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Guitar Hero 2   Publisher: Activision/RedOctane Developer: Harmonix Genre: Rhythm Author: AnTiPoDe

 

FIMP: Guitar Hero 2 [X360]

"Anyone interested in Guitar Hero and owns an Xbox 360 should get this. Anyone with a 360 and a 1080p TV will absolutely wet their pants from watching the graphics." I was in Circuit City out in Long Island (Source Mall, to be exact) shopping for some Car Audio for my honeybunny. I had to wait a whopping 3+ hours for the car to be done and while I was walking around the store looking at future purchases, I stumbled upon a large flat panel TV running Guitar Hero 2 for Xbox 360. No one else in the store was interested in it at the time, so I decided to show off a bit and get a first impression of the conversion to Microsoft's little hotbox. Below are my impressions of how the demo held up. THE GUITAR The X-Plorer Guitar peripheral for the Xbox 360 is physically different from the SG Guitar peripheral found for Playstation2. The buttons are notably smaller, and the neck seems to be thinner. The buttons are a bit tighter, much like the SG that came with Guitar Hero 2. The model in the store had a faulty vibrato (or whammy (or wang) ) bar that only worked when you moved it in a weird way, but I'm sure that the retail models will not have that issue. There's also a pad and a Xbox dashboard button for full compatibility with Xbox 360 standards. Playing the songs is no different than playing on PS2, as the guitar is very responsive. THE GRAPHICS I've seen the Playstation2 run at 480p and it looks great, but the developers really did Xbox gamers a solid in the graphics overhaul department. The game runs natively in 720p and 1080i, and I was basking in the upscaled glory of a 1080p TV. The background action is extremely crisp and the notes fly by very smoothly in the foreground. I enjoyed watching every second of my play time. THE GAMEPLAY It's classic Guitar Hero. I started out playing Beast and the Harlot, and while playing I noticed that I was missing a lot of notes although I was playing in time. After setting the Calibration Lag, things improved greatly and I blazed through each song I played, not necessarily with perfection, but very well. After all, the floor model had no shoulder strap so I had to sit in this cramped "gaming chair" with my neck cranked up toward the screen. THE SONGS There was a new track in the demo, "Life Wasted" by Pearl Jam. It's a catchy little tune that is not really challenging on Expert, but a good song to get your fingers warmed up with. It made very little use of three-note chords and had some mid-level technical parts in the first few figures. I enjoyed it, and hope the other exclusive tracks are more like it... maybe even more difficult and fun to play than Hangar 18? I played, in total, 2 rounds of Beast and the Harlot, 1 round of Life Wasted and 1 round of Madhouse. I also watched some poor guy butcher the crap out of Sweet Child of Mine on Medium. Anyone interested in Guitar Hero and owns an Xbox 360 should get this. Anyone with a 360 and a 1080p TV will absolutely wet their pants from watching the graphics. Rock on, Microsoft... rock on!

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