Need More Songs if you Already Have GH2?

The funny thing is that my brother and I bought Guitar Hero 2 first. It came with a guitar already, and when we started to long for more songs to play with, we bought the very first Guitar Hero. To us, it was more of an expansion than another game. We know a lot of people who played the original will feel that GH2 is the expansion.

The first thing I noticed was that Guitar Hero does not support widescreen, which cause the picture to look stretched on our HDTV. While the PS2 does not support true HD, it allows for a squished image so that when it appears on a widescreen television, it looks normal. Unfortunately, GH did not have this ability in the Options menu.

If you haven't played any of the Guitar Hero games, check out my Guitar Hero 2 review. GH2 did not really change much from GH. Thus, even when we played GH2 first, GH still felt right at home.

Because we already have a guitar, we didn't feel the need to purchase another one right away. When we did, we found a great deal on a TAC guitar, which is an aftermarket guitar for GH. We found that it did not work with GH2, but they sold an adapter that allowed for the TAC guitar to work for GH2. We finally have 2 guitars!

In either case, there isn't a lot different. The only main difference I saw was the widescreen support. The graphics are pretty much the same as well. Both GH titles are noticable less sharp than GH2 on the XBOX 360. But then again, the PS2 is a much more affordable platform. As far as I know, GH is only available on the PS2, so there is no downloadable content for GH. GH2 does allow for downloadable content, but only on the XBOX 360 version. PS2 gamers gets the short end of the stick. :(

Setting Up
Like with GH2, you will not need any of the standard Dual Shock controllers, so you should really take them off the PS2. Instead, a guitar should be hooked up to the 1st controller port. If you do have a 2nd guitar, it can be hooked up to the 2nd controller port. However, like with GH2, multiplayer isn't that fun, but will at least keep the 2nd player busy playing the bass.

Gameplay
The gameplay is exactly like GH2. In fact, GH and GH2 are pretty much the same game with different songs. Also, GH seem to be easier than GH2, which makes GH2 more of a direct sequal than anything else. Maybe we should have bought GH first before GH2...

Because of this, the descprtion of the gameplay is the same as GH2. If you haven't read my GH2 review, here is a run down of the difficulty settings:

On Easy, you only need 3 of the 5 fret buttons. The songs require only simple notes that doesn't come down as fast, and it is a very nice intro for beginers without discouraging them. Then as you play the next song, it throws you a little more notes and at a slightly faster pace. You will keep unlocking songs which will give you more notes and because you are only using 3 buttons, the pace is much faster. This teaches you to move your fingers faster and even make you anticipate notes instead of waiting for them.

On Medium, you will need 4 of the 5 fret buttons. Just like with Easy, you have to start with easy songs first that contains less notes at a slower pace. As you get more used to it, more songs unlock with even more notes at a slightly faster pace. Using 4 fingers is already a challange if you are just coming from the Easy play mode of just 3 fret buttons. You will learn to listen to the song and pay more attention to the guitar track, and thus learn to play by ear more than just having your eyes trained on the notes coming down the screen.

On Hard, you will be using all 5 of the fret buttons. It's when you will start to have more fun! More of the guitar notes that you hear will actually appear on screen, for which you will have to hit! Not only that, but using all 5 buttons will require you to move your hand and fingers around the fret bar, which the earlier songs will teach you without getting overly frustrated. As you unlock more songs, being able to move your hand and fingers around is more crucial and you will be tested on that a lot more.

On Expert, you still will be using all 5 of the fret buttons, but almost all of the guitar notes that you hear will appear on the screen as notes you have to hit! Notes comes down feverishly fast, and stranger combinations of buttons will contort your hand in stranger ways! Some of the later songs on Hard would have also started to teach you that already, which blends in well with the first few songs on Expert. In this way, the game progress very well and smoothly in difficulty (and fun) as the player gets better and wants a bigger challenge.

Of course, hitting the notes may not be enough of a competition driver, so they added points, and the ability to get more points in variety of ways! First, if you are able to keep a clean streak, your score multiplier raises. For every 10 note streak, your multiplier rises - from your basic 1x, to 2x, then 3x, and lastly 4x.

Then there is the Star Power. As you play and hit all of the designated notes (they are all teal in color), a bar fills up. If you miss one of the notes in the designated area, they become regular notes and you just missed your chance of getting the powering up the bar. Also, you will notice that there are some trailing notes that look different than other trailing notes. If you are holding one of those notes and wiggle the whammy bar, you will fill up the Star Power bar quicker!

When you finally fill it up at least half way, you are able to activate your Star Power. To do this, you must tilt the guitar straight up or hit the Select button. I find it hard to do this without missing notes so I usually wait for a less active part before I swing my guitar. I find it harder to move my hand to hit the Select button, so I prefer tilting the guitar. If you fill up the Star Power bar all the way when you activate it, it last longer. When activated, Star Power doubles your current multiplier for more points! For example, if you are currently 1x, you will now get 2x. If you are at 2x, you will now get 4x. 3x gets 6x,, and 4x gets the maximum multiplier of 8x! Use it strategically where there are lots of notes (and make sure you hit all of them) for the most points!

Multiplayer
Just like GH2, having a second player isn't really all that fun, unfortunately. You can play together as the guitarist, but the notes get split between the two of you. Thus, neither of the players actually get to play the full notes the song has to offer. However, if the 2nd player decides to play as the bass, the 1st player gets all the fun of the guitar notes, while the bass player gets the repetitive bass notes - not very fun for player 2. Not all songs are boring, though - there are a few songs that may keep the bass player interested with quick changing notes.

Other than that, the Guitar Hero series seem to be very much single-player oriented. Even GH3 does not seem to change this.

The Music
GH is all about rocking out, so the track list consist of rock spanning different decades. It was the first rythym game that uses songs the mass seem to digest easier than Dance Dance Revolutiona and Beatmania. It's all about rock, and the different genres of rock. You will find tracks that you will instantly recognize and rock out to and learn to love the ones you have never heard before.

The tracks are mostly cover songs, but almost all of them sound like they came from the original artist.

# Motorhead - "Ace of Spades"
# Ozzie Osbourne - "Bark at the Moon"
# Audioslave - "Cochise"
# Pantera - "Cowboys From Hell"
# Cream - "Crossroads"
# Sum 41 - "Fat Lip"
# Edgar Winter Group - "Frankenstein"
# Blue Oyster Cult - "Godzilla"
# Burning Brides - "Heart Full of Black"
# The Exies - "Hey You"
# Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Higher Ground"
# Joann Jett - "I Love Rock and Roll"
# The Ramones - "I Wanna Be Sedated"
# Bad Religion - "Infected"
# Black Sabbath - "Iron Man"
# Queen - "Killer Queen"
# Boston - "More Than A Feeling"
# Queens of the Stone Age - "No One Knows"
# ZZ Top - "Sharp Dressed Man"
# Deep Purple - "Smoke on the Water"
# Jimi Hendrix - "Spanish Castle Magic"
# Incubus - "Stellar"
# Megadeth - "Symphony of Destruction"
# The Donnas - "Take It Off"
# Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
# Stevie Ray Vaughn - "Texas Flood"
# White Zombie - "Thunderkiss 65"
# Helmet - "Unsung"
# Judas Priest - "You Got Another Thing Comin"
# David Bowie - "Ziggy Stardust"

In addition, there are tracks from Indie Rock bands.

# Acro-Brats - "Call Out"
# Anarchy Club - "Behind the Mask"
# Artillery - "The Breaking Wheel"
# Black Label Society - "Fire It Up"
# Count Zero - "Sail Your Ship By"
# Din - "Fly on the Wall"
# Drist - "Decontrol"
# Freezepop - "Get Ready 2 Rock"
# Graveyard BBQ - "Cheat on the Church"
# Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives - "Hey"
# Made in Mexico - "Farewell Myth"
# Monkey Steal the Peach - "Theme from Guitar Hero"
# The Bags - "Caveman Rejoice"
# The Model Sons - "The Story of my Love"
# The Slip - "Even Rats"
# The Upper Crust - "Eureka! I Found Love"
# Shaimus - "All of This"

Conclusion
If you already own GH2, buying GH is pretty much like buying more songs for a game you already love. The game mechanics of GH and GH2 are the same, including Star Power and the note streak multiplier reward.

You can also now purchase GH and GH2 in the same box! GH is not available on any other platform, so you will not be missing anything such as downloadable content as with GH2 on the XBOX 360. If you want to rock out to Queens of the Stone Age "No One Knows" and Franz Ferdinand "Take Me Out", this is one game you have to buy! You can't find them on GH2.

If the track list does nothing for you over GH2's list, then you're not missing out. Go buy GH3 instead. Or look into Rock Band. However, if you want to expand on your Guitar Hero experience, and must have all the tracks, you really don't have a choice but to add this game to your collection!