Thursday, Oct 11, 2007
When the first one was released a year or so ago I was rather surprised that it received a 9.0 from GameSpot. I figured it would turn out like all the other games that require devices (Time Crisis) to play. It would just be another mediocre game right...wrong. It really caught on with colleges kids--my brother and his girlfriend made such a big deal of me not being able to play it and even planned get-together parties to play it with friends ("O Rob, you just have to try it sometime, it is so addicitive"). I of course did not believe them and was shocked when the sales numbers were released (especially when considering the price of the guitar), it was a huge success. Well luckily for me, my college actually has Xbox 360s and PS3s in the "Student Recreation Center" that students are more than welcome to play with on 46" flat-screens. I witnessed my fellow peers playing GH2 before and at first it looked rather complicated. After over a month since I first landed on the RU campus I finally tried GH2 today. It is like Dance Dance Revolution, just with a guitar. I played multiplayer with a friend and had a blast. Half the time I was laughing because it was going too fast. When you first start out and you here your opponent mess up (there's a noise) it makes the experience that much better. The music you produce all depends on how familiar and good you are with the keys. However the keys are played, that is how the guitar music will sound in the song (short notes, long notes etc.). But this does bring up an issue, sometimes the game can become frustrating. There are times where you could have sworn you pressed a key on the guitar at the exact moment the note passes. Also the the position of the tremolo arm can be rather inconvenient (at least for me). The soundtrack used for the game was also fantastic--a lot of the music I never heard before and I instantly fell in love with them. Some might be concerned with its replayability. When I played I decided to go from easy to medium difficulty and I have to say, I am still challenged by it. But hey, it was only my first day.
For disclosure sake, even though I am in no way interested in playing or learning how to play a guitar, or even being around guitars for that matter, I enjoyed it. Thus, it says something about the quality of this game--you do not have to be a "metalhead" or a guitarist to like the Guitar Hero series. If you can afford it, I highly recommend you get a copy. The thing about this game is that there is not much to say about it. It is more of an experience thing than anything else.
