Almost Complete Set List for Guitar Hero II

Wowzer writes "MTV's Overdrive game site show G-Hole got a preview of Guitar Hero II for the PS2. MTV wasn't supposed to share the song names they saw, though, and they were quick to remove the new song names from the video. Lucky for us all 38 Guitar Hero II songs were captured at VideoGamesBlogger. From the article: 'Opening Licks: Strutter — Kiss, Mother — Danzig, Monkey Wrench — Foo Fighters, Shout At The Devil — Motley Crue, Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight — Spinal Tap.'" The article points out that between the songs listed here and previously announced tracks, there are only two songs as yet unrevealed.

Comments

Needs more Dick.

[MojoBox]

Dale that is.

FZ

[jpatters]

Needs some Zappa.

Re:FZ

[revlayle]

and then, the collective sound of GH players worldwide breaking their fingers is heard

Re:FZ

[Khuffie]

Needs more Zeppelin.

Echoes FTW!!!

[RabidCentipede]

Needs some Pink Floyd.

Help a brother out

[chemical55]

Can someone please cut and paste the whole list for those being trapped behind the great wall of Websense?

Re:Help a brother out

[Anonymous Coward]

The article really messed up the spelling, but here they are:

Opening Licks:
Strutter - Kiss
Mother - Danzig
Monkey Wrench - Foo Fighters
Shout At The Devil - Motley Crue
Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight - Spinal Tap

Amp-Warmers:
Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana
Message In A Bottle - Police
Woman - Wolfmother (artist not confirmed)
You Really Got Me - Van Halan (Kinks)
Carry On Wayward Son - Kansas

String Snappers:
Surrender - Cheap Trick
Them Bones - Alice in Chains
Search and Destroy - Stooges (artist not confirmed, but it damn well better be the stooges!)
Tatooed Love Boys - The Pretenders
War Pigs - Sabbath

Thrash and Burn:
Cherry Pie - Warrant
Who Was In My Room Last Night - Butthole Surfers
Girlfriend - Darkness (artist not confirmed), some say Mathew Sweet
Can't You Hear Me Knocking - Rolling Stones
Sweet Child of Mine - GnR

Return of the Shred:
Killing In The Name - Rage Against The Machine
John The Fisherman - Primus
Freya - Sword (artist not confirmed)
Bad Reputation - (too hard to say, my guess is Thin Lizzy, but could be Joan Jett)
Jessica - Allman Brothers

Relentless Riffs:
Crazy On You - Heart
Trippin On A Hole In A Paper Heart - STP
Rock This Town - Stray Cays
Last Child - Aerosmith
Stop - Janes Addiction (artist not confirmed, but I really hope it's Janes Addiction.)

Furious Fretwork:
Madhouse - Antrhax

Already confirmed songs:
Hangar 18 - Megadeath
Laid to Rest - Lamb of God
Misirlou - Dick Dale
Beast and the Harlet - Avenged Sevenfold
Freebird - Lyn Skyn
YYZ - Rush.
Psychobilly Freakout - Rev Horton Heat

Re:Help a brother out

[ops_com]

Here's the list...

Opening Licks:
Strutter - Kiss
Mother - Danzig
Monkey Wrench - Foo Fighters
Shout At The Devil - Motley Crue
Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight - Spinal Tap

Amp-Warmers:
Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana
Message In A Bottle - Police
Woman - Wolfmother (artist not confirmed)
You Really Got Me - Van Halan (Kinks)
Carry On Wayward Son - Kansas

String Snappers:
Surrender - Cheap Trick
Them Bones - Alice in Chains
Search and Destroy - Stooges (artist not confirmed, but it damn well better be the stooges!)
Tatooed Love Boys - The Pretenders
War Pigs - Sabbath

Thrash and Burn:
Cherry Pie - Warrant
Who Was In My Room Last Night - Butthole Surfers
Girlfriend - Darkness (artist not confirmed), some say Mathew Sweet
Can't You Hear Me Knocking - Rolling Stones
Sweet Child of Mine - GnR

Return of the Shred:
Killing In The Name - Rage Against The Machine
John The Fisherman - Primus
Freya - Sword (artist not confirmed)
Bad Reputation - (too hard to say, my guess is Thin Lizzy, but could be Joan Jett)
Jessica - Allman Brothers

Relentless Riffs:
Crazy On You - Heart
Trippin On A Hole In A Paper Heart - STP
Rock This Town - Stray Cays
Last Child - Aerosmith
Stop - Janes Addiction (artist not confirmed, but I really hope it's Janes Addiction.)

Furious Fretwork:
Madhouse - Antrhax

Already confirmed songs:
Hangar 18 - Megadeath
Laid to Rest - Lamb of God
Misirlou - Dick Dale
Beast and the Harlet - Avenged Sevenfold
Freebird - Lyn Skyn
YYZ - Rush.
Psychobilly Freakout - Rev Horton Heat

That's 38 Songs announced. There are only supposed to be 40 liscensed songs, plus 15 bonus songs. That only leaves two songs left to be announced.

Re:Help a brother out

[advocate_one]

it's not the real artists... it's a cover band playing in the style of the orignal artists... the cover band has some seriously good players in it though. Drist's guitarist, Marcus Henderson, provided lead guitar on 20 of the game's 30 cover tracks.

Aigh, it's killing me...

[AdamTrace]

Can't... wait...

I was just listening to some Brian Setzer the other night, and thought he'd make a good addition to the game. I'm happy to see some Stray Cats on there...

Adman

What? No Keiji Haino?!

[Anonymous Coward]

At least they could have added some Guitar Wolf!
Is there a way to add user content to this game?

I never understood this

[acomj]

With all the "practicing" people do with guitar hero, and contests etc.. Does it occur to anyone if they spent that much time playing a real guitar, they' probably be on there way to a creative/ usefull skill. Real guitars aren't that expensive compared to the game either..

What am I missing here?

Re:I never understood this

[ALeavitt]

You're missing the fact that playing guitar is a great deal more difficult, the learning curve is steeper, there's no instant gratification without years of practice, and most of all it isn't a game. Guitar Hero is to playing guitar what CS is to joining the Army. It's a game that is intended to represent an action but be significantly more fun, not be a simulation of the action.

Re:I never understood this

[Neo_piper]

Real people booing at you (rather than a sound effect from a game) is one reason... The other probable reason is lack of direction and feedback on you performance, having a truly neutral game grade you is preferable, for some, to a paid teacher tell you "Yea you are really improving" week after week.

Re:I never understood this

[rbarreira]

Not arguing against playing the game, just commenting on some of your points:

there's no instant gratification without years of practice

Not true at all. I'm a guitarist (on both cllasical and electric guitar) and I'd bet that, if all the folks who were in the same music school where I was would spend as much time playing guitar as they did playing games, they'd be playing quite well after two months AT MOST. There are many simple songs, and improvements usually come from one day to another, with periods of little improvement in between.

and most of all it isn't a game.

The horror ;)

Re:I never understood this

[davebo357]

After the fun I had with the first Guitar Hero it reminded me how I always wanted to play bass guitar when I was younger, but never bothered, so this summer I went out and got one and started taking lessons. While its sort of nice to be able to play an instrument, it certainly hasn't proven to be a "usefull skill" as of yet. Playing a game is more fun and what is really usefull is kicking your friends asses at yet another fun game. I'm definitely looking forward to the bass support and the Dick Dale song. On a side note the last time I saw Dick Dale live he also played drums, then played the bassists' guitar with the drumsticks. That guy's crazy :P

Re:I never understood this

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. I took cello for years, from elementary school through high school. I never, ever was able to even get decent at it. The music itself was no problem for me - I was ok at playing piano, able to play pieces I enjoyed and excellent at reading music and music theory. Something about moving my fingers to different spots on the strings was just beyond me. My high school was desperate for cellos, so I'd end up working with my instructor to remove notes where things moved too fast for me, and transpose sections that required a lot of shifting to stay close to the base hand positioning.

In Guitar Hero, there's no finger positioning on frets to worry about. You don't have to hit a separate string for each and every note produced. It's simple enough that even I can play it - although I'm still not sure I'll ever get anywhere on Expert haha.

Re:I never understood this

[SlayerDave]

if all the folks who were in the same music school where I was would spend as much time playing guitar as they did playing games, they'd be playing quite well after two months AT MOST.

Bullshit. Nobody is going to be nailing Dimebag Darrell or Randy Rhoads or Stevie Ray Vaughn solos after 2 months of guitar practice. And anyway, you're talking about music school kids, but guess what, Guitar Hero is for everybody!

Re:I never understood this

[gotgenes]

[blockquote]there's no instant gratification without years of practice[/blockquote]
This guy obviously never heard of the power chord...

Re:I never understood this

[spagthorpe]

If you play the first one long enough, complete the upper levels, it eventually tells you that you might want to think about taking up a real one.

Re:I never understood this

[Aaryn]

I started playing guitar hero and got a real guitar a few months later. From my own experience, (I've been playing guitar for about 3 months) Guitar Hero makes you better at real guitar and vice versa. Not only does it help with your muscle memory and your finger strength, I found that after playing acoustic for a long while I would go back and be able to beat songs in the game I couldn't beat before. I also found that playing lots of the game and then going back it was way easier to play scales. They both build off each other and both are good fun. I don't play guitar for the skill, I do it to take up time and I like to hear the music *shrug*

Re:I never understood this

[dunkelfalke]

how exactly can it be more fun if you are bound to a couple of songs and that's it?

with a real guitar you can play everything you want, anytime. and as a bonus you strengthen your wrists and fingers which is a good thing and helps if you have rsi.

Re:I never understood this

[geminidomino]

What am I missing here?

#. Feedback (GH has a scoreboard.)
#. Instruction (GH needs less, but has it in the tutorials)
#. Positive Reinforcement (Finishing a song and "winning")
#. With GH, you don't have to know how to read music.

You can get all of those on the real thing from a *good* guitar teacher, but then it's going to cost you a metric ass-tonne more than $70 for GH[2].

Re:I never understood this

[rbarreira]

Nobody is going to be nailing Dimebag Darrell or Randy Rhoads or Stevie Ray Vaughn solos after 2 months of guitar practice

Did I say they would? Do they need to?

And anyway, you're talking about music school kids, but guess what, Guitar Hero is for everybody!

What do you mean? Anyone can have music lessons too...

Re:I never understood this

[Bega]

I do hope that they will at least include a grading system into the game. I still prefer Konami's Guitar Freaks over Guitar Hero, mainly just because it has a grading system that makes it a bit more rewarding than just having a hit or miss timing to the notes.

Re:I never understood this

[thelonestranger]

Oh fuck you! fuck you! fuck you! This is really starting to wind me up. Without fail every bloody time an article is on Slashdot about Guitar Hero there are always a group of people who come crawling out of the woodwork to say "Oh why would you want to spend your time playing a guitar game? Why not just go and by a real guitar and learn how to play that?". YOUR MISSING THE POINT! It's a game! It's fun! I play driving games...So why dont I go out and buy a car and race that round a track? I play GTA so whhhyyyy dont I just go out and steal a car and murder a few hookers for real instead.... It's a game for godsake. take your high and mighty "Oh I can play a real guitar so I'm going to look down my nose on anyone who even dares to play a game" attitude and shove it up your puckered sphincter. (end of rant)

Re:I never understood this

[rotor]

I started playing guitar at the age of 14. At the time Ozzy Osbourne and Iron Maiden were my absolute favorites, so I naturally started trying to play their music. Within two months I could play just about everything on the Randy Rhodes Tribute album, and even now - 18 years later - I still don't consider myself a great guitarist. I just happened to practice those songs incessantly for the first 6 months or so. Then I joined a band and started writing music. Now I still write (my music), but as I have a full time job and a family I don't have the time to practice like I used to or play in a band. Maybe when the kids are a little older.

Point is, in two months most anybody willing to put the time to it CAN be playing Randy's music, Vaughn's music, and maybe even Dimebag's music, though it might take a little more time to build up that speed and accuracy for most.

Re:I never understood this

[chroot_james]

Are you kidding?! Too many people are already in bands writing stupid music. I'm totally fine with them doing this instead!

Re:I never understood this

[graikor]

I've never played Guitar Freaks, so please forgive me if I sound like an idiot, but Guitar Hero does have a grading system based on the percentage of notes hit and the length of consecutive runs - I have certainly used that function to rate my improvement on some songs that were difficult for me.

Re:I never understood this

[Bega]

Yeah, a percentage on hit notes, but there isn't a timing to the hits you receive - say, rather than getting a hit or miss on a note, your hit is graded according to how accurately you hit it. Just like in DDR you have Perfects and Greats.

tuning it for me

[BitterAndDrunk]

That's what killed me with regular guitar back in the day, was the tuning. I simply couldn't do this. I tried, lord knows I tried. But the timbre of a note would throw me. The little strings did it . . . I could get the low strings to tune, but the tinny ones, the tinny sound threw me on the note more than the actual note.

I don't know if I'm explaining it correctly, I just know my ear wasn't doing it for the guitar.

But Guitar Hero is a game. It's not a guitar but it certainly makes me want to pick one up again. And then I go "oh yeah, I can't tune the damn thing" and fail miserably at Crossroads again on GH.

Re:tuning it for me

[ScottyH]

You could just buy a tuner. You'd develop the ear over time.

Re:tuning it for me

[popsicle67]

My brother has the same problem. His ears, for whatever reason, do not transmit the higher frequencies properly. He tried banjo for about a year hoping to get his ears to work but they never did. A doctor surmises it has something to do with the how his tonsils and adenoids were removed but it could also be genetic. Have no fear though, if tone deafness were deadly to a music career, Brittany Spears would be completely unknown along with Gwen Stefani and every winner of that stupid Idol show.

One thing to say...

[7Prime]

YYZ... HELL YEAH!

Still, I'm pissed at the distinct lack of any Dream Theater. Some of Petrucci's riffs would be fucking awesome for extremely advanced modes.

Re:One thing to say...

[kisielk]

Yeah! They should put on Metropolis, if only for the odd meter breakdown section... that would blow the minds of some of those weenie 4/4 time riffers :p

Re:One thing to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen to prog much?

I'll go under the assumption that you do. I'm surprised, then, that you didn't mention Steve Hackett. He does some amazing melodic work that would be GH2's equivalent to Texas Flood.

Or why not some Coheed and Cambria while we're at it?! 'Welcome Home' would be amazingly fun, if not too disturbing for the mass market from the violent lyrics.

Oh well, there's always hope for GH3. Have no doubt there will be a GH3. Given the sales of 1 and the guaranteed popularity of 2. I only pray that they make it several releases before the fun stops, the spirit of rock is lost, and it becomes a cliché of itself.

-Hogweed

Re:One thing to say...

[crhylove]

OMG, that comment was nerdy even for Slashdot. I agree though, any Rush song where that whiney dude isn't singing kicks a lot of ass.

Re:One thing to say...

[7Prime]

Dude, I love Hackett's style, but I'm only familiar with him from Genesis, haven't checked out his solo stuff yet. I have heard the re-recorded sessions he did with John Wetton, doing old Genesis and Krimson tunes, and it blew my mind. Anyone who thinks that it was Gabrial who put the prog into Genesis should be shot (no offense to Peter), it was Hackett all along... hence great stuff like Los Endos.

That said, I don't think there's much hope for Hackett, I think you're more likely to see Steve Howe on there, just simply by name recognition. Even in guitar circles, you don't hear about Hackett enough. When it comes to prog, you hear about Petrucci about 90% of the time, maybe a little Steve Howe, Alex Lifeson, David Gilmour, and more recently Roine Stolt, and then you have the Vai/Malmstein/Satriani crowd, but let's face it, for band players, there's noone more commonly talked about for technical prowess than Petrucci. Walk into any guitar center, and I can almost guarentee you'll hear someone playing some kind of Dream Theater lick.

The bottom line is, though, that Guitar Hero isn't made for guitarists, in fact, guitarists are going to be kinda excluded, because most of them can already play the real thing (I say "most" because... well, there's LOTS of guitarists who can't play out there). And you're only going to get the biggest, most highly known hard rock and metal hits. Still, I think Metropolis, or even one of their more commercial tunes like Lie or Pull Me Under would make a great "bonus" track for GH.

If we get any prog at all in GH, it's not going to immediately be obscure stuff like solo Hackett, Camel, or even Flower Kings, the most we can hope for is Rush (which we got) and Dream Theater... and maybe some Yes, although it'll probably be either Roundabout or Owner of a Lonely Heart (Rabin-era, blech!)

Vocals quality?

[tepples]

the cover band has some seriously good players in it though. Drist's guitarist, Marcus Henderson, provided lead guitar on 20 of the game's 30 cover tracks.

But from what I've played of the first GH game, the vocalist on "Take Me Out" sounded very little like Alexander Kapranos, the lead singer of Franz Ferdinand.

Re:Vocals quality?

[a.deity]

And the vocalist for "Infected" sounded nothing like Greg Graffin.

Game still rules, though.

Re:Vocals quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Might be why I actually like the Guitar Hero version of the song ....

Although it has that annoying tempo change, ahhh, I'm too old to learn new tricks.

FreezePop!

[Parafilmus]

This can't be a complete list! Where's the FreezePop?

Re:FreezePop!

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's any freezepop it will probably be a bonus song, just like in Guitar Hero 1. If you had any sort of comprehension skills you'd realize that the article said that there are still 2 normal songs and 15 bonus songs that have yet to be released.

at this point

[BitterAndDrunk]

I may end up doing something like that. Hooray disposable income! In high school (when I first started playing) this wasn't really viable.

So uh

[arodland]

If I play enough Guitar Hero II will I be able to pass the code test? ;)

eh kind of a let down

[Some_Llama]

Although 5 of the songs sound good the others dont interest me much, and I hate "Cherry Pie" by warrant.

What would be really cool is a way to import or even buy (for a low low price) tracks that you are actually interested in.

What I thought was the best idea was "genre" Guitar Hero add on packs, like 30+ songs from different eras (70s, 80s, etc) or genres like rock, blues, psychedelic etc.

And of course classics, like a stones GH or a Pink Floyd GH.

oh well..

Re:eh kind of a let down

[Skreems]

I was 99% sure that this is included in GH II. They'll be available for download from Xbox Live. This listing should just be the "default" tracks included with the game disc.

Re:eh kind of a let down

[Anonymous Coward]

Supposedly additional tracks will be available on Live, but that is the problem - the PS2 version will not have that feature. I have a PS2 and a 360, but I will be purchasing the the PS2 version based on the fact that I already have the controller for the original and would like to get some more use out of it before I abandon it for a new platform, not to mention that I am not looking foward to the pricing for the 360 version (I'm quite positive that version will be at least $100).

Unfortunately, I may indeed have to look to getting the 360 version after I see what songs are made available for download. There are only about 8 songs on the "default" list that I actually like, compared to Guitar Hero where I loved every song and still can't seem to stop playing. I also would like to see "genre pack" type versions (on Live and disc), hopefully there is still hope for that.

Re:eh kind of a let down

[moloko_synthemesc]

No kiddin. Cherry Pie...WTF?! And here I thought it was ludicrous that Bowie was on the first one. Hey, maybe we'll get lucky and those last 2 unidentified tracks will be from REO Speedwagon and Michael Bolton. I was really looking forward to this sequel, but that tracklist is depressing for the most part. Could be why they didn't want the list made public? I think their decisions are likely influenced to some degree by their ability to procure a proper soundalike vocalist. Though to be honest that really didn't stop them the first time around, except for one song that ended up an instrumental. Of course there's a simple way around that whole problem.

I'm hoping the similar project (free, use whatever songs you want) being worked on for PC will eventually support the GH controller. I'm also just as hopeful that the next revision of GH controller lasts more than 3 months. GH is incredibly fun, but not worth spending $160/yr to play it.

Re:eh kind of a let down

[Some_Llama]

"I think their decisions are likely influenced to some degree by their ability to procure a proper soundalike vocalist."

Or permission to use the songs? You know how gung ho Sony is with DRM, so maybe they tied Harmonix's hands on music selection?