Guitar Hero II - Six-string Showdown

Thunderbox Amp 28r
$59.99 at www.theguitarmania.com

This is where you can go all Spinal Tap and really leap overboard. Until now, we've confined our coverage to items that will actually make your gameplay experience better. However, this little baby is pure vanity.

What exactly is it, you say? Why, it's an amplifier for your guitar. Well, sort of. Actually, you just plug your PS2 audio cable directly into it, so you ampllify not only your guitar part, but all of the PS2's audio. It also doesn't come with cables, so you'll need a splitter or cable extentions in order to plug the sound in here, but still run the video to your TV. And it doesn't have inputs for an optical cable, so you'll need to go with standard composite cables for both audio and video.

What's most interesting to us about the Thunderbox is that it literally is a normal, 30-wattguitar practice amplifier with two RCA jacks added so it can acceptthestandardaudio cables used by most hi-fi equipment as well as the PlayStation 2.

Thus, if you have a real-world electric guitar or bass, you can plug it right in and play (though the speaker isn't really very fond of basses). And if you happen to have amicrophone that has a standard quarter-inch I-pin connector,you can plug it into the secondchannel and hear your voice projected through the amp - complete with an ungodly echo/reverb effectthat we couldn't seem to turn off.

This is actually a cheap price for a real practice amplifier, though it's not the best choice. A little more scratch will get you something from the lower end of theMarshall MG series.