Now That That's Out Of The Way...
WHEE HEE HEE!!!
So I just spent the last, oh, three hours playing Guitar Hero II... I decided to take it slow, start at the beginning and blast my way through easy mode to get a handle on the new songs.
So far, I'm liking it a LOT... A few things of note:
1) More songs that I'm recognizing than I thought, but once you get down towards the bottom they start pulling out the difficult death and speed metal bands like Anthrax and Lamb of God, to which I say "whathafuh?"
2) Things get harder faster. I beat easy level, then started up on medium, only to discover one first level Medium song plays like a first or second level Hard song on the original, only with four buttons instead of five.
3) I got REALLY nervous for a while there. Every writeup for the game had 5 songs listed per level. But there's only four per level in the game. I was really pissed because a lot of songs that I wanted to see didn't make the cut.
However...
That's where the "encore" comes in. No clue how it activates beyond "Play it Good!", but after beating the first three songs of level one they showed a clip of the crowd going nuts, then asking "Do you want to play an encore?" You say sure thing, next thing you know POOF! "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" by Spinal Tap, the missing fifth song. So now I'll be able to open up GNR, Kansas, Aerosmith, etc. Which is awesome. A very cool little feature.
4) Not as many songs that I recognize on this one, but like I said up above, more than I thought I would. And a lot more songs that I'm just having an absolute blast playing, and will definitely go back to for fun songs to listen to, songs to give you chills just playing them, or just ones that are a kick to play. So far personal faves include:
Cheap Trick - Surrender
Van Halen - You Really Got Me
Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench
Iggy Pop - Search & Destroy
Butthole Surfers - Who Was In My Room Last Night?
Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend
Everything in level six: Heart's "Crazy On You," STP's "Trippin On A Hole In A Paper Heart," Stray Cats' "Rock This Town" (which is going to absolutely kick ass in multi-player), Allman Brothers' "Jessica."
5) There are definitely songs I can live without. The Stones song for some reason just hurts my ears (feels like they recorded it to sound like an old recording), and Rage Against The Machine is... well... Rage Against The Machine. Just crappy music.
6) They're not trying as hard for some of the levels to get the voices right. Which is fine. When you're trying to have a guy do Kurt Cobain or Layne Staley, that can be difficult. Very distinct voices, and they don't try as hard to change like they did in the first game (Iron Man & Symphony of Destruction spring to mind).
Some are spot-on, though. The woman they brought in to do Tattooed Love Boys sounds eerily like Chrissie Hynde.
7) Wish they had picked some better songs for some of these bands. "Heart-Shaped Box"? Dammit, "Come As You Are" would have been a great song for multi-player. And you have a massive library of Stones and Aerosmith songs, and you pick two that no one's heard of. Nice.