"She's My Cherry Pie..."

If you haven't played Guitar Hero II, take a break from the hustle and bustle of the daily routine and jump on the headbanging bandwagon! It's pretty sweet. You play it on the PS2 with an actual life-sized guitar controller, which makes you feel like a rock star even if you don't have a sliver of musical talent (I'm one of em').

There's 55 songs on GH2 and it's just like Guitar Hero I, but with the option to bring in a bud to compliment your performance on bass, guitar, lead or rhythm. Most of my friends that play have are naturals in the music world, so can dominate me in the game. The beauty of the co-op mode, is you can change the difficulty level based on what you can handle, so you no longer get the dreaded "boo'ing from the audience".

Something different from the first version is the star power now requires both players to use the star power (raising the guitar) simultaneously. So indeed, you are rockin' together. There's a cool practice mode now, so you can work on the tracks that are a little more difficult. It completely sucks to fail in a song. The virtual crowd "Boos" you and it let's you know you failed. Noone wants to fail. Another cool feature - you can slow down the tempo of the songs to learn the tricky parts. The game also keeps records of how you did in the chorus, solos, etc, so you know what areas you need to work on. For clutzes like myself, practice mode was create for me!

I played quite awhile last night and man, my wrist hurts. Sad, that a video game can do that to me. I give kuddos to the real guitar players out there.

Oh, my friend's daughter, Caitlin, is alreay on expert mode and she's only 12 and 1/2 years old (but has the intelligence of an 18 year old)! She's talented and gifted in music and I could never go against her - but now, I can play in co-op mode with her and not feel like a complete music idiot *smiles*.

Game runs about 79 bucks and comes with the guitar. If you have Guitar Hero 1, then you got the other guitar to rock out. Thanks Red Octane for making an awesome game. "She's my cherry pie, Cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise. Tastes so good, make a grown man cry, Sweet cherry pie." With that thought, a Mrs Baird's Cherry Pie sure does sound good right now.