful of iffy tracks most of them sound pretty darn close to the original recordings. Only the purest of fans will be able to tell the difference.

Surrender
The most amazing thing about GH2 is its ability to bring those together who normally wouldn't play games with each other. Xbox Fanboys, Final Fantasy Vixens, and even the Madden Sports Gamer all love to play Guitar Hero. You can't even walk into most department stores without seeing some schmo giving it a go. How can anyone pass up something that looks like (and is) so much fun?

Guitar Hero 2 is a must-own game for those of youse with Playstation 2s. Heck you should get the first Guitar Hero if ya don't own that already. Makes you wonder if you really need that $600 next-gen console. I can't imagine having more fun playing anything on the new systems, until Guitar Hero 3 comes out, that is.

- NakedBoB