30 brand new GH songs!!!...and that's about it.
User Rating: 7.3 | Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s PS2
When this game was announced, it was an instant buy in my mind. i preorder it 2 weeks before it was released and picked it up yesterday (launch date). I shelled my 50 bucks and took it home. Was i expecting some revolutionary game change from Rocks the 80s? no not really, but i didnt really expect them to take a step backwards eaither. They kicked off characters, kicked off the best venue from GH2 and...well, it's basically a watered down GH2 with different songs. theyre good songs(for the most part), and they keep that rocking feel of the previous games, but its 30 songs, and THATS IT. For 50 dollars there are no bonus tracks to be heard of, and one of those 30 songs isnt even authentic 80s, its a faux song made by limozeen, im guessing to even out the list. Everything from the menues to the venues is ripped out of GH2, and the team made only the tiniest effort to spice things up by tinging everything in a sickly, yet agreeably, 80 color sheme.
I think i could live with one or the other: keep the recycled visuals but give me 60 tracks, leave it with 30 tracks, but have ORIGINAL venues, all the characters from previous games (or could it have killed you to make just one new one?), and new menues. Even the witty loading lines are mostly unchanged.
The gameplay is classic GH, easy on easy, and awesomely aggravating on Expert (the later songs at least). Bottom line: theres just not enough here for the game to cost 50 dollars. 30 maybe. If you need a holdover for GH3 in october, try to find this used or on sale. 
