Michael T Hudson

A wireless guitar would be cool.

mkdevo

i picked up 2 of the red octane wireless guitars last week. unfortunately, one of them needs to be RMA'd, but the other one is fantastic. SO glad to get rid of the cable plus extension cord, plus it makes the wife happy.

Michael T Hudson

Nice. Where did you get them?

Michael T Hudson

Where did you find the first one? I would like to pick it up for the guitar.

Josh H

Circuit City.

Just look online and do instore pick up if you can find it. Only one of the 4 local ones had it in, and I struck out at 2 best buys, 2 targets and a Toys R Us first.

That or just wait a bit longer until they get them restocked.

Trevor

This is one of those games that looked so incredibly cheesy when I first saw it in ads and in the store, that I thought I'd never want to play it.

But after actually playing it at my nephew's, I'm not sure if I can wait for the 360 version.

Would I actually buy my first Playstation just for this game? It is so tempting.

Do we have a firm 360 date yet?

mkdevo

i got them straight from redoctane.com. couldn't find them anywhere else..

Josh-da-man

My g/f got me Guitar Hero II for Christmas.

I have a question about the guitar. Our guitar that came with GHI activates Star Power with barely a little nudge, just tilting the neck up about fifteen or twenty degrees does it. It will sometimes go off accidently with even minor taps.

The guitar that came with GHII doesn't seem fully consistent with star power activation. Sometimes I just have to push up the neck up about thirty degrees, other times it seems like I have to swing it over my right shoulder to get it to hit.

It's sort of hard to actually test star power. The best I can do is play the game on easy and try different things, but it's still difficult to accurately test since you can only do it once every minute or so.

Should I exchange the set for a new one, or is this just a quirk of the guitar? Or does our GHI guitar just have a hair trigger? (The tutorial for GHII says to activate star power you have to raise the guitar to a vertical position, so that's basically the "over the shoulder" move.)

xVladx

Funny thing is, my guitars are the exact opposite. The GH1 one was pretty picky about SP. I'd have to swing it to exactly vertical. I could get it done pretty consistently once I got the hang of it though. My GH2 one is like your GH1 one, VERY sensitive, which is nice when you don't have to be so careful, but it stinks when it goes off when you don't want it to.

What's really weird is that it seems that my GH1 guitar is less likely to activate SP while playing GH2 than it was in GH1...

nodeerforamonth

Just got Guitar Hero I because I wanted more songs. Man, that is EASY compared to part 2!!! (well, to be fair, I am playing it on "medium").

Michael T Hudson

I ended up picking up the game and 2 wireless guitars last night. I found one each at 2 different game stops and they were able to hold them. The game is like crack. Both game stops I went to last night had PS3's they had been sitting on for a week that had not sold. Both had no wii's to speak of.

Matt

I borrowed the first one from a friend last Spring and played it for a few weeks before giving it back. At the time, I was having major problems with the last few songs on Hard, and only completed a handful of songs on Expert.

I bought GHII last month and finished Hard, and was halfway through Expert, and a couple of days ago my buddy sold me his copy of the first game, so I went back to tackle the stuff I was having so many problems with the first time around. Wound up blowing through the rest of the songs on Hard, and am currently blazing through Expert, having failed only one song ("Crossroads") so far.

So yeah, I'd agree that GHII is much more difficult than the first--with the exception of the hammer-ons-and-pull-offs. The new game is much more forgiving when it comes to those.

nodeerforamonth

Also, is it my imagination, or is Guitar Hero I alot slower on Medium difficulty than Guitar Hero II is on Medium difficulty?

Pretty Go Pale

Could someone explain the "hammer-ons" and "hammer-offs?" I am awful at this game -- mucked my way through the "easy" and "medium" sections, but haven't been able to successfully complete even one song in the "hard" section, despite hours of trying. Never tried GH1; got GH2 for Christmas and I really like it. But the frustration level is really creeping up and I'd appreciate any tips that anyone might care to offer.

Spiral out,

@

Lethal Nemesis

Hammer-ons are when you strum one note, then you play the next note simply by fretting a higher note on the same string. On the guitar controller, for example, a hammer-on would be if you were to strum the green note, followed by pressing the red note without having to strum the red note.

Unlike Guitar Hero 1, hammer-ons (and pull-offs) are easy to execute in GH2. When you see a series of notes, you'll notice that some of the notes do not have a black outline on the white center. All you have to do is strum the first note, followed by pressing each successive note in sequence -- as long as you hit each note successfully, you can continue hitting the hammer-ons and pull-offs without strumming. If you miss, however, you'll need to strum the next note in order to start it up again.

Pull-offs are the opposite of hammer-ons. For the purpose of Guitar Hero 2, you execute them pretty much the same way as you do hammer-ons: strum the first note in the series, followed by pressing each successive note without strumming.

You can also check out the in-game tutorial for some hands-on demonstrations. Good luck!

Josh-da-man

The tutorial section of practice mode does a decent job explaining how to use hammer-ons and pull-offs.

One thing that might be tripping you up on Hard is the addition of the orange button. Five buttons, and you only have four fingers. Means that you will have to use one finger for two different buttons, or you'll have to slide your hand up and down the neck. (For some good practice on this technique in the medium mode, when you have a red-blue chord come up, slide your hand down one button and hit the red-blue chord with your index and ring fingers instead of the middle and pinky that would normally correspond to that position. That chord combination is the toughest one for most people in the medium level, so practicing moving your hand up and down the neck there isn't a bad way to warm up to the Hard difficulty.)

The best way to learn how to deal with the hard/expert levels is to play them in practice mode at the slowest speed so you can work out the best way for you to handle the expanded button set-up.

Also, as the speed increases in the upper levels, you'll want to be sure you're strumming up and down, and not just one way. Most people, when they're first starting out, only push the strum bar down. But when the notes start coming faster and faster you'll need to move it both ways to keep up with the speed.

Novasonic

Can anybody here beat Jordan on expert?

Bluelitespecial

So is this game really as good as everyone says it is.

mkdevo

no. everyone is fibbing.

Mordred

Not yet, but I'm just a decent run away from doing it. It frustrates me so I haven't really tried more than ten times since the game was released. I just need to be able to wait on my star power activation another another second or two and I'll have it.

Shagrath

RedOctane released the first picutres of the 360 box and bundle contents yesterday. Looks friggin' hot!

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/12517/...undle-Picture/

RichC2

Wonder what the additional songs are.

Shagrath

The rumor running around is that there will be an optional download for the original Guitar Hero songs, using the GH II engine. I'd totally be down for that and would pay additional for it with no problems.

As far as the additional songs exclusive for the 360 version, I'm not certain.

Jeremy517

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym6sjIzlHTY

Novasonic

I've see that already. I meant anybody on dvdtalk, but thanks anyway.