Guitar Hero (PS2)
Whoever came up with the idea for guitar hero is very smart
as
most people I know that have played it liked it. It is fairly easy
to get started, but quite hard to master.
Gameplay:
90%
Playing the
guitar is great fun. You play the game with a guitar controller which has a
strumming button and five fret buttons which you press down in order to play
a note. On the screen a song plays with music notes that are colour coded
the same way the fret buttons are, and so you need to press the right fret
buttons while strumming in time with the notes. Every time you get the notes
right you score points, and if you get combos (complicated guitar solos)
right you get bonus points.
There is also a special mode while playing called “star power” which occurs when you get a set of notes perfectly right. When you have your star power bar filled up you can tilt the guitar up and it will deploy star power where it doubles your points, so if you have a x3 combo it will be put up to x6.
The game has various difficulty settings and there are forty different tracks to work your way through, right up to “Freebird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd which is the final song on the game. There are also another twenty or so extra tracks to unlock while doing the ‘Career mode’, of which my favourites are probably “Sweet Child of Mine” and “You Really Got Me”.
Graphics: 78%
The graphics
are okay but not as good as in other games, but then it’s the sound that is
key to this game. Some of the effects when you deploy star power are very
impressive though, like when they make the guitar float in mid air which
looks pretty cool.
Sound: 98%
For one of
the first times ever I am going to say that the sound is really important
here, as without good sound it would mean you are just pressing a bunch of
coloured buttons to get a poor quality guitar sound, however the sound
quality of the songs in the game is very good.
Value:
80%
There are two
very important but opposing factors when playing this game; don’t play it
too much, but practice to avoid being rubbish. Unfortunately both of these
can make the game a little boring at times. If you are struggling then you
can practice it a
lot on a lower difficulty setting and eventually you will get there, however
if you play it too much then it gets a little boring.
Conclusion:
This game was
a good idea, and is great fun. It still needs some improvements though as
the list of songs could have been longer. With the amazing memory of the PS3
they should be able to have many more songs though, so I’m looking forward
to Guitar Hero III.
Overall Score: 87%