Guitar Hero 2 (Red Octane)

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Guitar Hero was about the best rhythm action game ever made. From the same developer that brought us the woefully shunned Frequency and Amplitude, the basic premise of simply hitting the right buttons in time with the music was revolutionised and thrust into the mainstream by the Gibson SG controller. Yeah, it's a little plastic guitar. I can see you're looking at it suspiciously. I've seen it a thousand times. Just put it around your neck and play through More than a Feeling and you'll change your mind.

The five coloured buttons, the strum button and the whammy bar, the tongue in cheek presentation and a genuine challenge all came together to deliver a satisfying and hyperbolic simulation of playing a real guitar in front of stadium crowds. It was a revelation. The sequel needed to do very little to earn my repeated love. It did more. I would have been happy with simply a new song list, but from presentation to execution, everything has been tweaked just that little bit, lifting the overall experience. For a start, you can now play co-op as it's meant to be played, not some versus battle, but as a band: one player takes on the lead guitar parts, the second player tackles the bass or rhythm. I can't begin to tell you how brilliant this is. There's a huge amount of challenge to be had in the harder difficulties, but again, they've added practice mode where you can mess up to your heart's content without fear of an audience uprising.

What about the songs though? When the basic game mechanic is so rock solid, games like this will live or die on their song selection, and while many have moaned that the track listing for GH2 is nowhere near as commercial as the first, it's the undiscovered gems that make the game special. Sure, I may have only heard of about 50% of the songs, and while it's huge fun playing along to Sweet Child O' Mine, discovering rock gems like Carry on my Wayward Son or The Beast and the Harlot for the first time by playing along with them is a musical treat that no other medium can offer. Turn it up. [Declan Dineen]