Guitar Hero II
My friend John Harwood has been insanely driving to Wal-Marts and Targets all this week because he swore he was going to find Guitar Hero II early.And son-of-a-gun. He did!
The South Target in Austin (290) had four copies of the game (no guitars). John bought a copy for himself, his sister-in-law, and me.
And just like that, I'm getting the #1 game of my year a week early. Incredible.
John brought the game over about 8:00. I've got two guitars, so we launched into multiplayer.
New Fact #1: Multiplayer rips this year.
Playing rhythm guitar or bass while the other player plays lead is just kick-ass cool and feels absolutely right. Playing in combo mode is just fantastic.
It's a band, man, and damn, that feels fun.
New Fact #2: Cool options are avialable for video calibration.
You can go widescreen, you can go progressive scan, and the game looks absolutely terrific. And there's even an option to calibrate lag from your HD dispaly. We wound up at 46ms.
New Fact #3: the new practice mode will let you practice sections of songs. Cowboys from Hell, I command you to rise from your gentle bed of human flesh and live in the hellish fear you deserve, because I will master GH II on Expert, and when I do, I'm coming back to pay you a visit, bitch.
New Fact #4: These new songs are gloriously, ass-kicking fun. They rock.
We played the first ten songs in mulitplayer (all that's available unless you earn more), and we four or five-starred all of them with me playing on Hard and John on Expert. That went on for about an hour and a half, my arms turned into spaghetti, and we kept playing.
New Fact #5: Damn, this game looks great.
I expected a small visual upgrade, but with widescreen and progressive support, it's truly impressive. Far less aliasing, better use of color, and more of the unerring sense of style that marks this game.
New Fact #6: Band names. My band is "Concept City Gorilla," and it uses all available letter spaces. If I'm counting right, that's twenty available spaces for a band name.
I had insanely high hopes for this game. They have been exceeded in every way.
I will play this game for many, many hours, and I will have far more perceptive comments to offer. I already know this, though.
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