I loved Guitar Hero. I thought it was fantastic. Guitar Hero II is even better! Great songs, great gameplay, quite addictive. A must buy :)

So first, how this game works. You have a special controller that looks like a guitar. If you have one from Guitar Hero (I), it will work so you won't have to buy another one. You get 5 buttons on the fret (the thin part on the left) and then a "push" toggle in the center of the guitar. So you're hammering down strings on the fretboard by pressing colored buttons, and you're "strumming" by pushing down on the toggle in the guitar's center. It's actually quite fun, although "real" guitar players have a fit because the notes are of course not in the right place and when they try to really play the song, it doesn't work properly.

But back to our fun air guitar playing :) They have a fantastic blend of songs on this. The intriguing part of any music game is finding songs that every single person likes. I imagine it's impossible. There are songs on here that I dislike that I'm sure other people love. Then again they have "Surrender" and "Message in a Bottle" which I find amazingly fun to play, which I'm sure some people hate with a passion. Hopefully there's a middle ground here!

The game moves you from club to club, and you have to pass 3 out of 4 songs at each club to move along. You go through some classic locations like the Rat Celler in Boston. You get to choose your character from a number of pre-sets (both male and female, hurrah!!) and even choose your guitar. The songs get trickier as you progress.

When you unlock songs in career mode you can then play them whenever you want in the casual playing mode both for one or two players. It's great fun to rock out with a friend with the music blasting!

Then there's always going back to get perfect scores - and increasing the difficulty to get to special songs that the Easy People can't see.

The graphics are pretty good - but really, when your fingers are flying and you're trying to push the buttons in super-fast-time (that's a musical term), how can you possibly even see what those on screen characters are doing in the background? That's more to entertain whoever is watching you. Still, I like that the audience waves lighters during the quiet parts of songs :)

If I have a complaint, it's the same complaint I had with the first one - that sometimes their prompts show up OVER THE FRET BOARD so you can't see what the upcoming notes are! Surely some of the testers must have realized this - or were the testers all so glazed at that point that they knew the songs by heart and weren't having to look at the screen?

Still, it's a minor issue. Definitely a game to get, that is great fun for anybody who likes rock music!

Here are the songs you begin with, to whet your appetite!

Shout at the Devil / Mother / Surrender / Woman / Strutter / Heart-Shaped Box / Message in a Bottle / You Really Got Me / Monkey Wrench / Them Bones / Search and Destroy / Tattooed Love Boys / Cherry Pie / Who Was In My Room Last Night? / Girlfriend / Can't You Hear Me Knockin' / Killing in the Name / John the Fisherman / Freya / Bad Reputation / Crazy on You / Trippin' on a hole in a paper heart / Rock this Town / Jessica / Madhouse / Carry Me Home/ Laid to Rest / Psychobilly Freakout

Buy Guitar Hero II from Amazon.com