GAMEPLAY

The mini Gibson SG guitar controller, an approximately 3/4 scale replica of the actual guitar. Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II (refered to as just Guitar Hero from here on) is best played when using the Gibson SG. Although a standard PlayStation 2 DualShock controller can be used, it just isn't the same and doesn't really feel like you are Jamming!

The guitar controller includes five colored 'fret buttons' on it's neck (green, red, yellow, blue, and orange), a 'strum bar' and a 'whammy bar'. Each song's notes are displayed on a set of five columns that scroll down towards the player. The five columns correspond to the five coloured fret buttons.

To play a note, the player must hold the corresponding fret button and strum on the strum bar at the precise point when the coloured note reaches the bottom of the screen. Too early or too late and the player will miss the note. The cool thing about this game is that if you do miss a note it won't be played and it will make a miss sound instead so when you hear the song as it should be, it means that you are hitting the notes. This really gives you the feeling that you are playing the guitar.

There are several ways to play certain notes.

Long notes involve an intial strum followed by a continued depression of the fret button as long as the note lasts.
Chords require two fret buttons to be pressed at the same time.
Pull-offs and Hammer-ons is a common guitar concept and as the name suggest you play the note (hold fret and strum) then hammer onto a lower fret or pull off to a higer fret without strumming again. This only works in Hard or Expert mode when notes are close together.

Left handed players can also play the Gibson SG using the 'Lefty-flip' option which will mirror the notes appropriately.

ROCK METER

There is a Rock Meter on the left of the screen that indicates how much the crowed likes you and how well you are doing. The meter shows red, yellow and green. If you spend too long in the red it will start blinking and you may get booed off stage and the game will be over.

STAR POWER

Star Power doubles your points when activated. Star Power is accumulated from either playing squences of special Star Notes without any mistakes or using the whammy bar on long Star Notes. Playing a sequence correctly will award you with 25% bonus Star Poower points. If any notes are missed then you will not receive any points. Once your Star Power has reached more than it's half way point on the Star Power meter then you can activate it by lifting the neck end of the Gibson SG into the air as if you are a real rock star! The fret board on sreen will light up and you will hear the crowd go nuts! You notice that the Rock Meter only goes up. The Star Power can also be activated by pressing the Select button.

MODES

Guitar Hero has four modes of difficulty.

Easy - where on the the first 3 frets are used eg. Green, Red and Yellow

Medium - Ueses four frets introducing the Blue fret buttong

Hard & Expert - Ueses all fret buttons introducing Orange. These modes feel more realistic as you play almost every note of the song and must jump between buttons. eg. four fingers / five buttons.

Guitar Hero has three modes of play

Career Mode - You get to choose your band name, character, guitar and difficult level. Then play the venues and unlock the songs. Unlock the next five songs by completeing four of to five songs in the current set (depnds on difficulty level). As your career continues you will unlock new venues and recive in-game cash to purchase bonus content from the unlock shop. eg. characters, behind the scenes videos, guitars, outfits, finishes and songs.

Quick Play allows you to select songs to play that have been unlocked or purchased in career mode. Quick Play will not allow you to pick a character, guitar or venue only a level of difficulty.

Multiplayer uses a split(GH1)-screen. In a "dueling guitars" fashion, two players can tackle segments of the selected song. Unlike other modes, it is not possible to fail a song in multiplayer, but scoring dictates that one player will generally win.

Multiplayer Cooperative Mode(GH2) - Depending on the song, one player can play the lead guitar while the other can play bass or rhythm guitar. In co-op mode, both players share a score, rock meter, star power meter and streak multiplier. Co-op mode is the only multiplayer mode in which a song can be failed. In order to activate star power, both players must tilt the guitar or press the select button in unison. There are 5 bass guitars unlockable in cooperative mode.

Multiplayer Face-off Mode (GH2) - This is the same multiplayer mode as featured in the original game, but both players can individually select their difficulty to play on. The scores are weighted, so therefore, a player who hits more notes on the Easy difficulty than the player's opponent on Expert will win the round.

Multiplayer Pro Face-Off Mode(GH2) - In this mode, both players play the full lead guitar track on the same difficulty. This mode is only available after completing Career Mode on Medium or higher.

Practice Mode (GH2) - a new addition in Guitar Hero II allows you to practice certain sections of a song on different difficulties and instruments. You can also set the speed of the songs to Full Speed, Slow, Slower and Slowest. This is a very good mode to learn trick solos.

SCORING

Notes - 50 points when hit
Chords - 100 points (counts as two notes)

Point Multiplier - play 10 notes consecutively to increase the multiplier by one
x 2 - doubles the poings eg. single note = 100 points
x 3 - play 20 notes consecutively to triple points
x 4 - play 30 notes consecutively to quadrupalise points

Star Power will temporarily double the reward on every note effectively turing a x4 multiplier into a x8.

The final score, accuracy percentage and longest note streak are reported at the end of the a song. It's not uncommon for a song to have 400 - 600 notes and 1000 - 2000 on Hard or Expert levels. A 3, 4 or 5 Star rating based on your performance is given.