Partial Guitar Hero II tracklist

By Tom Bramwell Published 5 May, 2006

Plus talk of E3 concerts.

RedOctane and Harmonix have announced a few of the songs that should make up the 55-strong playlist in Guitar Hero II, due out in the US this November.

Ostensibly to trail its E3 showing next week, RedOctane's said we can expect Black Sabbath's "War Pigs", Butthole Surfers' "Who Was in My Room Last Night?", KISS' "Strutter", Rush's "YYZ", Reverend Horton Heat's "Psychobilly Freakout" and Van Halen's "You Really Got Me" in GH2.

There'll also be an original recording by Drist called Arterial Black - and Drist, whose Marcus Henderson was the original Guitar Hero guitarist - will be performing in one of a few mini-concerts planned for GH2's showing in E3's Kentia Hall.

Also on the bill for the three days of E3 are the winners of the first "Be a Guitar Hero" competition, Graveyard BBQ, and LA rock group Shaimus. Apparently Halo Friendlies lead guitarist Judita Wignall - the template for GH's Judy Nails - will be making "special guest appearances" too.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • djchump #1 6 years ago

    Hot damn! Must... have.... more info!

  • Zomoniac #2 6 years ago

    NEEEEEED!!!!

    But it would be nice if we could have music that isn't shite hair metal and prog rock this time. There were some nice touches, No One Knows, Stellar, Killer Queen and of course Texas Flood, but there are some essential guitar bands missing. I want Radiohead, SOAD, Slipknot (YES! just for a giggle), RATM (though Audioslave were there and as they're essentially the same band that would explain it), Zeppelin, more Jimi, Fleetwood Mac, Jeff Buckley, Pink Floyd (how amazing would it me to chill out playing the six-hour intro to Shine On pt1?), Prince and The Pumpkins. And I'll be surprised if there's no Layla (or at least some Clapton). All have ace lead parts and aren't predictable glam rock wank.

  • Markusdragon #3 6 years ago

    Monkey Steals the Peach not playing at E3? Shame.

  • Zomoniac #4 6 years ago

    And they should have Steve Vai's version of the Halo theme, that would be entertaining :)

  • indotoonster #5 6 years ago

    I'd like to see a bit more variety, particularly slower songs. Ziggy Stardust is pretty much the only really chill-out track on GH1 -- essential for when you've just failed Cowboys From Hell on Expert at 7% for the 10th time in a row and you're seriously considering smashing the controller up :-(

    Some Radiohead would be cool... how about the thematically appropriate "Anyone Can Play Guitar"? :-)

  • Zomoniac #6 6 years ago

    ACPG would be appropriate, but Just or Paranoid Android would be better. Texas Flood by Stevie Ray Vaughan is my favourite song to chill out to, traditional blues and lots of pauses. Killer Queen and Stellar aren't exactly thrash out rock songs either.

  • indotoonster #7 6 years ago

    Yeah, I was thinking of 'Paranoid Android' as well. I think it would work well with the reported multiplayer mode of rhythm/lead/bass sections.

    Agreed, I enjoy 'Texas Flood' and 'Killer Queen' as well, but I still think there's a case for more of these.

    I'm guessing they'll also want to throw in a couple of the various post-punk revivalist bands. My vote would go to anything by The Bravery or Maximo Park.

    I don't think you can ever have too much prog rock, though, and I'm glad to hear confirmation of 'YYZ'. Let's have some Liquid Tension Experiment and King Crimson please!

  • Cuke #8 6 years ago

    It could do with a wider appeal... I love the first game but was kinda hoping there would be more 'classics' in the second one... I'm a bit worried that these are the kind of 'jewels in the crown' of the tracklisting as they've announced them early like this... If its all hair metal I barely know it's going to be a disapoitnment...

    Although if they drop 'Sweet Child Of Mine' in there... all will be forgiven... ;)
    Edited by 1 at 05/05/06 @ 10:13

  • Zomoniac #9 6 years ago

    NOOOOOO!!! Progressive was invented as a substitute for the word 'pretentious'. Prog is for people with chops to show off and not have to write tunes. I don't want 64 bar solos with a million notes a second in 19/8, I want tunes.

  • Zomoniac #10 6 years ago

    If they put Sweet Child Of Mine in there, or any GnR, it will knock 2 points off the review score.

  • Azazel #11 6 years ago

    "If they put Sweet Child Of Mine in there, or any GnR, it will knock 2 points off the review score."

    WTF?? I'd buy it if it only had It's So Easy on.

    Also: SABBATH! Pity t'wasn't Sabra Cadabra though, oh well...

    And seriously: what do we have to do to get Stan Bush on one of these games?

  • Cuke #12 6 years ago

    "I don't want 64 bar solos with a million notes a second in 19/8, I want tunes. "

    exactly... Killer Queen, Take Me Out, Ziggy Stardust etc... they are all fun to play, as are the heavier ones, but filling it up with metal stuff with massive complicated solos is kind of taking away the fun of just playing along with songs you love...

  • paulf #13 6 years ago

    'smells like teen spirit' please

  • kangarootoo #14 6 years ago

    "Slipknot (YES! just for a giggle)"

    Before I Forget would make a great tune for GH.

    The issue with this kind of game is always that you are presenting the player with a list of music that they might simply not like. The posts on here show how varied people's tastes can be (even if we all have some appreciation for guitar based tunes of one type or another).

    I think scoring based on whether you liked the song list is not perhaps the best way to go. I think you can score on whether you think the set list will address a balanced set os tastes, or even whether you think it uses enough tunes people have heard of, but not just on whether you personally like the music. For all the comments on the Singstar Rocks thread about how Go With the Flow was a poor choice, there was as many responses saying "actually, I really like that song/video".

    As players of course, we can say what we like and we are never wrong. If you don't like any of the tunes in GH2 then it might not be worth your money. Perhaps games like this need the review focus to be almost all about the gameplay. Then a person who sees a high gameplay score can read the set list and make up their own mind.

    I was a little disappointed with the review of SS:Rocks (my first comment about a review I think, and hopefully my last) because it seemed to focus mainly on the song choice and a review can never plus or minus the musical tastes of others.

  • dudefella #15 6 years ago

    "I don't think you can ever have too much prog rock, though, and I'm glad to hear confirmation of 'YYZ'. Let's have some Liquid Tension Experiment and King Crimson please!"

    Please have my children.

    Also, add some Dream Theater.

  • Cuke #16 6 years ago

    It does make me think genre editions (Metal, 80's 'Hair Rock, indie, country (eeek!) etc...) are the way to go though. Peoples enjoyment of this type of game is sooooo closely tied to their appreciation of the songs included that it becomes very important to cater for as wide a selection of tastes as possible from a business point of view if nothing else. Esp as the basic novelty of the idea of a guitar game will have now worn off, it really will be down the track listing as much as any new features they add in for this new version...

    Once the basic game is done it must be easy to plug songs into it... Surely it'd be worth them releasing either simultaneous genre versions of GHII or some kind of Game + song expansion disk idea...

  • eviltobz  #17 6 years ago

    van halen for the win :)

    and Azazel, good call on stan bush. he soooooooo rocks :)

  • Sl1pstream #18 6 years ago

    Some Tool or Pearl Jam would be nice.

  • Megapocalypse #19 6 years ago

    but filling it up with metal stuff with massive complicated solos is kind of taking away the fun of just playing along with songs you love...

    But those are the songs I love. :(

    Anyway, pleased to see YYZ on the list, although I can see that being a hard one. Although I guess with a lot news recently on GH2 must mean they've dropped the idea of genre/country specific expansions for GH1.

  • Tricky #20 6 years ago

    I'm still amazed that no one has mentioned "Walk This Way" by Run DMC/Aerosmith. That one must surely be a no brainer?

  • ali-uk #21 6 years ago

    Where oh were is the Anthrax and Metallica love

  • Zomoniac #22 6 years ago

    The Metallica love is as much here as the band's talent...

  • Teeth #23 6 years ago

    Will they be doing updated multiplayer note tracks for games in the original, I wonder? Bit bland, 2 player GH and the new plans sound like it would make playing the tracks multiplayer a lot more fun.

  • F1Tom #24 6 years ago

    MUSE!!

  • --Ad-- #25 6 years ago

    @ F1Tom

    Piano Hero would be better for Muse :-) Hmmm, like the idea of that.. Butterflies and Hurricanes would be a good one.
    Edited by 1 at 05/05/06 @ 15:52

  • kangarootoo #26 6 years ago

    "Some Tool or Pearl Jam would be nice"

    Pearl Jam are appearing on the new Jools Holland show should you be interested, new material from a new album apparently.

  • kangarootoo #27 6 years ago

    A game like Guitar Hero is royally placed to take advantage of downloadable content. Not for this version of course, but it seems like a franchise with legs.

    Then, presuming a big enough catalogue, everyone can buy their ideal version of the game \o/

  • Teeth #28 6 years ago

    "Smash stupid whiny pretentious art graduate in the fucking face Hero" would be better for Muse.

  • kangarootoo #29 6 years ago

    Man, that isn't very chilled for you. Have you stopped doing Tai Chi or something? :)

  • Teeth #30 6 years ago

    I'll stab you!!!!!

    No, still doing tai chi but Muse move me to violence, man.

  • kangarootoo #31 6 years ago

    "I'll stab you!!!!! "

    LOL

    I guess its always good to have a trigger you can fall back on, to get you into a killing mode should the need arise.

    If anyone corners you in a dark alleyway on your way home from "Stroking friendly rabbits" class, you can just bring Muse to mind and use the rage to chop off their heads with the ledge of your hand.

  • Bezzy #32 6 years ago

    A friend of a friend of a friend of a friend said that when he talked to Harmonix, the main problem with getting lots and lots of music (and the downloadable content stuff) was that they could barely justify the license cost of the tracks - hence the shit-load of indie (lke, super underground no-one-has-heard-of-them-outside-of-harmonix-or-boston) songs on the first GH (and in Frequency, too).

    Hopefully, if GH has exceeded financial expectations, that should become less of a problem.

    But yeah. We need this on XBLA with a hell of a lot of downloadable tracks! IT'S THE NEW RINGTONES!

  • kincaide #33 6 years ago

    How about some ...

    Darkness - I Believe In a Thing Called Love
    The Who - Pinball Wizard
    Iron Maiden - The Trooper / Number of the Beast / Can I Play With Madness
    Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze
    Derek and the Dominoes - Layla

    ....arggghhhh I could go on.

    I *LOVE* this game

  • Megapocalypse #34 6 years ago

    How about some ...
    Iron Maiden - The Trooper

    /fails intro
    /fails intro
    /fails intro

    :(