Guitar Hero II - First Impressions

Guitar Hero II came out in Australia today, and I have my copy. It comes complete with new guitar, which I have obligingly adorned with a zombie teddybear sticker from one of the large selection of decals provided with the game.

The first thing that jumps out at you is that it's hard. In the original game, I could beat No One Knows on Expert, and have a pretty good stab at Bark at the Moon on Hard. In Guitar Hero II I'm being severely challenged by the game's third song (Surrender) on the default difficulty. It's insane.

Also, the cover artists blow. A bunch of songs that should be instant classics are butchered by some horrible cover vocals. I think the developers realised this, too, because the default audio settings have the vocals turned way down so you can hardly hear them. That's not too big a fault, because after all, the guitar's the star here, but if you're a fan of tracks like You Really Got Me or Who Was In My Room Last Night then you'll be ready to use your shiny new guitar to bludgeon someone to death.

That aside, it's great. Moments after firing up a rendition of Mother you'll be strutting around and jamming the whammy bar like there's no tomorrow. It's really a blast.

I haven't had a chance to try the multiplayer yet, but having bought both games I now have two guitars, so some axe-grinding showdowns are in store for the future.

Also, in case you haven't been exposed to the interblog for the last month and have thus been coccooned from news like some kind of contagious leper-baby, the game features both Deathklok and Trogdor.

Because the Trogdor comes in the NI-IGHT!