Guitar Hero2 gets a 95 on IGN

Nozzleman_216 · Post by **Nozzleman_216** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:44 pm

TCrouch wrote:Not a single copy anywhere around me, and I don't know why it bugs me so much. I've already ripped through the first versions on PS2, but 1080i and the Explorer guitar make it way too tempting for me.

Me too sort of, Never really got to play expert too much as I was still struggling with it pretty bad. I only beat the first one on medium as I didn't have it very long. So here are my reasons for buying it again.

I no longer have a ps2 and this game is just damn fun.

The improved graphics and AUDIO, it does sound better on surround 5.1

Its the 360 man, LOL. Seriously though, with achievements to get, leader boards to see just how well you really are ( I suck )

Did anyone mention downloadable content?? Sure at first we may only see songs from the first game, BUT imagine those songs sounding better, AND with the new hammer on / pull off system of the new game. We all know how hard they were in the first game.

Just a few of my reasons. I mean if anything just hold out to see what is to come. I couldn't though and I am not regretting it. I just WISH there was some online multiplayer AHHHHHHH

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 10:37 pm

I went to CC after work today, and they were sold out (as I expected). No problem, I went 1/2 mile down the strip of stores and walked into Best Buy where they had about 12 of them ready to buy (along with 1600 gamercard point cards in the same display, LOL).

I took both and walked to the checkout (along with my Circuit City ad.) and they pricematched it for me by making the gamercard free (plus I got to use my Reward Zone card, even better).

Got home and tried expert mode (being that I've been playing real guitar for 25yrs now). LOL, I got smoked. Couldn't even get through 1 minute of a song. This is NOT like real guitar friends. I can play some of these songs on the game, note for note with my eyes closed... but this game is freaking hard. To me, that makes it alot of fun. If it were really easy (especially for guitarists out there) it would be a complete waste of $89. I knocked it down to the medium mode to get in the groove and then tried a few on hard. Tons of fun and it sounds great in DD5.1

Yes, it's in HD but you'd never know it since you don't have time to look anywhere but at the notes flying at you. I guess it looks good for the people watching you play. I started a career (on easy, just to quickly unlock some other songs) and before I knew it I had been sitting there for 3 frickin' hours. Can you say addictive? I even missed the Cardinals WS ring ceremony on TV.

2 BIG thumbs up here.

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 11:38 pm

Jon,

From your post I thought at the end a big huge guitar snob comment was coming. Glad it didn't though.

In my opinion GH is nothing more than a really good press the button on the screen game. But what makes it so good is the music. In GH1, I actually like their version of Crossroads by Clapton than Claptons original. To me the songs make the game. Sometimes a band does a cover song that is better than the original bands. In GH there's a good number of songs like that.

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:25 am

JRod wrote: To me the songs make the game. Sometimes a band does a cover song that is better than the original bands. In GH there's a good number of songs like that.

Oh yeah, absolutely. It's amazing how good the cover bands in this game are. I didn't take a peek at the complete song list in the game, so each new section/city in career mode has been a nice surprise to see what I'm going to get to play along with.

One thing that I'm not liking is a serious case of thumb cramping in my left hand for some reason. I'm pressing way to hard on the fret/buttons and unlike a real guitar where your left hand is moving all over the place, with this game my left thumb is in more of a fixed/locked position and after a while it starts hurting.... must find a better playing position.

bdunn13 · Post by **bdunn13** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 1:24 am

I found that the few songs in the game that I can play bits of in real life are actually harder in the game b/c of this.... I found myself tonight trying to mimic the real strumming pattern when I shouldn't.. like on the rhythm riff in the Van Halen song.

My wife is soo bad at this. She can't even finish a song... For me, its alot of fun. Can't wait to play some tomorrow after work.

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:26 am

Has anyone tested to see if a standard USB extension cable works with the guitar? I can't sit on the couch with the cord being so short, so I ended up sitting on my coffee table last night.

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 11:34 am

There was a thread about this on the IGN boards and they do work.

I love this game. I ended up finishing it on medium last night and started a Hard career. I played through the first section on Hard and can't wait to play more. I love the soundtrack with notable standouts (for me) being Strutter, YYZ, and John the Fisherman. Check out the Buckethead song in the shop when you get a chance. It was pretty hard on medium but very cool.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:07 pm

jondiehl wrote:Has anyone tested to see if a standard USB extension cable works with the guitar? I can't sit on the couch with the cord being so short, so I ended up sitting on my coffee table last night.

Yeah it's firckin horrible the short length of this cord. If it's 6 feet I would be amazed. I am standing so close to my 57 inch set that it is uncomfortable, and considering I am moving the 360 down to the theatre room this weekend, I will be stand very close to a 100 inch screen.

f***in Microsoft and their restricitive wireless s***. If someone buys a usb extension and it works let me know.

Oh yeah, this game is fun and hard as hell.

Sudz · Post by **Sudz** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:12 pm

i would LOVE to see some indie labels put out some packs for this. I wanna flail around like Mac from Superchunk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77LSxgWNNbw

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmLJXJqubcY

RAWK!

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 1:19 pm

The following is an excellent tutorial (including videos) for those of us who are new to this game. I've only read through the first page, but already it's given me some tips on hand placement and such.

http://www.gamealmighty.com/story-indiv ... damentals/

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 1:29 pm

Danimal wrote:f***in Microsoft and their restricitive wireless s***. If someone buys a usb extension and it works let me know.

It does work.

Sudz · Post by **Sudz** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 2:31 pm

http://stores.ebay.com/Guitar-Hero-2-PS2-Controllers

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 3:45 pm

Considering that the USB guitars plug into the PC and register the range of motions...how long is it before some inventive modders take that one site that was listed a while back (where anybody can code the notes and whatnot online) and make the guitar work with it? Infinite song possibilities.

I got a hold of one at lunch and the whammy bar doesn't work like the PS2 version does. It functions, but not nearly as well (as almost every board on the web has noted) so the scores are harder for me to achieve. I could barely crack 200K on that new Toadies song when I tried it. I didn't have much time with it, though, so I'm sure there's another learning curve to go through.

10spro · Post by **10spro** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 4:36 pm

sportdan30 wrote:The following is an excellent tutorial (including videos) for those of us who are new to this game. I've only read through the first page, but already it's given me some tips on hand placement and such.

http://www.gamealmighty.com/story-indiv ... damentals/

Thanks for the link. I never played the game and was thinking about it. Heard many good things since the game was launched for the PS2.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 4:50 pm

10s,

Don't be afraid to start on easy like I'm doing. I can already tell it's going to take me a while to get the hang of this game. The learning curve seems rather steep, but that bodes well for the longevity of the game. It's nice to put the regular 360 controller down every so often and play something I never thought was possible on consoles.

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:36 pm

Anyone needing a USB extension cable, I highly recommend MonoPrice.com for cabling needs.

You can get a 10ft extension cable for $2.10 (even less when ordering more than one) and shipping is actual shipping rates ($2.64 for 1st class in my case, coming from California).

http://www.monoprice.com/products/produ ... t=2&style=

I've ordered a bunch of home theater cabling from them over the years (component video, HDMI, DVI, etc) as well as lots of USB cable and extensions like this one. They always have the best prices around and ship fast (and cheap).

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 11:28 pm

Thanks Jon for the info!

Airdog · Post by **Airdog** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:48 am

I got it it from EB yesterday for $89.99 Canadian, which I was pretty shocked at. I was about to go to Best Buy but called EB and they had them at the same price, and in stock. EB was closer so they win.

I've only played a couple hours of it, but it's just as fun as the PS2 version (what a shocker) and the guitar feels just about the same.

I'm having a lot of fun looking at the Leaderboards after playing a group of songs to see how I fared against other people's scores. I'll have to start adding a few guys around here to see how I match up.

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:25 am

Airdog wrote: I'm having a lot of fun looking at the Leaderboards after playing a group of songs to see how I fared against other people's scores. I'll have to start adding a few guys around here to see how I match up.

Yeah, that's what sets it apart. Being able to compare your scores to everyone else, as well as just your friends list.

It's too bad we can't go head to head online, but even a hint of lag would pretty much screw things up. The online experience might not be that missed if this were the case.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:56 am

Total crack. I love this game. I'm about 3/4 of thr way through a career on Medium, up to the section that has "Crazy on You." I already want to go back and try to get five stars on everything.

This is completely nerdy, but I wish you could change guitars before songs without having to back out first. I like playing a guitar that goes with the song.

ubrakto · Post by **ubrakto** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:14 am

Brando70 wrote:Total crack. I love this game. I'm about 3/4 of thr way through a career on Medium, up to the section that has "Crazy on You." I already want to go back and try to get five stars on everything.

This is completely nerdy, but I wish you could change guitars before songs without having to back out first. I like playing a guitar that goes with the song.

I can't play Crazy on You in this game without flashing back to Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (the song plays in the scene where Kumar has a whole dream sequence about marrying a giant bag of pot).

---Todd

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:57 am

Same on the scoreboards. I just wish you could index your friends list on difficulty as well. I see somebody notched 50K higher than me and then see that they basically hit every note on Easy or Medium. Kind of a bummer you can't list scores by difficulty level that I've found, but still addicting to go back in and look and see how you're doing compared to your friends.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:27 am

Is anyone having problems with their whammy bar? Sometimes I press mine down and it doesn't do much of anything.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:46 am

Yes. The software isn't recognizing your whammy bar as returning to the "rest" position. Half the guitars seem to have that problem. They need to adjust the game to recognize anything less than 15% or something as "resting" so it will actually work for all axes. A backwoods type of fix is to use a girl's little hairband and wrap it around the whammy bar and the cord outlet...it works like a champ until they can fix the stupid game not registering it. It's silly, I know. But it works

webdanzer · Post by **webdanzer** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:51 am

TCrouch wrote:Same on the scoreboards. I just wish you could index your friends list on difficulty as well. I see somebody notched 50K higher than me and then see that they basically hit every note on Easy or Medium. Kind of a bummer you can't list scores by difficulty level that I've found, but still addicting to go back in and look and see how you're doing compared to your friends.

Yeah, what exactly is the deal with this? It combines your scores on all of the levels or something? Since I've already played the heck out of GH 1 amd 2 on the ps2, the main draw of the 360 versions would be to see the score comparisons. I'm certainly NOT going to go back and go through the all of the easy and medium songs, though (I don't have that sort of gaming time, and frankly, that would not be 'fun' for me at all), so it sounds like the live scoreboard thing wouldn't even be there for me, then.

I'll probably wait until the next version of the game to pick up the 360 version, then...or if the releases keep coming out for the ps2 first, maybe just stick with that one.