Game: "Guitar Hero II"

Console: PlayStation 2 (also for XBox 360)

Developer/publisher: Harmonix/Red Octane

Genre: Music

Number of players: 1-2

Rated: Teen

Premise: You are the guitarist in a lowly garage band playing high school gigs for peanuts. Eventually you guide your group to the grandest stage of them all: Stonehenge.

Game play: The logistics are quite simple. Instead of a handheld controller, you get a plastic guitar roughly 75 percent the size of a real one, with five colored buttons to simulate frets. There's a strum bar to imitate strings and even a replica tremolo arm (a "whammy bar").

Notes scroll down the screen and you strum the right button combination for points. Certain notes will be surrounded by blue stars. Play this series correctly and get rewarded with a boost to your Star Power meter. Hitting the whammy bar on longer notes adds to your points and gives a small increase to your Star Power meter.

The song selection of "Guitar Hero II" is leaps and bounds better than the original's. Covering more genres, the hit list includes everything from hair metal such as Warrant's "Cherry Pie" and grunge like Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box" to more modern tunes such as Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name" and classic rock a la Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird." Yes, perhaps the greatest rock song of all time is here for you to play.

Multiplayer also is better. Gamers now can play the same song together and also strum different sections (lead guitar, rhythm guitar or bass) and at different speeds. Another addition is Practice Mode, which lets you isolate and practice specific portions of songs. The tempo can even be slowed to help nail those hard solos.

Career mode has also been improved with a new encore feature. Once you complete your section of three or four songs, depending on the difficulty setting, the crowd will cheer for one more songs that you must beat before advancing. Another plus: The money and unlockables transfer across difficulty levels — no more having to buy the same guitars, skins and characters after jumping from medium to hard.

Good/bad: One really good thing about this game is the voice work. Many songs have imitations that are dead ringers for the original singers. Another plus is the movie references, such as a loading screen saying "Remember, NO STAIRWAY!" and the drummer exploding after playing the encore of Spinal Tap's "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight."

One low point is the lackluster bonus songs — the same problem as in the original game. It's not major, but it does tarnish an otherwise excellent game.

My take: While the original "Guitar Hero" hooked you faster from the get-go, its sequel is equally fun and should be enjoyed by all those who play it. It's a great way to kill a couple of hours (or more) or get some friends together on a boring weeknight.

Jeremy Castillo, who received his associate of arts degree from Windward Community College, is attending the University of Idaho.