Ok, folks, the day is upon us. Guitar Hero 2 is in stores RIGHT NOW AS I TYPE THIS! :eek: I actually got mine yesterday through a little glitch with Circuit City, and let me just tell you, it’s such greatness.
If you liked the first game, this is just a lot more of the same, but cranked up even more. There are over 60 songs this time around (last game had 37 IIRC), which of course span all manner of genres.
As far as the gameplay is concerned, it’s almost identical, except they’ve tweaked the mechanism for doing hammer-ons and pull-offs a little so they’re a bit easier to do (a very welcome change for me). And while that makes things a little easier, they’ve cranked up the difficulty overall to challenge people who mastered the first game.
The music is very good. There are only a couple of stinkers that I’ve encountered so far, the most notable being “Cherry Pie” by Warrant. Such a dumb song and also completely unentertaining to play. My favorites so far are “Monkey Wrench” (Foo Fighters), “Search and Destroy” (Izzy), and “Less Talk More Rokk” (Freezepop). I can’t wait to get back home and rock out a little more.
And if you like the professional take, it’s currently at 99% on Gamerankings. :eek:
My husband called off from work today and just got back from the store with his copy.
I anticipate hating Free Bird by tomorrow morning. I still can’t listen to Bark at the Moon without wanting to strangle someone with a game controller.
He just called a few minutes ago to report that he had the game in hand AND! he saw a Wii at the store but it wasn’t hooked up yet.
I played the first one at a display at Best Buy a couple of weeks ago. I loved it, but when I found out that the sequel was coming out, I held off on buying. I figure the price on the first should drop signifcantly now.
Plus, when I get sick of the first one, the second one should have a price drop too.
I think I’ve already said this in two threads recently, but I can now state it where it definitely belongs.
My wife and I, one of her coworkers friends and HER husband, and one of my good friends here at my office, are all GH enthusiasts, and we’ve all been counting down until today.
This morning, my wife got online and ordered two copies (one for us, one for my coworker) from Best Buy, and she and her coworker will be going to pick them up sometime this morning. This evening, my coworker is coming over to my house so that we can all rock out together! My coworker actually bought Playstation Magazine so we could play the demo a few weeks ago.
There have already been a couple of random “Freebird!” cries around the office today. So uh, yeah – we’re kind of looking forward to it.
Recognizing that we have an addiction problem (to GH and would never get anything constructive done around the house), my wife and I have been happy to play at a friend’s house.
We’ve set aside this upcoming weekend for a GH2 fest.
I got up early this morning for a swim, went to work at 6:30 by car, left early so I could vote, yeah that’s it vote. I played for two hours before I had to stop. I think I’m through 20 songs on hard. My favorite song so far is Mother, but I can’t wait to get go Bad Reputation since I love Thin Lizzy. Strutter is pretty fun as well.
Does anyone know if you can play bass or second guitar with out playing in co-op mode?
I like the cut of your jib, sailor. I held off too (also because I hate playing the second one of something and then the first, and then missing all the things they fixed in the second…). I went to Best Buy on Sunday, and they had Guitar Hero with controller 50% off! Plus, it was an open item so I got a $7 gift card with it. The game is normally $70, which was a bit steep (I haven’t bought a full priced game in, well, ever), so finding it 50% plus $7 GC was just great.
I’m sitting here while three of us are sitting trading off playing. First off, the voice tracks are a mixed bag like last one, but I think overall better. The graphics are definitely better, and I’m love the “encore” system. It’s definitely much harder, but I’m hoping that the practice mode will help mitigate that a bit.
The multi-player rocks my socks over. Seriously. Best thing ever. I can’t wait to have a big party and have this open for people to pick up and play. Consider the “OMG” seconded!
I got it this afternoon, and just finished playing through on the ‘hard’ level.
I like most of the songs so far, but there are a couple that are pretty tedious. The thing that suprised me the most is that the game is way easier than Guitar Hero I. I expected it to be harder, because that’s what all the review say. But from what I can tell, they didn’ just tweak the hammer-ons and pull-offs, but loosened the tightness of the timing ‘window’ you have to hit to get any note right. There were plenty of times tonight when I was sure I missed a combination, but nope.
The threshold of mistakes for 5-starring a song also seems higher. I 5-starred the first 10 songs on hard the first time I played them. And it’s not that I’m a great player, but the combination of the looser timing, the improved ho/po, and what appears to me to be a lower score threshold for 5 star made it pretty easy. A couple of songs, I was certain I was only going to get 4 stars because of the number of mistakes I made, but I got 5 anyway.
In comparison, there’s still four songs I haven’t 5-starred on the hard level on Guitar Hero I, including one in the first five. That’s after playing for months.
I got through 20-25 songs last night on hard, I finally got stuck on Madhouse and the Psychobilly song. I may need a bit more to drink before I can get through those songs.
The wife and I played through a few songs last night and we enjoyed it. I think she might enjoy that more then just playing by herself, except she says she can’t hear her part because of me playing.
I do like the way the HO/POs work this time, I can actually do them. That makes it a bit easier for me.
I cranked through Hard mode last night without any failures. Man, the last song is FUN.
I then proceeded to Expert mode, and crashed and burned on the first song. Looks like it’s time to start the challenge.
BTW my favorite song may be the new one from Freezepop. They really do some great work for these games (this is their fourth Harmonix game to have a song from them).
Okay, so do any of you folks who are breezing through on Hard have any advice? I got through most of the songs on Medium last night before I had to quit (no 5 stars yet, though) and can 5-star about half of the GH1 songs on Medium, but Hard had completely eluded me even on the easier songs. My fingers and my forearms get sore, and I can’t keep up with the changes. Am I missing something, or is it just a matter of grinding through it until you get it?
Maybe you’ve got the same problem as I do. I’m pretty good at hitting the notes on beat, and my fingers usually have the necessary dexterity. But that dang orange note whips my butt. In GH1, I’ve five-starred all the songs on medium, but on any hard song after they start heavy use of the fifth fret I can barely get 3. I still haven’t beat Crossroads (last song of the “Fret Burners”) on Hard in GH1.
I’ve heard that you get better results if you can retrain your hand to have “home position” be red-yellow-blue-orange and practice reaching for green with your index, instead of starting green-red-yellow-blue and reaching with your pinky for orange. Or practice “sliding” your hand between starting on green and starting on red. Although when I try the slide, my brain gets schizophrenic about what I’m doing, and hit the right finger but the wrong button (index for green when it’s sitting on red).
I have more of a problem with getting one figure up and off, so if there’s a passage that’s G-Y G-Y G G-Y I get screwed. I haven’t 5 stared all the songs on medium on GH1, but I can make it through all but CFH and BatM on hard.
I’ve found that just playing has allowed me to know where my fingers are, don’t be afraid to slide back and forth, after awhile you should get used to it. I’ve also found that using the index and ring fingers is only good for the G-Y chords, the other chords I use middle and pinky. I’m not sure if that’s how you should do it, but that’s how I do it.
I’ve 5-starred all the songs on hard in GH1, and about 3/4 of the songs on Expert. And the first 25 or so songs on hard in GH2.
I can give you some advice about chords - Learn to use the same fingers and hand position in a consistent way. For example, whenever I get chords on the first and third button, I use my first and third finger. I flip to the second and fourth finger to match those buttons. Then if I have to go to the fifth button, I slide my hand up and still use the 2nd and 4th finger.
I almost always slide my hand up to hit the fifth note, rather than stretching the pinkie. The exception is when there’s a fast trill of notes on the 4th and fifth button - then you just have to use your pinky and 4th fingers together.
Practice runs up and down through three fingers, then four. Then two, then randomly switch between them. I used to practice this using the tutorial for hammer on’s and pull-offs in GH1. When it would ask me to attempt a hammer on, I’d use that screen to practice pull-offs. SInce you never hit the right combination of notes, the screen never goes away, and you can practice lighting up the buttons in smooth patterns as you run up and down the scale. You can also practice switching between the various 2 button chords.
Basically, it’s like learning any other instrument - the fastest way to improve is to practice. Not just by playing songs, but with finger exercises and scales.
If you don’t know about it, there’s a site called Scorehero.com where people talk strategy and swap playing hints. There’s also an application there for recording high scores and joining the leaderboard. There’s some insanely good people on there. They sometimes upload videos of themselves playing. It makes you weep.
I got the game last night and made it thru the first 6 tiers on hard in about an hour and a half. I agree that this game is MUCH more forgiving about how close you have to be to score a correct note. The hammer-ons and pull-offs are also much more true to life on this one than the first one. I had a very difficult time getting them to work in gh1 but on this one it’s pretty natural feeling. You also need to land longer series of notes in order to get star power on this one, and it doesn’t seem to be in as large of supply either. I was taken by suprise by the first 3 note chords because I didn’t know they were in here. I didn’t fail any songs at all until Heart Crazy On You and the only reason I failed that one is because I don’t know the begining of the song. I’m not sure I’ve ever even heard that song with the intro included so I couldn’t figure out the rythm.
All in all I think I liked the quality of the covers on the first one better. I also preferred the song selection on the first one as well, though I think there is a Lamb of God track coming up on here so we’ll see how that is. The vocals on this one aren’t as good as the first one. Although I think that this one was harder for them due the fact that there are alot more songs on here that the avg person knows by heart, so the nuances stick out when they miss them. I don’t really like the audio mix on some of them either because they make the guitar stand out more than it should. On Them Bones the guitar is so overpowering that it kind of ruins it. Sweet Child of Mine came out pretty good, but the tone is off from the original by a long shot, so it sticks out as a cover to me. Not many of the tracks on GH1 seemed like blantant covers.
All in all a good game, but not as awe inspiring as the first one.
Oh, also, I’d like to know what made them choose “You Really Got Me” as the Van Halen track. They should have tacked eruption on there or something. I don’t know how they chose the Aerosmith song either. Whether you like Aerosmith or not there are definitely alot better tunes than that one to go with.
Red Octane had to go through an extensive clearance process to get the songs. Some bands refused entirely (Metallica, for example), while others probably only allowed certain songs from their catalog to be used.
I agree that the covers in this one aren’t quite as good, and the mixes seem a little ‘off’ on a few. That could be because of the need to highlight both the lead and the bass/rhythm parts.
All in all, a great game. Better than GH1 - the graphics are better, the characters are better, the venues are cooler, there are more songs, and finally, finally, practice mode. There are a few songs I didn’t 5 star in GH1 simply because the part I had trouble with was near the end of the song, and I got tired of playing through 3/4 of a song over and over again just to take another crack at the difficult part at the end. So practice mode is a godsend.
I also really love the new multiplayer. My problem before was that I’m the only serious guitar hero player among my friends and family, so I could never enjoy multiplayer with any of them. Either I had a plod along on easy or medium, bored out of my skull, or they couldn’t keep up on hard or expert. Now we can pick our own difficulty levels. My daughter and I have already played together more in this game than we did since I got GH1. So that’s a big improvement for me.