Finally, the phenomenon known as Guitar Hero II has hit the big white Microsoft box. The two PlayStation 2 games were a blast to play and now the folks with the 360 can experience it as well. So how does the port to the 360 stand out? It`s as fun as ever with some great additions.

If you`ve played Guitar Hero II on the PlayStation 2, then you`ll be in for the same on the Xbox 360. For the few that don`t know about the series it`s a musical rhythm game with interaction via a toy sized guitar. On the guitar are five fret buttons, a strum bar and a whammy bar. For the Xbox 360 version, Red Octane added a D-Pad and Xbox 360 button on the front. A pedal connection port is also there that might be used in the future. On screen, a note line scrolls downward towards you and you have to match the same colored notes when they cross the line and strum the bar at the right moment. Besides having different notes come across, there are also chords where you hold down one or more fret buttons and also multiple notes crossing the linesimultaneously . As you correctly match the notes with your playing, the music plays correctly through the speaker. Any misstep and you`ll hear the out of tune note. The more notes you get consecutively, the better you score and the bigger the multiplier you will receive.

On the bottom right, there`s an indicator to let you know how well you are doing. You can use this along with the crowd reaction to judge how well you are playing. The indicator swings from red to yellow to green when you are doing well. Get too far down in the red and you`ll be done before the song finishes. At the end you`ll be judged at how well you played the song with a score and a star rating. Five stars is the maximum you can get for each song.

Notes that are star shaped when played successfully will increase a star power bar. After a certain amount of star power is built up, you can activate it by tilting the guitar up. Star power will double your current multiplier enabling you to get mad scores. It will also help you bring the crowd quickly back into your favor should you find yourself teetering in the red. If a star note consists of a long note, you can build up your star power quicker by using the whammy bar on those notes. A good strategy is to get the 4X multiplier and then activate the star power for a total of 8Xmulti-player to maximize your scoring potential.

Guitar Hero II features a wide range of musical selections. For the Xbox 360 version, a brand new song was added to each set. There should be enough of a selection that everyone should find a few songs they enjoy listening to and playing. You might not like every single one but the variety offered gives you some great tunes to experience. A new addition to the 360 version is the ability to download new songs from Xbox Live Marketplace. As of this writing, a few Guitar Hero 1 songs have appeared in the Marketplace. This is a great way to increase the longevity of the game and will keep the game from getting stale with the same ole songs.

Guitar Hero 2 has some new characters and guitars with some returning favorites such as the Grim Reaper. The store is back to purchase new guitars, songs, finishes, and characters. You earn cash through the single player mode with more money in hand the better you do of course. Using the money in the store will increase the content available in the game just like in the original.

The guitar is what really makes this game fun to play. It`s too bad Red Octane didn`t release a wireless guitar with the 360 version thoug...