When a band gears up to release their second album after a successful debut, there is always the fear of a sophomore slump. Will they tread too safely, essentially recreating their debut to what could be an already waning fan base, or will they take the opposite route in an attempt to stay fresh and relevant, incorporate too many changes and isolate their fans by removing the elements that brought them popularity in the first place?

Treading that fine line ruins bands, and videogames, every day. Guitar Hero II stands as an exception to the above rule, something that is possible in games but nearly impossible in music. The original Guitar Hero provided fans with a gameplay experience that couldn't be found anywhere else, giving developer Harmonix the option to simply rehash the same game with new songs without suffering a fan base revolt. That is not what they've done, however, as not only is there a new song list, but the gameplay has been tweaked and tightened, the presentation given a facelift and the multiplayer thoroughly expanded to include new modes, as well as the option to play rhythm and bass guitar. What we have is a game that not only reaches the lofty heights reached by the original, but actually surpasses them.

If you are one of the few souls who have yet to experience the rock phenomena known as Guitar Hero, reading this review will not do this game justice. This is a game that has to be experienced firsthand. You need to wrap your hands around the specially designed guitar controller that helps the musically helpless rock out, with its five colored fret buttons, responsive strum bar, working whammy bar and straightforwardly addictive gameplay. You need to jam through a couple of songs, revisit covers of classic rock favorites, recent hits and everything in between. There is little chance you will be able to simply listen to rock music again, as the interactive nature of Guitar Hero will forever change your musical perspective; there is a reason why people spend countless hours devising their dream song lists.

For the Guitar Hero vets, the core gameplay remains intact, with only a few minor, though welcomed, tweaks and additions. This time around, once you have blown a score multiplier, the on-board fret screen's normally cheerful background turns black for a split second, serving as another signal that you've messed up. Hammer-ons and pull-offs are now more accessible techniques, as pull-offs no longer require the player to hold down the note below the initial one and the time limit for pulling off either technique has been extended. Difficulty has also seen a twist towards 11, to keep gamers of any of the difficulties in check. This is not just because of a harder set of songs, although that didn't help, but the game now expects more of you and will fail you until it gets it out of you.

The most notable addition to the gameplay is the three button chords. This is not a gimmick, as they have been fully integrated into the songs and prove to be a worthy addition. These show up a couple at a time or in huge groups and they have variations beyond just being three buttons in a row. While not necessarily a gameplay addition, the ability to view detailed stats after each song is a nice addition for players looking to improve their abilities who would like an idea of where to start. Stats include the percentage of notes hit during each part of the song (such as intro, verse, chorus, etc.), the number of star phases completed, the average multiplier held and the total number of notes hit.

The single player modes of Rocking, Career and Quick Play all make a return, bringing along with them the newest member, Practice mode. Career mode still has players taking on one song at a time, choosing between a selection of three or four songs, depending on the venue. As you finish each set, a tour van, powered by silly sound effects, moves to the next city for the next gig. You are rated on a best out of five star scale, based on number of notes hit, combos and final score; the higher your rating, the more cash you earn to unlock new songs, guitars, characters and behind the scenes videos in the Guitar Center store. Not earning enough money by just playing gigs? Earn sponsorship cash and gear from companies such as Orange Amps, Ernie Ball and more. After playing the last song of a venue's set list, the crowd will go nuts and you'll be promoted to play a special encore song. Only by finishing this encore song will you be able to advance to the next venue.

Still, there is no full-blown story attached to Career mode, a concept that seemed to be the likely direction this mode would take. Learning what it's like to be a band living on the road, playing any show they can get their name on and what it takes to become true guitar heroes remains a pipe dream. In place of radical change are a few interface changes, such as the aforementioned van rides and sponsorships, as well as Career mode's high scores now wondrously appearing on the leaderboard in quick play.

For anyone struggling to make the jump between difficulties or who is terrorized at night by dreams of blowing a solo during a tough multiplayer bout now have a partner in crime - Practice mode. Now you can dissect each part of every song, playing it back at any difficulty, as well as any speed you deem necessary, all the way down to snail speed, all for the betterment of your skills. Struggling to nail a solo? Slow it down and give it a try in half-time. This is an amazing tool for players of any expertise to hone their skills on their own, without having their poor fragile egos damaged.

Don't think for a second that the attention not spent on single player was not spent elsewhere though; improving and expanding the multiplayer was obviously where the developers put their attention. The era of only being one way to challenge your friends to a guitar battle has come to an end, as there are now three different modes - Co-op, Face-off (the original multiplayer mode) and Pro Face-off. Co-op mode has two players playing the same song together as a team, each tackling a different part while sharing points and sharing both the star meter (which can only be activated when both players put their guitars up) and the rock meter. This is also the only mode where each player can select their own difficulty, letting less experienced players play with the big boys and girls. Finish a song and your rock show receives a rating and score, with the top scores being stored next to the song title, giving the best duos bragging rights. Sure, there's nothing like showing up a friend's weak skills in front of a group of people, but there's also nothing like taking down a hard song on expert with a close friend, silencing a room in awe.

Though the available parts vary from song to song, there is always lead guitar, supported by either rhythm or bass guitar. Standing as Guitar Hero II's single most significant addition, right behind the co-op mode it is found in, each part has its own individual feel and style, making this more than just a tacked-on feature. Choosing either of the guitar parts is an easy decision, as their style of play has been established already, but not unlike playing the actual instrument, choosing the bass is a whole different monster. Since bass lines follow different beats, in tune with the drums, gamers that are not musically inclined may initially struggle to make the adjustment. That should not keep you from giving it a chance though, as the new style is a blast to play. With the inclusion of songs featuring bass legends Les Claypool of Primus and Geddy Lee of Rush, there has never been a better time to introduce the deep thumping of the bass.

But if sharing the spotlight isn't your thing, there's still plenty of competitiveness here to blow hot air into your head. Face-off mode, the new name for the original game's multiplayer mode, makes its return, along with the new Pro Face-off mode. Face-off originally had you challenging a friend to a rock off, but instead of playing the exact same song, you would play some of the same parts while taking turns and echoing others - a huge annoyance, since without actually playing the same song you never knew who was the better player without hitting up Quick Play and measuring high scores. That is no longer the case now that Pro Face-off mode is sharing the stage; with each player tackling the same exact song at the same difficulty, this is the way multiplayer should have been.

Another area that has received additional attention is Guitar Hero II's presentation. The original game's rough around the edges, less talk more rock art design was an instant hit, as the over-the-top guitarists, dingy and dark venues and goofy artwork littering every non-gaming screen gave more than enough character to the game. There would be no mistaking this for the happy, bright neon colors of Dance Dance Revolution. But there were a couple of problems, as animations of the NPCs were limited and didn't always fit with the song (especially the distracting 'I can't find the time' drummer), your guitarist's rocking animations seemed robotic at times, much like a Chuck-E-Cheese animatronics character, while all the venues were just a little too dark, lacking light effects and daytime.

Harmonix has addressed all of these without compromising what made their visual style stand out in the first place. The world of Guitar Hero II is aglow with awesome lighting effects, highly detailed venues (with buckets of stage effects) and a deeper pool of animations for the characters and venues, as well as adding support for progressive scan, which only furthers the graphical overhaul. A huge emphasis has been put on lighting effects, such as the neon lights blinking throughout the Blackout Bar, the soft light flowing out from the spinning fan blades at the RedOctane and the barrel fires, TV screens and overhead lights of the Rat Cellar, all of which reinforce an already strong ambiance. Thankfully the Blackout Bar's distracting strobe light, seen in the demo, is nowhere to be seen in the final version.

Lights aren't the only that bring each venue to life - it's all the work that's been put into making each venue so individual. The Nilbog high school gym has a giant scoreboard in the background, whose controls have obviously been hijacked by Eighties movie rockers Bill and Ted. The Vans Warped Tour's Texas stop has a graveyard theme, with lots of fog and tombstone props for skateboarders to use as gaps between half-pipes. The Harmonix Arena has a huge set-up involving a large city being terrorized by an even larger flying Grim Reaper. My favorite of all the venues has to be Stonehenge though, which opens with the camera walking up a hill to see the band about to play from the top, festival style. Just wait until you check out what is in store during the encore of this one! Even the fans, though still being rather cookie cutter and consisting of the same few models pasted over and over, have a greater interaction level with the songs, pumping their fists when they like what they hear and busting out lighters during slow songs.

Though your controlled guitarist is still the only one whose playing is completely motion-captured, this time out the other band members seem to have a better understanding of what song they are playing. The drummer finally plays in time, especially the pounding bass drum, so your eyes won't drift from the fret board to the drummer in confusion, while the singer has a better understanding of when to open his mouth and when not to. Rocking animations now seem more natural, as well as more varied. Your guitarist plays differently depending on the tempo of the song, chilling out and looking badass during slow parts, rocking out and going crazy during fast parts. There are still a few problems graphically, but in a game where you are pretty much unable to look at the graphics during play, they take a backseat. Maybe the increased horsepower of next generation systems will allow Harmonix to address these problems and continue improving their atmosphere of rock.

Now for the most important part of Guitar Hero II, after gameplay of course - the music. Again utilizing the extremely talented musicians over at WaveGroup, we are provided with 38 high quality covers (as well as 2 original tracks by Primus and Jane's Addiction) that, for the most part, represent each band's original sound pretty faithfully, along with the other 24 original tracks from independent bands. With a track list consisting of more notable bands than you can shake a stick at, including classic rockers Black Sabbath, Kansas and KISS, Eighties rockers Mötley Crüe, Spinal Tap and Warrant, grunge rockers Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots and Alice in Chains, and recent rock giants Foo Fighters, Avenged Sevenfold and Wolfmother - and that's only a taster - there is bound to be at least one band for everyone. Musically there are hardly any complaints to be heard, as there seems to be no lengths to which WaveGroup won't go to properly reproduce a song. Vocally, much like the first game, there are still have discrepancies. Hardly a standout track to many over here in the US, Australia's much beloved punkabilly band, The Living End, see their song fall flat. The entire song sounds as if it was recorded in a tin can and the vocalist, sharing only minor similarities with the Living End's Chris Cheney, lacks energy. Activision, the publisher for the Australia version, may want to send this one back to the drawing board, as this probably won't go down well Down Under.

Unlike Guitar Hero's boring and unfamiliar list of bonus songs, the sequel's list proves to be worthy of unlocking. Here you will find another batch of songs from bands containing members of the Guitar Hero II teams, as well as hard-hitting indie tracks from bands such as Shadows Fall, Valient Thor and a personal favorite of mine, All The Remains (which, in a fun rock fact, includes one of Shadows Fall's former singers). But that won't prepare you for songs by Adult Swim's personal metal band, Dethklok, and the new version of Strong Bad's burninating classic, Trogdor.

While this song also suffers from a lackluster vocalist, changing of the original lyrics to Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name leaves me feeling uneasy. This is the first song in Guitar Hero's short history that has made the game despite a large amount of lyrical f-bombs. In other instances of swear words, such as the "sh*t" in Foo Fighters' Monkey Wrench, we see a radio-like, blank-out edit. Instead of using the same technique here, or even using the same word reversal technique found in the radio edit version of Killing, new lyrics have been put in, bringing back the "and now you do what they told ya, now you're under control" lyrics from earlier in the song. Obviously this censorship was enacted to keep the game's rating at Teen, but it brings up the moral question - does that alone give them the right to alter an artist's original work? Personally I hope that this will prove to be a one time deal and that it was endorsed by Rage Against the Machine, a band known to be firm in their stance against the censorship of their songs.

Another of my musical complaints comes not from a song, but from the lack thereof. Acquiring the Vans Warped Tour sponsorship for the Texas venue seems out of place after seeing that the set list lacks the firepower of a single headliner of the yearly "punk rock summer camp." That's not to say that there isn't a single band in the game that has appeared at the Warped Tour as Avenged Sevenfold, the Living End, the Reverend Horton Heat, Suicidal Tendencies and more prove that to be untrue. The lack of a blazing "not just power chords" song from more than worthy bands such as Rancid, NOFX, Less Than Jake and the Vandals, among countless others, in my eyes negates whatever reason there was to include the festival's name in the first place - especially if you don't bother to unlock the extra tracks.

When it comes to lasting appeal, very few games can boost the near unlimited replayability the first Guitar Hero provided. Before the sequel was released my friends and I would still spent at least an hour or two every weekend playing the game, trying to beat our scores in Quick Play. Guitar Hero II only ups the ante; no longer is the single player game finished after buying all the goodies, as there are now unlockables given out by fulfilling certain requirements, such as achieving a five-star rating on every song in a difficulty. Quick Play has been given even longer legs now that your Career high scores show up alongside those reached in this mode. But its multiplayer overhaul will end up being the mode that brings players back for months to come. The only way you will not still be playing this game come one year from now is a nuclear meltdown, or if you ditch this version for the impending Xbox 360 release.

There might have been a few times throughout this review where I came down hard on a particular topic, but I am honestly only reaching for something negative to mention, as there is little here to criticise. In any other year I would have placed a new Final Fantasy game on the top of my "gimmie now" list, especially when one as brilliant as FFXII is released, but that mantle has been manned by Guitar Hero II since January 1st. Without hesitation, this game is the greatest rock simulation on planet Earth and a must have for any PlayStation 2 owner and every fan of rock music.

Reviewed by Tony Peters for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).