Guitar Hero [With Guitar Controller] [PS2]

Rock Out Without a doubt, Guitar Hero features one of the best and most appropriate song selections we've ever seen in a videogame. From Ozzy to Hendrix to Pantera to Helmet, the soundtrack is a collection of some of the best guitar music ever released. There will always be tracks missing that we'd like to see in there, regardless of how many versions of Guitar Hero are released, so we're not going to complain that Guns 'N Roses, AC/DC, Tenacious D and the Disturbed Mutants are missing. Rather, we're paying the highest compliments to the guys at Harmonix and Red Octane for nailing down one hell of a set list. And while the 30 major tunes would do well to fill our rock gullet, 17 additional Indie Rock tracks have been thrown into the mix as well. We're not saying all of these tracks are up to the same level as "You Got Another Thing Comin'", because honestly, what is? But still, with 47 total tracks and well over half of them being songs you grew up rockin' to, this is a killer soundtrack.

Even more impressive than the actual music selection is the way that these songs have been implemented. Firstly, the covers of these 30 major tracks are nothing short of astonishing. While you might quickly be able to pick out a few non-legit vocal tracks (like the "Symphony of Destruction" vocalist obviously isn't Dave Mustaine), most of them are close enough that you'll assume it's the real thing. And even after we tell you that the instruments were re-recorded, you'll probably call us liars; the guys behind this did an absolutely fantastic job of recreating the tunes in every possible way. Honestly, if there were no vocals, the covers and their original versions would be 100% indistinguishable.

Finger It On par with the 99.99% accurate covers is the way in which the actual guitar notes were transferred to Guitar Hero. We're going to be talking mostly about the Expert difficulty here as the lower levels obviously skip notes and make bigger concessions for playability (like using only three or four of the five buttons), but even at those levels the transfer is great.

Note and chord progression is essentially as accurate and true-to-life as it could possibly be on a guitar with only five buttons. Every time the song hits a higher note, you play a button further up the neck; every time the song goes lower, you move further down the neck (towards the head). Playing solo runs will obviously overlap a bit, but even this works incredibly well because many times the real solos are played in a small fret range on the guitar, and they're just moving up strings.

Power chords work the same way and play about as accurately as possible on a plastic guitar. We've already gone over hammer-ons and pull-offs, and the fact that they even work is fantastic; the fact that they work well is simply awesome.