Guitar Hero II For 360 Extra Tracks, Hands On

The upcoming release of Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360 has fans of the unique rhythm game very much excited. Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog has a look at the additional songs that are to be included with the release. They also point out that downloadable tracks will be available right away at launch, with more slated for later this year. For some hands on impressions of the new version of this old favorite, Chris Kohler over at Game|Life can help us out: "I'll just stick with this version of GHII when it ships in March. It'll contain ten new songs, five of which were announced today (below) and two of which will have to be unlocked. But the real draw is the possibility of downloadable songs later. They're coming, but they haven't been announced yet. I've always said that this is the kind of microtransaction I wholeheartedly support. Well, depending on how much the tracks cost, I mean. As long as they're still microtransactions and not macrotransactions, Activision and I are good."

I'll be buying

[FrostyCoolSlug]

Having rushed out and bought GH2 for xmas for my little brother and sis (the grown ups play it more unfortunately) on the PS2, I'm going to question whether that was a good plan. The 10 additional tracks for the 360 version are shaping up to be pretty decent (two words, Iron Maiden.), along with the apparently better guitar, and downloadable tracks, should make this a top game for a random birthday.

Three words:

[etherlad]

Frets On Fire [kempele.fi]. FOSS version of Guitar Hero.

Import GH1 and GH2 songs. Fret your own songs (or download frets others have done). Rock out using your keyboard as the guitar (enter = strum, F1 through F5 = frets).

No story mode or multiplayer, but it's a helluva lot of fun.