Guitar Hero II - Reception

Reception

The PlayStation 2 version of Guitar Hero II was welcomed with very positive reviews. It received a 10/10 review in the December 2006 issue of Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine and was awarded the Game of the Month award. The game received a rating of 9.5/10 from IGN, ranking higher than the original game in the series and amongst IGN's highest rated PlayStation 2 games ever. IGN would later include it on their 2007 list of "The Top 100 Games of All Time" at #49. GameSpot reviewed the PlayStation 2 version with a rating of 8.7/10, and the Xbox 360 version 8.9, both slightly lower than its predecessor. Game Informer gave it a 9/10, while its "second opinion" rating was better, at 9.25/10. According to Game Rankings, the average critic score of Guitar Hero II is 93%, making it the 9th best reviewed game of 2006. The Australian video game talk show Good Game's two reviewers gave the game a 9/10 and 10/10.

The Xbox 360 version has earned similarly positive reviews and slightly higher scores with a 9.5/10 in the March issue of Official Xbox Magazine, a 4.75/5 from GamePro, a 9.5/10 from Play Magazine a 9.4/10 from IGN, and a perfect score of 5/5 from Got-Next. As of April 3, 2007, the Game Rankings score is 94%. The popular G4 television show X-Play gave both versions of the game a 5/5. Additionally, the Australian Xbox Magazine has also awarded the game, for the first time, an 11/10, in a reference to This Is Spinal Tap. Hyper's Daniel Wilks commends the game for its "huge number of tracks" but criticises it for "some really average covers".

Common praise for the game by critics is aimed at the new multiplayer and practice modes. Common critiques concern the song list, which includes more hard rock and metal than the previous game, deeming it less accessible to casual players. Other common critiques concern the quality of the covers.

The downloadable song packs for the Xbox 360 version have been criticized for being too pricey. The price was seen by many fans of the series as being far too expensive and was met with resistance and angst with a large number of people pledging to boycott the content. Microsoft's Xbox Live Director of Programming, Major Nelson, defending the pricing and release scheme, and attributed the high cost of the content to "licensing issues" on the Xbox 360 platform, as all contracts drawn up for songs from the original game had to be rewritten, since they are playable on an additional console.

In 1UP.com's review for the Xbox 360 version of the game, the downloadable song packs are noted as a "mixed blessing"; praise is given for retooling the songs with better gameplay elements such as the inclusion of co-op modes, but the fact that the songs come in pricey packs of three "defeats much of the appeal". In an interview with RedOctane president Kai Huang, Huang stated that the decision to pack the songs in three was made to keep the cost of the tracks down. Though Huang felt the pricing was fair, he noted afterward "we do listen to the fans and take any feedback we receive seriously."