Recent stories in the news about Wii controllers flying off their D-grade safety straps and taking out Aunt Martha's urn are entertaining, to be sure -- but in terms of gamers really manhandling their controllers, nothing really holds a candle to a game that slings a virtual guitar around your neck and all but demands that you bring the house down.

The original Guitar Hero was arguably one of the best, most appealing rhythm video games ever, and it's a pleasure to report that its sequel can still pack the house.

The mini-axe schtick could have gotten stale by now, but it hasn't, thanks mostly to a range of new songs and new modes (including co-op play with bass and rhythm guitar tracks, plus a happily forgiving practice mode). Guitar Hero II offers over 60 tunes (40 of them licensed from big-name bands), and even the visuals have seen a noticeable improvement.

For those who haven't previously had the jukebox-hero pleasure, here's the snipped-for-radio scoop: The guitar-shaped controller has color-coded buttons, fret-spaced along the neck, as well as a "strum" button and a wank-on whammy bar. Analogous to so many other dance/rhythm games, the screen features colored-coded icons that race down the screen as the tune in questions plays; it's your job to hit the corresponding fret buttons and strum in proper time to the music. Hit all your marks, and you're on your way to virtual rock-god status.

Moreover, pull off the occasional perfect riff and you'll gain star power and when the time is right -- getting into the whole spastic air-guitar thing -- you rake in double points-per-note (for what the TV screamer ads like to call "a limited time"). Blow too many opportunities and you'll redline and "fail" the song (in a real life on-stage situation, this could well probably entail dodging bottles and/or actual bodily fluids... count yourself lucky).

Reducing this surprisingly-intuitive, pleasure-center-slapping process to stodgy, tie-wearing words rather robs the game of its simple, head-banging props: Once you get your bearings -- standing there, spread-stanced with your little plastic guitar -- you can by-God rawk to this game, to the point where you might want to lock your door (to avoid any awkward walk-ins by skeptical girlfriends, bosses, parents, etc. No judgments, dood... just a thought).

A roster of songs slightly bigger than the first game's spans different eras of rock. The lineup -- at least, the lineup of actual, major, anybody-cares bands -- includes old faithfuls like Nirvana, Guns 'n Roses, Rage Against the Machine, Primus, The Rolling Stones, The Pretenders, and more. The bad news -- although it's not always that bad -- is that the overwhelming majority of the songs are covers, and that means that, by necessity, some material gets treated better than other material. Guns 'n Roses and Van Halen get pretty much left alone ("Sweet Child O' Mine," obviously, and "You Really Got Me, perhaps less obviously), and Kansas gets a truly respectable cover ("Carry on My Wayward Son"). But in the cases of Rage Against the Machine and Aerosmith (vocals in the case of the former, selection in terms of the latter), the term "butchered" comes to mind. The bottom line, however, is that the majority of the game's cover songs are well 'within spec' -- and in many cases, well above.

Caveat emptor -- Guitar Hero II, as you will soon discover, is markedly more demanding in terms of difficulty. This is neither good nor bad. It's just a zen-rock IS. Deal with it.

Multiplayer, too, is a well above-average experience (still no online play, however -- and, the skeptical gamer is tempted to add, thank-a-merciful-God), but in addition to the previous incarnation's competition, there's now a chance for players to both jam through the entire tune at the same time. The cooperative play puts one player on lead guitar, while the other player handles bass or rhythm guitar; despite what the amateur musician-wannabe might think, it's possible for either to be the more challenging of the two. This mode will either settle or fan the flames of many a layman's music-theory arguments; the rhythm section is always workin' it while the lead guitar wanks off, which isn't necessarily the same as workin', so the assertion goes... Either way, the result in Guitar Hero II will be entertaining -- and seriously, either way, you really might want to lock the door.