Guitar Hero 2!!
 

Some information on GH 2, I can't wait!!! Some friends and I are going to have some fun in co-op mode. :)

When is this coming out?!?!

November

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/705/705055p1.html

Pre-E3 2006: Guitar Hero II First Tracks Revealed
RedOctane samples a few of the sequel's massive song list.
by David Adams

May 4, 2006 - In the midst of announcing, to everyone's shuttering shock, that Guitar Hero II will be shown at E3 next week, RedOctane also revealed a teasing sample of the new game's 55-song track list. So, without further delay or unnecessary drum soloing, here are the songs announced so far:


"Arterial Black" by Drist

"Psychobilly Freakout" by The Reverend Horton Heat

"Strutter" by Kiss

"War Pigs" by Black Sabbath

"Who Was in My Room Last Night" by The Butthole Surfers

"You Really Got Me" by the Kinks, as performed by Van Halen

"YYZ" by Rush
In addition to announcing these initial tracks, RedOctane revealed that the new Hero will feature returning rocker Judy Nails along with a new Rockabilly character.

Stay tuned for much more when we rock the E3 show floor.

YYZ!?

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.

Words just cannot express the awesomeness of that song selection.

Hell yeah... Now I just wish it was coming out sooner.

Glad to see the confirmation that it'll be playable next week.

I can't wait to try the new multiplayer.

Here's some more news:

Those of you tired of us banging on so much about Guitar Hero a month before you can even buy it in the UK (April 7th remember!) will be pleased to hear that we ought to be banging on about it for at least another couple of years, as Kelly Sumner, CEO of publisher RedOctane, has told MCV we'll see a further "five or six" titles by the middle of 2007.
"We are working on Guitar Hero 2, which will have 40-plus new tracks," Sumner told MCV. He also confirmed that genre spin-offs including Country Rock for the US and a Metal edition are on the cards. He even pointed to further possibilities for the peripheral, adding, "you could absolutely do a plug and play version".



Also, a bit of interesting news to me from the guy who tracked half the GH1 songs:

Quote:

Marcus: Oh yeah, one of my favorite bands of all time is the Descendents. I've been in dialogue with Bill Stevens, their legendary drummer, and I totally want to get them in the game, exposing the Descendents and Black Flag and King's X. It works on a couple of levels, because I want to see them in the game, and getting the kids to play the songs and discover the back catalog and spur a whole new generation of fans. Especially with a vehicle like this, with so much exposure involved with it.

That would fucking rule.

Does Country Rock = Southern Rock?

My wild guess would be that it's more like Travis Tritt & Hank, Jr. than Skynard & the Allman Bros.

I can't wait. This is pre-order territory.

Just curioius, would this help you become a better guitar player in anyway?

In the same way that playing Madden will make you a better football player, sure.

It's provided further proof that I could never play guitar. 3 buttons = no problem. 4th button introduces lots of problems. Even without having to move my hand, the blue button causes lots of troubles. Damn pinky.

I've made it through most of medium, but will probably not progress very far if at all on the next level. I was proud that I finally got through Stellar on medium the other day. Didn't think that would ever happen. :)

Yes, I suck.

I have more trouble on hard with Stellar than I do Crossroads, sadly.

i finally got 5 stars on ace of spades and crossroads on hard difficulty yesterday. now i just have to get 5 stars on all of the last level songs (cowboys from hell = not gonna happen)

i got up to 78% on expert at cowboys from hell.

ill NEVER beat the last ozzy song...so sadly, ill never beat the game.

doesnt stop me from playing the other songs i already passed though. cant wait for 2.

If my laptop weren't having issues, I'd give you guys show-floor updates on the game.

Alas, it will probably have to wait 'til the weekend. :(

Start a thread and give us all the E Expo updates!! Have you seen EA's Head Coach?

Expo doesn't start 'til Wednesday.

What I'm saying is that laptop + issues = no reliable computer access for me from the show. They've got email lounges and the like from which I may be able to check in, but I really wouldn't count on hearing much of anything from me between Wednesday morning and late Friday evening.

That stinks! Have fun and take plenty of notes!!

Here a new story with pics from the game from IGN


http://ps2.ign.com/articles/705/705210p1.html

Pre-E3 2006: Guitar Hero II Hands-on
Plug in, tune up and get ready to freakin' rock once again.
by Chris Roper


May 5, 2006 - No game in recent years has rocked the IGN offices harder than Guitar Hero, so when the chance came around for us to pick up a couple SGs and plug into Guitar Hero II, well, let's just say we brought our own picks. Dunlop Tortex 0.88mm are where it's at, the by way. RedOctane invited us down to WaveGroup Sound, the studio behind the series' pitch-perfect covers, to check out the game and rock out a few tunes in the mixing room. The build we played was a preview of the E3 build, so we were limited to only two tracks in the awesome new 2-player cooperative mode, but man, we can't wait to pick up the axes again next week at E3.


RedOctane just released the list of the seven tracks that'll be at the show, which include covers of Reverend Horton Heat's "Psychobilly Freakout", KISS' "Strutter", Butthole Surfers' "Who Was In My Room Last Night", Van Halen's take on "You Really Got Me", Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" (Oh Lord yeah!), Rush's "YYZ" and Drist's "Arterial Black". The rest of the 55+ tracks scheduled for the game remain under tight wraps, but from the hints of possibilities that RedOctane dropped our way, the final track list could have some killer songs that people have been begging for since last year.



One of the biggest new features in Guitar Hero II is its cooperative mode (final mode names pending). The 2-player mode from the first game had two guitarists trade licks back and forth, each with their own score, Star Power and so forth. This mode will still be present in Guitar Hero II, but we have a feeling gamers will flock to the new setup like groupies to KISS.

Rather than trading licks, each player has their own part of the song they're assigned to, so while one player will take the lead guitar, the other will play either the rhythm guitar or bass parts, depending upon the song. With the two tracks on display at the demo, the Van Halen version of "You Really Got Me" and Reverend Horton Heat's "Psychobilly Freakout", the second section was assigned to the bass line.



If there's only one thing we took from the demo it's that the bass lines are loud. If producers ever let a bassist mix a record, this it what it would sound like. That doesn't mean that it overpowers the guitar, but it's certainly not buried in the background like on many records. The bass is deep, punching and just flat out sounds awesome. This is great in that players won't feel like they're stuck playing the bass section while their buddy rocks out the lead because hitting each and every note just sounds and feel rewarding as hell. Just as it's awesome to nail an extended power chord, every note coming from the bass instills a sense of rock god power when you hit it.

Being as most bass lines are rather simplistic in comparison to guitar (we're not forgetting Corporal Claypool), the bass sections of the songs we tried are certainly easier than the guitar parts, even on Expert. But that in no way means they aren't fun as hell, evidenced by the fact that as we traded off between the two tracks numerous times before our session was up, everyone was just as eager to pick up the low end as they were the lead guitar.

But the selling point of the game really is the lead guitar, and Guitar Hero II doesn't look to disappoint. "You Really Got Me" is reasonably simple as far as Van Halen tracks go, with a pretty short solo, but it's a really fun song to play. "Psychobilly Freakout" is damn hard, however. It was the first track we tried and went right to Expert, thinking that after we'd dominated "Cowboys from Hell" and "Bark at the Moon" we'd be ready for anything. Big mistake. The opening of this song came at us like it was going out of style, and but seconds later we'd failed. Notching things down to medium with our tails between our legs worked quite a bit better, but we'll definitely be practicing this one when it hits the office.



The coolest part about Guitar Hero II's cooperative mode is that it really emphasizes teamwork, or as it attempts to simulate, two members of a band getting into a groove. It's one thing when you're playing alone and you're nailing a song, but it's another thing altogether when you're nailing your section of a song and your buddy is rocking his, making the song that much cooler. It's hard to understand this if you've never played in a band, but you hit a certain state of Zen and it's just cool.

Part of the reason that this seems to work pretty well is that you're able to fail miserably, making the times that everything comes together that much better. While the 2-player mode from the first game would allow you to finish the song regardless of your performance, co-op in Guitar Hero II works just like the single-player experience in that you'll fail the song if your performance meter drops too low.

Being able to fail obviously means that both players need to bring their chops on the harder levels, though one extremely welcome feature this time around is the ability to assign separate difficulty levels for each player. So, while one person may always play on Expert, their buddy who might be new to the game can choose to play on Easy and still rock together.

Now, playing on Easy means that you'll have less notes to hit so your score won't be as high, but this also could impact a bass player's ability to help out the lead guitarist. Since both players are constantly influencing the Rock Meter, the bass player can really help keep the duo going through a difficult solo by hitting all of his notes. Of course, using Star Power always helps you get through difficult sections and solos, but this time around it's not individual - both players add power to the Star Power Meter and both need to lift their guitars simultaneously in order to trigger it. Again, cooperative.



In addition to building up the same pool of Star Power, notes from both players count towards increasing the score multiplier. Likewise, if either player messes up, the multiplier gets reset. This leaves the potential for both massive scores, as you're able to ramp up to X4 and X8 that much faster, and fairly poor scores as either player can set it back to X1.

Our demo really only scratched the surface of what we'll see in Guitar Hero II. We're already sold on the new cooperative mode, the bass stuff seems to work as well as we'd been wishing for, and the two tracks we were able to try are great fun to play. We're psyched to see a little more of the game at E3, which'll hopefully show us some of its revamped single-player mode, but most of our excitement lies around two words - "War Pigs". Oh Lord yeah.

I wish I could stop drooling.

Me too. I am going to love playing this with my 10 year old daughter. :)

bass line for YYZ? this should be interesting

Kickass

I just got GH1 and am loving it so I can't wait to see the full track list (or more of it) when it's released at E3 :)

Hmm well how about the bass line from a Primus song? Can't say I've heard either of them to comment on which one will be tougher to play.

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/707/707526p1.html

E3 2006: Guitar Hero II Hands-on
We rocked E3 like it's never been rocked before.
by Chris Roper


May 10, 2006 - Guitar Hero II is the business. That's really all we need to say, but if you want to know more, read on.


RedOctane, Sony and a number of other companies all have Guitar Hero II jammable in their E3 2006 booths simply because they know the game kicks ass. RedOctane's booth is where the action's at, however, as you'll not only find the most kiosks in action, but the most current build of the game as well. And by current we mean current - we announced this morning that RedOctane has signed on Primus' "John the Fisherman" for the game (the legit, master recordings direct from Primus), but what we didn't know was that this only just happened. As in, Harmonix got the masters on Monday but somehow managed to get the track into the E3 build. Thank you, Harmonix, thank you.



Today we checked out "John the Fisherman" on bass and "War Pigs" on guitar. Being that you have Les Claypool on bass for "John the Fisherman", it's not going to be the easiest bass line in the game by a long shot. But on the other hand, there isn't any sort of bass solo in the song so once you get down the main two or three licks, then you've got the song nailed. But it's seriously awesome - Claypool's playing in that song is heavy and pounding so playing his part is rad.

"War Pigs" is, of course, killer. It's actually a rather easy song, minus maybe a bit of the solo but we'd also never played it before, but it's a seriously classic metal song and it's just freakin' cool to belt out Iommi's guitar lines. The little frill parts with lightning-quick hammer-ons and hammer-offs is tricky however as we only really nailed the first one all the way through.



We posted hands-on impressions with a Pre-E3 version of the game last week, which you can read about right here. One thing that wasn't in that build however is that Guitar Hero II now has three-button chords. Yes, if you think you were effed on the harder difficulty levels before, you're even more screwed this time. It's not quite as difficult as it sounds, however, as "War Pigs" and "John the Fisherman" each only have two or three in the song, generally at very powerful and lasting chords. It'll throw you off at first, but when you hit them, you'll know what holding the power of the universe in your hands feels like.

They should add Claypool's bass version of Master of Puppets as the ultimate challenge.

so what other new songs were revealed?

Nothing on the show floor, but let me see if I can log into the press kit and find a list.

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/721/721965p1.html

New Guitar Hero II Tracks Announced
RedOctane loves the '80s and '90s.
by Chris Roper

July 30, 2006 - At an event held today in Australia (well, actually July 31st in the land down under), RedOctane is showing off a new build of its forthcoming Guitar Hero II, the sequel to one of the best, most popular and certainly most rocking music games ever created. Three new songs are on display at the show, bringing the officially announced track count up to 11. Already announced tracks include covers of Reverend Horton Heat's "Psychobilly Freakout", KISS' "Strutter", Black Sabbath's "War Pigs", Butthole Surfers' "Who Was in My Room Last Night?", Van Halen's "You Really Got Me" and Rush's "YYZ", along with the original master recordings of Primus' "John the Fisherman" and "Arterial Black" by Drist.

The three newly-announced tracks are covers of Stone Temple Pilots' "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart, Anthrax's "Madhouse" and Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil". "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart" is taken from STP's third major-label release "Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop" and features a bevy of muted chords strummed quickly throughout its verses, making for a fast-paced play. "Madhouse" comes from Anthrax's 1985 release, "Spreading the Disease", and is a great example of Scott Ian's grinding guitar work. The Crue's "Shout at the Devil" appeared on the band's 1983 release of the same name and gives hair metal a proper showing in RedOctane and Harmonix's sequel.

For video of all three songs in action, head over to our media section for Guitar Hero II right here.

The fact that you can play bass guitar in this version AND play a Primus track using the original master recordings is just too awesome for words.

I don't think I've ever been so excited about a game. I bought the first one last Thursday and so far I've gotten myself, my two flatmates (1 female), my girlfriend, and my girlfriend's brother COMPLETELY, INSANELY hooked on it.

Other new songs announced:

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird
Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine

apparently another song will be announced today as well.


FREEEEBIIRD!

I hesitate to bring this up, only because I don't mean for it to start a controversy but it certainly could. However, it still bothers/amazes me and I really wanted to mention it somewhere, and this seems like the best place...

We were at Best Buy on Sunday, and they have a Rockstar display set up with a TV and two guitars. Usually, people are playing the game with a crowd around watching. On Sunday, though, no one was using it when a small black child walked up to one of the guitars and started messing with it, eventually deciding to pick it up. At that point, his mother saw him, told him to put it down, and grabbed his arm to pull him away, saying as she and her 3 other kids walked away, "We're black, we don't play guitars."

How pathetic. It still pisses me off 3 days later.

Wow, that's horrible Ksyrup. I guess she never heard of Jimi Hendrix.

[quote=Ksyrup]At that point, his mother saw him, told him to put it down, and grabbed his arm to pull him away, saying as she and her 3 other kids walked away, "We're black, we don't play guitars."[quote]

And people wonder why kids act the way they do............

Why would they not play guitars? Or was this just a way to keep the kids from playing with a toy and then asking mom to buy it?

At the risk of getting into the controversial stuff I tried to avoid, my take is that the black community largely looks at "guitar music" as the white person's territory, while the black community sticks to rap, hip hop, R&B, and other forms of music that don't require skills involving musical instruments (outside of vocal/lyrical/rythmic abilities, which they undeniably showcase in those forms of music).

And that saddens/angers me, because I love me some black rock music. It's just becoming harder and harder to find these days.

Hopefully in 20 years he will have his own song on Guitar Hero 15 and, in an interview with a gaming magazine, will say how he always thought his Mom was full of shit.

are these really confirmed? because if so...they just a hit a fucking grand slam. twice.

Confirmed:

http://forum.guitarherogame.com/Defa...g=posts&t=4142

Man, I'd love it if the rumor that Iron Maiden's "Wasted Years" is included. But where is Pour Some Sugar On Me?

No offense, but that song is 25% guitar, 75% Mutt Lange.

Photograph?

A couple nights ago, I rediscovered a 1983 bootleg of Def Leppard in LA that's really good. I think I remember posting about it months (or years) ago around here. I can't think of anyone who deserves a copy more than you. Interested?

To quote Joe: "You betcha!"

When you shot down Photograph, I was gonna suggest "Gift Of Flesh", which I'm 99% sure you've never heard (it's from the Slang album).

What would you like for it?

On the house. I can probably YSI it to you. I think I downloaded it originally in MP3 format - it's still on my hard drive, which is where I ran into it the other night. The sound is surprisingly good for something that is in MP3 format and was originally taped. I'm wondering if it was broadcast on the radio way back when.

I didn't shoot down Photograph - that one would be way better suited for the game, I think. It's pre-gloss.

There's the small chance you'd like Slang. It's about as un-Mutty as Def Leppard has been since On Through The Night.

Between this and Bully coming out, I'm going to have to rethink buying back my PS2 that I sold off a few years ago.