Guitar Hero 2 for the Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2)

Ever imagined yourself on-stage playing on a live band with thousands of fans screaming with every strum of your guitar? Every teenager has this wild fantasy of becoming a rock star. Who doesn’t? Anyone who has played in an actual band knows how fulfilling it is to nail your parts in a song and be applauded by the crowd.

This is one reason for the success of RedOctane’s original Guitar Hero which was released last year in the PS2. Some critics have dubbed this as inarguably the best music game ever released. But developers RedOctane and Harmonix have sought ways to boost your experience even more with a few welcome additions to an already impeccable game.

The basic thing you need so you can start rocking is a custom five-button guitar controller that you have to plug into your PS2 unit. Then you start fretting and strumming in accordance with the guitar patterns that scroll down the screen. All you have to do is let your hands dance up and down the guitar’s neck in time with the guitar patterns so you’d be able to rack up points for yourself.

Some major enhancements for Guitar Hero 2 for Playstation2 this version include a greatly expanded (and fairly impressive) roster of songs for you to play. So whether you’re into the 70’s classic rock, 80’s metal, 90’s grunge, or today’s emo music or some other modern tunes, it’s a nice little combination of everything.

The Multiplayer mode has also been beefed up to include a cooperative multiplayer mode wherein two players work together as a team. Both of you decide on your own whether you’ll be taking the lead, rhythm, or bass parts depending on the chosen song. As a team, you are compiling together the same note streak and building up the same Star Power pool.

Not only that, the Expert mode has also been made more difficult than the original with the three button chords which makes perfecting the notes even more challenging and the whole experience more fun. And with the Guitar Hero II, you can be at par with some of the best musicians with its enhanced difficulty mode.

But no need to worry for you as there is the new practice mode that will help you focus more on the guitar parts that you just can’t seem to nail. By allowing you to play a song at a slightly lower speed (determining the speed is really up to your own discretion as there are levels of speed for this one), you’ll have enough time to master the intricate guitar parts. Focusing on individual section or sections of a song is also possible with this new mode. So, there’s really no excuse for you to falter on some parts of the song.

So, if you have rock star fantasies or just a plain music fan who wants to have some fun, the Guitar Hero II is definitely something for you. This might be something to pass your time in your PS2 while you and your friends are still working out the idea of forming a real band.

If you already have Guitar Hero 2 on PS2 then you will need cheat codes to allow you to unlock all of the songs and extra secret modes within this video game.