Guitar Hero II Announced

Gamespot reports on the official announcement of an encore to the extremely popular Guitar Hero title from Harmonix. From the article: "RedOctane today confirmed the band was indeed getting back together, as it announced that Guitar Hero II would arrive on the PlayStation 2 this November. While the song list hasn't been announced yet, the publisher confirmed that there would be more than 55 tracks in dire need of shredding. There's also a multiplayer co-op mode that will let players collaborate, each playing lead, rhythm, or bass guitar portions." IGN is running an interview with the gents behind the game, giving us heads up on their plans for the sequel. Rock on!

Couple of points...

[DorkusMasterus]

*Guitar Hero (the first one) is quite possibly the best and most fun game I've played in quite some time (meaning at least a decade). The truth is, I haven't seen anyone pick it up, give it a good try, and then want to put it down. It's one of those addicting games that makes you try harder and harder with each song.

*I play guitar, and sure it's much more "skill-building" to play a real guitar, and this experience really is nothing like playing for real, but it's still a heck of a fun time.

*The only thing I would reccomend for the second incarnation is to get as many "actual" performers to do the songs, or at least the vocals, as possible. It's the only drawback to the original, and would REALLY make the 2nd game so much cooler.

Re:The Things I Want...

[Have Blue]

There are already people who have extracted the electronics from the Guitar Hero controller and installed them in a real guitar body.

As for Van Halen, it was probably a combination of licensing fees and musician apathy. From the interview it looks like this time around the former will be less of a problem and the latter is definitely no longer a factor.

Re:The Things I Want...

[Pootenheimer]

You're not the only one who thought Van Halen was missing. Or AC/DC, or several others. You can't blame RedOctane for not trying - these bands were asked, they just declined [guitarherogame.com]. Hopefully there'll be more of these bands showing up for GH2.

Re:Not entirely fair to say.

[Travelsonic]

Don't forget the game that Guitar Hero wouldn't even be around without - Beatmania (I, III, IIDX, etc) - that game is killer addicting (and a source for a large number of the songs in DDR too. ^_^)

Keyboard Mania for PC

[Ikeya]

It does exist! I have it.
It only shipped with one Keyboard Model though. The Yamaha EZ250i USB keyboard.
It emulates the MIDI ports, so not quite as good as a real MIDI keyboard, but at least you can play the game. :)
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Keyboards/M idi/Portable/Arrangers?sku=707430 [musiciansfriend.com]