Last night I followed my good friend & coworker Jason over to his place for some Guitar Hero 2 action. It has been 2 weeks since I sent my ailing Xbox 360 in for repairs (RRoD), so I've been missing out on playing this game lately. Couple that with the fact that Jason purchased GH2 right after my console went down & he keeps talking to me about the game at work, and I'm going through some serious withdrawals, lol. We played co-op mode for about 5 hours last night & plowed through a ton of songs. We consider ourselves to be intermediate players, so we stuck to medim difficulty, but still had some hiccups on a couple songs (Jordan, YYZ). We were able to get a handful of the co-op achievements (JOY!), and had an absolute blast in the process.

I remember when the original Guitar Hero game came out for the PS2 - I thought it looked absolutely ridiculous. The idea of trying to play a game that simulated rocking out on an undersized, geeky-looking plastic guitar seemed laughable at the time. Then Guitar Hero 2 came out on the 360, and several of my friends over at 360Voice started playing it & telling me about how cool it is. Then my cousin rented the first GH game & brought it over w/ his PS2. After playing it for a while, I got hooked. Originally, I balked at the $89.99 price tag on the game, but I now think it is well worth it. The replay value on the game is amazing. As a musician, I can honestly say that the game does a great job of simulating that feeling of pride that you get after successfully pulling off some wicked chops. Its been a while since I had that feeling performing on stage, but I feel it every time I play Guitar Hero 2.

In the middle of typing this, I noticed that I received an email from Microsoft telling me that my 360 is shipping out today! I imagine I'll probably get it back either Tuesday or Wednesday next week, so I'll be rocking out again soon enough :D

The total turnaround time from the when my box went down & I called support until when I get my console back will be about 3 weeks. Not bad, cosidering that when you call support they tell you that it will be 4-6 weeks from the time that they receive your console until you get it back. Plus, if I read the email correctly, it sounds like they repaired my console & they're shipping it back, as opposed to sending me another refurbished unit. No complaints here :)