This one goes to 11...
fish_tie recently expressed his enthusiasm for Guitar Hero II. While I own the first game, I'm not quite as enraptured with it as the Upper Midwest crew is, or shiny_bauble, possibly because I'm just not very good at it. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to buy the sequel, but Wikipedia has a list of the tracks that seems fairly trustworthy. Including "Free Bird" is a stroke of genius, no doubt about that, but having "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" takes it right up to sublime. I love a game that can have a sense of humor about itself. On average, the songs are a bit too heavy for my usual tastes, but they've got some really fun ones in there, so I'll probably take a shot at it, but I might wait for the price to drop.
For my Playstation-rocking-out needs, I've always preferred the Karaoke Revolution series, although I wasn't too thrilled with the installments of late. The Party volume didn't seem to have the same mix of fun songs that older versions had, and I wouldn't touch the Country edition with a 10-foot microphone stand (this is the part where woodwindy yells at me). Since the new edition was co-branded with "American Idol," I planned to avoid that as well -- a Kelly Clarkson fan, I am not. However, since Wikipedia had the song list for Guitar Hero II, I decided to see if they had a list for the new Karaoke Revolution -- and they do, and it is good. Much better than I expected. It's got American Idol stuff, it's true, but I plan to ignore those. It's got some really old stuff -- Commodores, Righteous Brothers -- look, piratelemur, it's got Tom Jones! It's got early 90s power balads -- "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" and "More Than Words" in the same game! It's even got two Billy Joel songs, which is sure to make Rachel happy. It even has "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," which sealed the deal for me -- not because I'm a huge Elton John fan, although I like the song. I simply can't resist any Karaoke Revolution song where it's OK to substitute "power" for "skill."
For my Playstation-rocking-out needs, I've always preferred the Karaoke Revolution series, although I wasn't too thrilled with the installments of late. The Party volume didn't seem to have the same mix of fun songs that older versions had, and I wouldn't touch the Country edition with a 10-foot microphone stand (this is the part where woodwindy yells at me). Since the new edition was co-branded with "American Idol," I planned to avoid that as well -- a Kelly Clarkson fan, I am not. However, since Wikipedia had the song list for Guitar Hero II, I decided to see if they had a list for the new Karaoke Revolution -- and they do, and it is good. Much better than I expected. It's got American Idol stuff, it's true, but I plan to ignore those. It's got some really old stuff -- Commodores, Righteous Brothers -- look, piratelemur, it's got Tom Jones! It's got early 90s power balads -- "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" and "More Than Words" in the same game! It's even got two Billy Joel songs, which is sure to make Rachel happy. It even has "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," which sealed the deal for me -- not because I'm a huge Elton John fan, although I like the song. I simply can't resist any Karaoke Revolution song where it's OK to substitute "power" for "skill."