Guitar Hero for PlayStation 2 Reviews by Gamers

If you had the choice between hopping around to one of Britney Spears' "classics" or strapping on a Gibson SG and rocking out to freakin' Iron Man, which would you choose? If you chose the former, then head over here. If you're like us, though, and would rather watch Ozzy bite the head off of living creatures than watch a scantily-clad blonde... err, hmm, on second thought... Bah, we'll take Ozzy every time.

Music games have a tendency to be great fun for parties and such, but very few of them have ever struck that certain primal chord deep inside all of us -- the same chord that makes you want to kick back with a cold one and eat three pounds of meat hot off the barbeque in the middle of summer while lounging in your backyard in a ripped up t-shirt you've been wearing since high school. Guitar Hero is one of those rare games that does just this, and we even say that it's better than three pounds of meat. Beer? That's a close one. But meat? Hell yeah. It kicks meat's ass.

While Guitar Hero draws very close comparison to Konami's Guitar Freaks, we have yet to see that series hit any console outside of Japan. So while you can head over to an import-friendly arcade for your guitar gaming fix , Guitar Hero is your only option at home. But not only is Guitar Hero the only in-home option, it's the best you'll find there or in a coin-op house. Harmonix and Red Octane have nailed this one in almost every way, and while we can always wish for more (and we want more, now), what's there is nearly perfect.

The Axe

The main catch of Guitar Hero is its Gibson SG-based guitar peripheral, and though you can play the game with a standard controller, the SG guitar is essential to completing the experience. If you plan on playing the game's two-player mode, you'll definitely want to pick up a second SG (don't stick your buddies with a regular pad).

The SG features five fret buttons, a strummer (instead of strings to pick), a whammy bar, and is roughly the same size as a travel guitar. It's pretty comfortable to wear, not only because of its light weight but because it's reasonably close to the size of a real guitar - 75% the total size or so is a reasonable guess - so it doesn't feel awkward in your hands as it might if you were holding a toy.

The best part about the guitar is that it incorporates most of the real life techniques and motions that a guitarist would perform on a real instrument. Hammer-ons, pull-offs and up-down strumming all work with this device, making the transition from the real thing to the Guitar Hero SG as minor as moving from strings to buttons. Had the guitar not allowed for conventional techniques that are second-nature in a guitarist's repertoire, it would have been crippling. Smartly, Red Octane has designed the peripheral to not only utilize these techniques in the songs, but to embrace real guitar playing styles and techniques as well. Kudos for that.

For more in-depth analysis, check out the IGN Gear review of the Guitar Hero Mini Gibson SG.

There are a couple segments in the game where the hammer-ons and pull-offs seem a tad iffy, however. For example, one of the later segments in the Crossroads' solo on Expert difficulty has repeating sets of three notes. You should only have to pick the first note in the set and pull off the other two notes, but this didn't seem to work well for me. I found that manually picking each of these notes worked better (even though the notes are running at about mach 2) than trying to use pull-offs, which failed every time. This could have been an issue with my timing, but I ran through this sequence over and over again and couldn't ever get them to work, I've been playing guitar for 14 years now.

There are a couple other non-notable sections in the game that I figured I could use hammer-ons or pull-offs but couldn't as well, but they were so few and far between that it was easy to get over. Generally, these two techniques work very well with the SG and any minor sections that they don't work with are negligible.

Take Plenty of Notes

The actual game itself works exactly as many other music titles do in that you'll find a series of notes moving across the screen in which to play along. So what makes Guitar Hero so good then? Well, it's the way that all of the little details are implemented. From the song selection to the recordings to the backdrop musicians to the actual note progression you need to play, everything is pitch-perfect.

There are a couple minor tweaks that Harmonix has made to the general music game formula too. By nailing certain licks in a song you're able to build up your Star Power, which will double-up your current multiplier when you unleash it. The coolest part is that you're able to use your Star Power by raising your guitar upright, usually to your side (it looks most rockin' like this and the ladies seem to dig it). Star Power also adds a bit of a strategic element in that you not only earn more points when it's activated, but you can also raise your performance meter faster (thus enabling you to stick it out longer in tricky sections of songs, like the solos, for example).

Players who can nail every section of a song may want to use it during the chord-heavy segments, as those chords reward more points and Star Power boosts that even higher. Those who get tripped up during the solo, on the other hand, will want to hold onto Star Power and use it as more of a defensive mechanism. It's a neat tactical element that Harmonix has thrown in there that doesn't really change the game much in the grand scheme of things, but it add one extra layer to mess with.

Rock Out

Without a doubt, Guitar Hero features one of the best and most appropriate song selections we've ever seen in a videogame. From Ozzy to Hendrix to Pantera to Helmet, the soundtrack is a collection of some of the best guitar music ever released. There will always be tracks missing that we'd like to see in there, regardless of how many versions of Guitar Hero are released, so we're not going to complain that Guns 'N Roses, AC/DC, Tenacious D and the Disturbed Mutants are missing. Rather, we're paying the highest compliments to the guys at Harmonix and Red Octane for nailing down one hell of a set list. And while the 30 major tunes would do well to fill our rock gullet, 17 additional Indie Rock tracks have been thrown into the mix as well. We're not saying all of these tracks are up to the same level as "You Got Another Thing Comin'", because honestly, what is? But still, with 47 total tracks and well over half of them being songs you grew up rockin' to, this is a killer soundtrack.

Even more impressive than the actual music selection is the way that these songs have been implemented. Firstly, the covers of these 30 major tracks are nothing short of astonishing. While you might quickly be able to pick out a few non-legit vocal tracks (like the "Symphony of Destruction" vocalist obviously isn't Dave Mustaine), most of them are close enough that you'll assume it's the real thing. And even after we tell you that the instruments were re-recorded, you'll probably call us liars; the guys behind this did an absolutely fantastic job of recreating the tunes in every possible way. Honestly, if there were no vocals, the covers and their original versions would be 100% indistinguishable.

Finger It

On par with the 99.99% accurate covers is the way in which the actual guitar notes were transferred to Guitar Hero. We're going to be talking mostly about the Expert difficulty here as the lower levels obviously skip notes and make bigger concessions for playability (like using only three or four of the five buttons), but even at those levels the transfer is great.

Note and chord progression is essentially as accurate and true-to-life as it could possibly be on a guitar with only five buttons. Every time the song hits a higher note, you play a button further up the neck; every time the song goes lower, you move further down the neck (towards the head). Playing solo runs will obviously overlap a bit, but even this works incredibly well because many times the real solos are played in a small fret range on the guitar, and they're just moving up strings.

Power chords work the same way and play about as accurately as possible on a plastic guitar. We've already gone over hammer-ons and pull-offs, and the fact that they even work is fantastic; the fact that they work well is simply awesome.

Granted, there are some sections of songs that don't quite transfer perfectly to the SG and/or are harder to play compared to a real guitar. For example, "More Than a Feeling" opens with arpeggios based on D, C, G, and Am (if you're counting). As you can't play arpeggios on Guitar Hero's SG, the game requires you to play each note on separate buttons on Expert level, making it actually more difficult than the real track. On a whole though, the songs were transferred about as note-for-button perfect as you could possibly imagine.

Backing Band

While you'll generally be staring at the notes as they fly down the center of the screen, Guitar Hero features excellent virtual band members that put on a show while you rock. You have a selection of characters and venues to pick from, which will match you with some crazy-looking, but awesome, band.

Each member of the band actually performs their actions to match with what's happening with the song and/or your actions. If you miss a note, your on-screen persona will stop playing until you hit the next note. If you're in the middle of a run, you'll see your guitarist's fingers playing the same run on their guitar (only they have real guitars, sorta). Their hand and finger placement is excellent and generally matches what should be shown. It's 110% better than what most movies or TV shows pull off. Except for Ralph Macchio in Crossroads. He's cool with us. Oh, and Antonio Banderas in Desperado. That opening number is neat-o.

Anyhow, your singer will move his mouth at the right time, the drummer will play his snare, bass drum and hi-hat properly (though fills may not be perfect), and speakers kick when the songs does. The attention to detail here is fantastic, and something that easily could have been brushed aside as Harmonix focused on developing another aspect of the game. Kudos to the team for making your cartoony band as realistic as they could be... odd as that sounds.

We Want an Encore

So what's missing then? Well, as great as Guitar Hero is, there's still room for improvement, and we're not even talking about adding the Disturbed Mutants in there. For starters, while you can play a practice song, you aren't able to practice individual parts of songs, slow them down, study the notes, or do anything of this nature. While you'll be able to pick up on the chorus and verse sections of songs fairly easily, solos can be a bitch to play -- especially when there are 5,264 notes flying at the screen (we're talking Expert level here, of course) at once. Much of real guitar playing relies on practice and muscle memory, so it would be nice, and indeed important, to be able to practice individual passages in order to get those segments down.

There are a slew of other minor additions that the game could use to take it to the next level, like online play or more multiplayer modes, but really we're just reaching here. Honestly, Guitar Hero is just about as much as you could ask for from a music game.

©2005, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved