I rock... it's as simple as that.
First off, on the periphery of things are the new characters in the forms of Rockerbilly, Heavy Metal and Rocker Chic… There’s also 55 news songs, of which we’ll touch on later but before that, the most important changes of all are in the play modes… and boy, these changes totally alter Guitar Hero 2….dude.
Now the single player mode is unchanged, you follow the path of a nobody band as you play gigs, get popular and start earning cash, moving on to play bigger venues and trickier songs for more and more money. The real changes are in the multiplayer section, where you’ll find Guitar Hero 2 has become the beast you always wished it would be… because now it not only let’s you fulfil the fantasy of being a Guitar Hero, it let’s you and your mate become rock gods as the pair of you rock it out together to take your band to the land of drugs and groupies.
Click for larger imageYep, the new multiplayer modes now have a co-op mode but more than this, the co-op mode will allow you and your mate to play lead, bass or rhythm guitars, so you work in concert together to nail the song and progress through the game. Now while this not sound like the most amazing advancement ever, the pure feeling of playing a song with both of you nailing it so the rhythm and lead come in perfectly together is simply superb… I might even go so far as to say it beats nailing Ziggy Stardust on hard!
Click for larger imageSo far there’s only 8 songs in the game, (it is an E3 2006 taster, after all), but the finished game will feature 55 songs and you can bet that Red Octane will use their already demonstrated knack of picking the very best selection from classic rock through to modern thrash.
Click for larger imageWe worked our way through the song list and soon found that which guitar you play is dependant on the song and which guitar you pick before the song starts. For example, if you go for ‘You Really Got Me’, (which is the Van Halen version, not The Kinks) you just play lead and bass guitars. But loading up ‘Strutter’ from Kiss gave us the option of lead, bass or rhythm guitars.
