Guitar Hero 2

[Whyme]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6147732.html

If there's one lesson to take away from the Rolling Stones' four-decade-long career, it's that rock and roll will never, ever die. As such, when RedOctane and Harmonix Music's runaway hit Guitar Hero stormed stores last year and established a groupie-like fan base of virtual Vais, pseudo Satrianis, and make-believe Malmsteens, a sequel was as inevitable as another aborted Van Halen reunion.

RedOctane today confirmed the band was indeed getting back together, as it announced that Guitar Hero II would arrive on the PlayStation 2 this November. While the song list hasn't been announced yet, the publisher confirmed that there would be more than 55 tracks in dire need of shredding. There's also a multiplayer co-op mode that will let players collaborate, each playing lead, rhythm, or bass guitar portions.

And in case devoted fans feared that the series would stray too far from the musical genre that spawned it, RedOctane has promised that the tracks would be the same mix of classic, alternative, and modern rock, with additional entries from hair metal and heavy metal.

RedOctane has confirmed that the sequel will be compatible with the original game's guitar peripheral, and that it will give the world its first glimpse of the game at next month's Electronics Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.

I just had a nerdgasm.

However, if Stairway to Heaven or Eruption or Master of Puppets isn't on there, I will have to kill someone.

[Kasonic]

While I suck at it, Guitar Hero is probably the greatest game ever made.

I await a Guitar Hero equivalent of Stepmania(free on the PC with user-made songs) to skeet wildly over.

[Peacecraft]

They need to have Freebird in this one.

[Kan]

They need Eruption by Van Halen as a secret song that is only playable on expert.

[frott]

They need to make it so that it doesn't suck? I dunno, the first game blew as far as invigorating music making / pattern matching games go. I liked amplitude and frequency just fine, they were difficult.

But:

1) making the unlockable songs be random bullshit by "Who The Fuck Cares" is more than a letdown.

2) the two player head to head mode is bullshit because they simply split the notes up between the two people. Hay, the entire point structure depends on when you use the bonus... so whoever gets a larger string wins, even if you both have perfect runs and use the bonus at the optimal time.

3) The game is far, far too easy. You can flub pretty much every solo by doing the easy parts well and using starpower and getting 1 out of every 6 notes right. I shouldn't have to jump to the hardest difficulty right off the bat and only get stuck on boards where it feels like I'm going to break the shoddy controller.

4) While it is clear that getting horrid covers of various songs allows you to put more songs in due to paying substantially less to the owners, it allows you to put more horrid covers.

5) The mapping of the notes is just horribly wrong, especially with chords. No, playing the same exact chord musically should not translate to different finger positions on the guitar. This makes the harder modes actually easier, since the notes map to the music better and positionally you actually play a tad more accurately. In fact, the hardest bits of the game (expert solos) are easier to do with the fucking sound off since they have you doing retarded chunks of it that make no sense.


It just pisses me off when people gush about games like this, "greatest evar made! Lor lor lor" because the standard is set.

[Dyscord]

I would have EASILY dropped 60 bucks on this game if it had the REAL artists doing the music. I don't even like rythmn games, but I do love metal. I'm sorry, but having someone else other than Halford singing "You got another thing com'n" just killed it for me. No way in hell am I buying a game to hear someone else other than the artist singing my favorite songs.

[RiskyChris]

Originally Posted by Dyscord

I would have EASILY dropped 60 bucks on this game if it had the REAL artists doing the music. I don't even like rythmn games, but I do love metal. I'm sorry, but having someone else other than Halford singing "You got another thing com'n" just killed it for me. No way in hell am I buying a game to hear someone else other than the artist singing my favorite songs.

I don't know about you, but I bought the game because I wanted to shred some mad licks, not listen to songs.

./shrug

[Kasonic]

Originally Posted by Dyscord

I would have EASILY dropped 60 bucks on this game if it had the REAL artists doing the music. I don't even like rythmn games, but I do love metal. I'm sorry, but having someone else other than Halford singing "You got another thing com'n" just killed it for me. No way in hell am I buying a game to hear someone else other than the artist singing my favorite songs.

They said they ARE trying to get some of this for GH2, but do you realize how much licensing the original track of a given song would cost compared getting rights for the name and making a cover? Maybe if you were EA or Sony. Who the fuck is RedOctane?

[James]

RedOctane, Inc. is a publisher, developer, and distributor of interactive entertainment software, hardware and accessories. RedOctane is also a leader in subscription based online game rentals, becoming the world's first online game rental service when it opened in 1999.

The company offers its interactive entertainment products in versions that operate on the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system console from Sony Computer Entertainment, Xbox™ video game system from Microsoft, and on personal computers ("PC"). RedOctane's leading software product offerings include In The Groove for the PlayStation 2 and Guitar Hero for the PlayStation 2. RedOctane also designs, manufactures, and markets high quality video game peripherals and accessories and has won awards for the Ignition® Dance Pad and the Guitar Hero SG® Controller.

RedOctane is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California with a development studio in Chennai, India and hardware and accessory manufacturing in Hong Kong. More information about RedOctane and its products can be found on the company's World Wide Web site, which is located at www.redoctane.com.

November 2005 Released Second video game title Guitar Hero along with the specially designed SG Controller for the PS2.

June 2005 Released first video game title In The Groove for PS2.

January 2005 Granted Sony PlayStation®2 publisher license.

January 2004 Launched Get Up & Move! Campaign to highlight inspirational stories of kids losing weight playing dance video games.

April 2002 Introduced the award winning RedOctane Ignition Dance Pad.

September 2001 First company to introduce a dance pad cover to protect and prolong the life of a dance pad.

August 2001 First company to develop a non-slip dance pad.

August 1999 RedOctane opened its virtual doors as the world’s first online video game rental service.

[Kasonic]

I supposed I got owned. Either way, they're not rich.

[etchazz]

any white stripes in the new one? would have to be something higher than expert to do a jack white song considering the guy plays both bass and lead guitar, at the same fucking time! (and i've seen him do it in concert).

[Whyme]

What Frott said

Although I do agree with a few of your points (the multi-player especially), if you can already play guitar (like you stated in the previous GH thread) this game really isn't for you. It would be like a professional singer complaining Kareoke Revolution is too easy. Astonishing!

[Simas]

I dug the original. They seem to be hinting that for the second they might create a bass guitar controller which would be pretty sweet. Either way multiplayer is getting fixed. Also read the new one will have 55 songs, still alot if it going to be crap youve never heard of and theyre doing the contest thing again. However they also said, with the success of the first one, they now have (big/popular) bands asking to be in the game and offering to record the tracks themselves or give em the recording, whatever. The devs said sometimes that wouldnt work out though because they need it recorded a certain way, blah blah music recording jargon.

I cant wait though.

[frott]

I can play guitar a little, but my pal who's life is centered on guitar thought the game was too retarded to play (and he sucked at the game.) I'm a drummer, and as far as rhythm games go this was easy, whereas their other games were challenging because there were parts where you had to press *gasp* more than 2 buttons at the same time, and the elements of songbuilding and actually strategizing where you're going to move / "play" next.

@ Etchazz : jack white is beyond an expert? Laugh.

The bottomline with rights and licensing is that they can put more shit on there if they don't have to pay as much. Now that they've gotten some popularity (some rabid popularity at that) they can probably sell it so that THEY get paid to put bands on there because everyone's talking about how impossibly awesome it is to hear a gayer version of Freddy Mercury sing Killer Queen.

Shrug.

[Braen]

Originally Posted by etchazz

any white stripes in the new one? would have to be something higher than expert to do a jack white song considering the guy plays both bass and lead guitar, at the same fucking time! (and i've seen him do it in concert).

Dude.. I saw Prince play the guitar and the piano at the same time live in concert.

Jack White doesn't impress me.

Back to the point of the thread. I picked the original up yesterday, it is a fun time killer. Would love to see how the second installment handles the Rythm, bass and lead. That would make a great party game.