PS2 review: Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s (6/10)

Warning: spoilers involved. Don't read this unless you want to know all the tracks in the game.

Let's go through each set, one at a time.

Set 1 songs

• Quiet Riot: (Bang Your Head) Metal Health
A good start.
• Go-Go's: We Got The Beat
Kind of a surprise, but it works here.
• Flock of Seagulls: I Ran (So Far Away) [as performed by]
Not bad, but it seems like they took some of the keyboards and made them into guitar notes.
• Accept: Balls To The Wall
Standard metal fare.

Set 1 encore

• Skid Row: 18 And Life
Nice encore tune. Moves around a bit, but not too difficult on Hard.

Set 2 songs

• Scorpions: No One Like You
Good song, and a good way to start the set.
• Eddie Money: Shakin'
Not bad, I like this one too.
• Asia: Heat Of The Moment
My favorite Asia song, one of the best in the game. Too bad it's not the original and they don't do the guitar solo correctly.
• White Lion: Radar Love

whaaaaaaa?

no.

Not only did they defame the game by including a cover of the song (hey, the original was a '70s song anyway), but it's a bad cover. Bad. Loss of one point.

I mean, seriously. There's a White Lion song in here and it isn't Wait?

Set 2 encore

• Limozeen: Because, It's Midnite
Um ... what? Did someone break into the game and wreck the last half of set 2? This isn't even worth putting in the game, and on top of it, you won't get points from it. I posted a perfect 55K. boo.

Set 3 songs

• Dio: Holy Diver
Okay, back on track. Good song.
• Vapors: Turning Japanese
Uh, whatever. The pop influence, I guess.
• 38 Special: Hold On Loosely
I really like this song too. Not a bad set so far.
• Scandal: The Warrior [as performed by]
Nice. Get rid of Turning Japanese and we could have had a really solid set.

Set 3 encore

• Twisted Sister: I Wanna Rock [as performed by]
Awesome! The one thing they should have added was the lead singer asking the crowd what they wanted to do with their lives. This was a solid set.

Set 4 songs

• Romantics: What I Like About You
Not a bad song.
• Police: Synchronicity II
Sting is not a good singer to have to copy.
• Krokus: Ballroom Blitz
I couldn't tell right away if this was real or not. I like Krokus' version better than the original.
• Oingo Boingo: Only A Lad
Um ... this isn't Karaoke Revolution.

Set 4 encore

• Ratt: Round And Round
Nice. Songs by the two artists at the first real concert I went to see (they opened for Billy Squier).

Set 5 songs

• Poison: Ain't Nothin' But A Good Time

um ...

that's not the title. Those lyrics don't even appear in the song. This is inexcusable. Loss of a point. (At least the song is good.)

• Billy Squier: Lonely Is The Night
Good song.
• Faster Pussycat: Bathroom Wall
Hadn't heard this one before, but it's not bad.
• X: Los Angeles
Who?

Set 5 encore

• Iron Maiden: Wrathchild
Nice. I forgot about this one. Unfortunately, The Trooper is 10x cooler.

Set 6 songs

• Judas Priest: Electric Eye [as performed by]
Hadn't heard this one before. Nice touch to get their version of it.
• Dead Kennedys: Police Truck
One punk song per game, huh? It's not a bad song, I guess.
• Winger: Seventeen
Nice song, but not sure this is the type of song for this set.
• Anthrax: Caught In A Mosh
eh.

Final encore

• Extreme: Play With Me

Okay, it's nice that it has Mozart stuff in it, I guess, but seriously? This is the best you had? From the '80s? Seriously?

I never heard this song before. Sorry, not impressed.

So that's it. Hmm ... where to begin.

No Van Halen? No AC/DC? No Bon Jovi? No Cinderella? No Def Leppard? No Dokken? No Tesla? No Autograph?

And that's just from my own collection.

No additional songs to unlock. (Maybe the developers ran out of their own tunes to include. Ha ha. Oh wait, that probably wasn't a joke.)

No career score. Like GH II, there isn't even a cumulative score for each level like they had in GH I.

This is very Madden-ish: the exact same game, only with new songs. (Actually, it's not even as much as you got in GH II.) At least they have the working hammer-ons and pull-offs.

Sorry to say it, but I don't recommend this game at full price. You won't get your money's worth. I hope Rock Band and GH III are worth it, because we're definitely getting screwed for the time being, between this and the lack of track packs (four in all, after the last one, but still only three songs per pack).

zlionsfan's rating: 6 rounds of sardonic applause out of 10.

Big hair, loud music, and regrets

It's true. Rocks the 80s is here, arriving promptly on the 26th (although they did that awful hold-the-game-until-we-say thing that I dislike; I guess the flip side is that I know I'll get it on launch day). It was almost like going to a high school reunion, running into an old flame, and making plans to hook up that evening.

Don't get me wrong. It was good - heck, parts of it were great - but really, it wasn't what I was hoping it would be, and honestly, it's probably because my expectations were too high. This was only supposed to be GH II with '80s songs, and that's exactly what it is. After all, there's a reason why she's an old flame ... and remember, your friend's cousin is coming into town later this year, and she's supposed to be smoking hot.

I'll have a more detailed review later (with spoilers, sorry, but it would be hard to review it accurately without listing all the tracks).

It's understood ...

Got my first perfect score on Hard today (GH II): Strutter. It's by far the easiest song in the first couple of sets, which means it's probably the easiest Hard song of all. For as well as I know Surrender, I just can't get a couple of the phrases down, and Message in a Bottle has way too many notes to get easily.

When I finally stumbled through Woman to unlock the second set, I got four stars on Message in a Bottle, then tried Strutter. Five stars the first time, and no missed notes until about halfway through. I finished the rest of the set (three stars on each), knocked out Them Bones (3) and Monkey Wrench (4), and came back to finish up Strutter.

What makes it so easy is that there aren't any speed notes (sixteenths or faster - at least I think they're sixteenths), and the only orange notes can be played with your pinky without having to play other notes.

Unfortunately, I had the time to practice because my 360 apparently died. It's locking up pretty much every time I play a game, and of course it didn't happen a month ago while it was still under warranty. Well, we'll see what happens. I have a feeling I'm going to be out some money. Now, if only there were something to keep me out of the house for a few days this week ...

I am .... Iron Man ...

That's right. At long last, after another Gamers' Day and a little practice (cue AI rant), I finished the second Guitar Hero I set on Hard. Not only that, but I played Iron Man again after I finished it and moved up from three stars to four, and then knocked out Killer Queen for good measure. I'm not sure how much farther I'll get, but it was good to make it to a new set of songs.

It really is about knowing the song. You shouldn't be able to sight-read most of the harder stuff anyway. It's not like you see notes coming toward you with a treble clef or standard guitar tab.

I also picked up five stars on Mother on GH II. Only four on Surrender, which was disappointing. I was thisclose a couple of times. Woman still scares me (thank you, I'll be here all week).

I can see why people would use cheat codes or saves for stuff like this. Then again, you can play those songs in practice mode, so I suppose I could always try, say, Crazy On You on Hard without having to work my down through all those other sets.

PS2 review: Guitar Hero II (9/10)

Okay, I couldn't wait any longer (and as mentioned before, it's a good thing, with the 360 version delayed over a month so far), and as you can tell, I like the game. Here's my official review.

What's different:

• +++ Practice. (We talkin' 'bout practice?) You can now practice parts of a song at different speeds so you can figure out how to handle the difficult parts.
• ++ Perfection. In addition to the three- to five-star rating system, the set list now marks songs that you've played perfectly with solid stars, as opposed to outlined stars for the normal ratings.
• ++ Encores. Starting with Medium difficulty, instead of simply adding a song to the set when you get to that level, you have to complete the set first (3 of 4 songs). Once you do, the crowd asks for an encore, which happens to be the new song in the set. (Kansas and Guns 'N Roses - great tunes.)
• +++ Complementary two-player mode. Instead of splitting the melody, one person can play lead and one can play bass. (Haven't tried this yet. I have only one guitar at home.
• - Songs. There seems to be more emphasis on modern songs and on speed songs, rather than on classic rock and technique songs. Eh. (On the other hand, one advantage of speed songs, especially those with repetitive notes, is that you build up points a lot faster. The only song I've completed on Expert on GH I is I Wanna Be Sedated, precisely for that reason.)
• + More obvious unlockables. You unlock guitars by beating a difficulty level and by getting five-star ratings on all songs within that level. (There may be similar things in GH I, but it's hard to tell.) On the other hand, unlockables really don't make that much difference.

One thing that didn't change, sadly, was the list of songs you can buy. Hey, it's great that this game was developed by guys who also play guitar, but you know what? When you play cover tunes, you generally want to know the songs you're covering. I guess I'm thankful they didn't make us play their music and unlock well-known songs, but still, there's not much point in having unlockables that people don't want to unlock or purchase. I really didn't care much for any of the songs you can buy in GH I, and I didn't see anything in GH II that I really wanted either. (One nice touch would have been to add bonus songs related to songs that you perfected, even if you did it on a set-by-set basis. For example, if you perfected all of the set 2 songs on Medium, including Strutter, then it would unlock Detroit Rock City.)

(Note: the Wikipedia entry says that RedOctane won't be using Harmonix for Guitar Hero III, which hopefully means no more developer songs to unlock.)

It uses the same guitar controllers, which means you have the same issues: there are little things about the guitar that aren't quite right. I saw one reviewer on Amazon who suggested that the fret buttons should have been angled toward the top of the guitar, more in line with the curvature of your hand (and also more like a real guitar - you don't have to press straight down on a string). There seem to be some times when you don't get credit for a note because you're not pressing quite right on the buttons.

Overall, I like the improvements, and I suspect I'll really like the multiplayer improvements. Guess I better get working on Medium so I can unlock Pro Face-Off mode for us. :)

Update: Deduction of one point for no longer showing a cumulative score for a difficulty level. Honestly, I don't know how these things happen. Did they really think that we wouldn't miss it? They realized we wanted to tell the difference between a perfect performance and an imperfect five-star performance. Why wouldn't we want to know our total score for that difficulty level? BOO!

zlionsfan's rating: 9 groupies out of 10.

Diary of a rock star

I couldn't hold out for the 360 version, so even though I'm only about halfway through Guitar Hero, I bought Guitar Hero II for the PS2. Reviews to come ... this is more of a progress report.

On Guitar Hero, I'm in the second set of hard songs. Easy and medium are all completed, although there are several medium songs and perhaps a couple of easy songs for which I need that fifth (or fourth) star. I just squeaked by on You Got Another Thing Comin' - one more and I can unlock the third set.

I figured out something revolutionary: you can move your fingers on the fret buttons. Yes indeed. Despite the fact that I know this perfectly well in the real world (granted, playing bass is much easier than playing lead, but they still don't write many songs that you can play without moving your left hand), I hadn't yet translated it to Guitar Hero. You can get by on the four-button songs without moving, but not with five-button songs unless you're like Antonio Alfonseca, and let's face it, we don't know if that sixth finger can push a fret button or not.

I was mildly successful: I still needed a Star Power boost to squeak by with three stars, but I passed nonetheless. I may try Iron Man yet again. (Randy Rhoades, I'm not.)

Guitar Hero II: I've just unlocked the fourth set of songs on medium. I wasn't entirely fond of the first four songs, so hopefully the encore will be a good one. I haven't completed all the easy songs yet, but I have more perfect songs in II than in I. (I'm guessing this is partly due to having played more, but it also seemed as though the easy songs in II are easier. I played at least a couple of them perfectly the first time.)

I still make mistakes at times because I'm listening to the melody and trying to play it instead of the notes I see on-screen. Example: Message In A Bottle, medium, the part in the chorus where "Sting" is singing "I'll send an SOS to the world."

The bass line (which is what you're playing for this part) translates in eighth notes as
2222222233344444
but the Guitar Hero line you play is
2222222-3334444- (positive about the first rest, not sure about the second)

It makes sense from a difficulty perspective - it's much harder to move to another fret when you have to keep playing than when you have a beat to change your fingering - but it messes you up if you're playing the song instead of what's on the screen. (This is the first song in either Guitar Hero that I've also tried in real life, and in fact, I've not only played the bass line, but I've attempted the first part of the lead melody. It helps in some ways and hurts in others.)

More progress this week, maybe. I got Rayman Raving Rabbids from GameFly yesterday, so I may have to save my arm for that.

PS2 review: Guitar Hero (10/10)

Yep, that's right, we're going back to Sony's final successful entry into the console wars. This came out quite some time ago, but I held off on buying it because I had other games I was playing early in the year (like Oblivion and, well, Oblivion). So my brother ends up getting it for me for my birthday, which is why I'm reviewing it now and not six months ago.

It rocks.

If you haven't seen the game, it's a guitar version of the karaoke-style games that have come out for the PS2, the ones where you sing along with popular songs and are scored based on how you match the melody. You use a special controller that works more like a bass than a lead guitar, with five buttons instead of frets, a wedge-shaped strum button instead of strings, and a whammy bar.

There are four levels of difficulty, easy, medium, hard, and expert, and different sets of songs with increasing difficulty within each level (the songs are mostly the same throughout, but you get more songs at the higher levels). I've made it through the easy and medium songs so far ...

For the easy songs, you're basically playing rhythm guitar to the main melody, with single notes spaced evenly and maybe a few chords thrown in, all on the first three buttons. The songs range from Joan Jett and Deep Purple to very-simplified Clapton and Hendrix (and even simplified, they can be a challenge). I was able to go straight through the easy songs, getting five-star reviews the first time in almost every set, and nothing less than four stars.

By the medium songs, you're playing lead, although you won't have to hit every note in some songs. The difficulty ranges from slightly harder Joan Jett and Deep Purple to Pantera and Randy Rhoades ... for these, during the first couple of sets, I could still knock out four- and five-star reviews. By the final set, there were points in the song where I basically gave up and waited for the next measure.

I think my bass background helped me because I was basically doing this type of thing, listening to a song and playing along, so at the easiest levels, I was right at home. I'm getting to the point where I'll have to work on picking rather than plucking (to play up and down rather than just down) to hit the really fast notes.

If you play a real guitar, you may not like this game as much for a couple of reasons. One is that it is definitely not like playing a real guitar (because otherwise, very few people would be able to play it). The other is that you can actually get the feeling that you're able to play Clapton or Stevie Ray Vaughan, and we all know that you can't.

For everyone else, if you have any interest in guitar playing at all, by all means, get this game, and set some money aside to get Guitar Hero 2 (although I'm waiting for the 360 version).

zlionsfan's rating: 11. It's one louder.