Overview:
- Estimated achievement difficulty: 9/10
- Offline: 50 [1000]
- Online: 0
- Approximate amount of time to 1000: 18+ hours
- Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 4
- Number of missable achievements: None!
- Do cheat codes disable achievements?: Yes*
- Does difficulty affect achievements?: Yes
- Glitchy achievements: None
- Unobtainable achievements: None
- Extra equipment needed?: Guitar Controller x2

This is a very difficult game to get 1000 on because it relies on your hands being able to move in a certain manner and speed. Realize that even with lots of practice you may eventually reach a point where you can no longer improve. Fortunately this is not an issue for most and the only achievement that will stand in the way for a lot of people is the "Kick the Bucket Award". Unfortunately, you will need to find a partner for co-op, and to conquer this game you will both need to be playing on the higher difficulties.

Introduction:
Guitar Hero II has 50 achievements for 1000. These are split into 40 single player achievements for 720 and 10 co-op achievements for 280. You will have to play through the setlist four times for the 1000, once on each difficulty since the achievements are not stackable.

 

Step 1: Starting off

This guide will assume you’re new to Guitar Hero and will be starting on Easy. That said, ignore the time listed in the overview- that is more or less the minimum amount of time required, and that’s for people who can five star everything on Expert right off the bat.
Start by getting some easy achievements. Finish the tutorial to unlock "Rock School Grad". Start an Easy career and fail intentionally (or by sucking) to unlock the "Long Road Ahead Award". From there go to practice mode and play three different sections of a song to unlock the "Teacher’s Pet Award".

Step 2: Career Mode

Start with Easy. Once you beat Easy, you will have unlocked Roadie", "New Kid", "Young Gun", "Axe Grinder", "Shredder", "Rock Star", and "Easy Tour Champ" in that order. Unless you just stumbled through Easy, you will have also unlocked the "Scoremonger Award" and the "Dimebag Darrell Award".

Move on to Medium where you now play with four buttons. When you get to your first encore, decline to unlock the "Rock Snob Award". Play through Medium to unlock the "Guitar Hero" achievement and complete Medium to unlock "Medium Tour Champ". By this point you will have unlocked the "100K Club" achievement and most likely the "200K Club" achievement as well.

At this point, this guide has not expected that you have five starred all the songs on either Easy or Medium, so now is the time to go back to Easy. The developers consider you a player on a certain difficulty level once you are able to beat roughly 80% (the sixth tier) of the career on that difficulty. You are now officially a Medium player, so back to Easy it is. If you haven’t unlocked them already, unlock both the "Perfectionist Award" and the "Eddie Van Halen Award" by getting a full combo on Heart-Shaped Box on Easy. Five star everything on Easy to unlock the "Sandbox Hero Award".

Move on to Hard where you now play with all five buttons. Beat career once again to unlock "Hard Tour Champ". If you practice hitting Orange and using hammer-ons/pull-offs you will probably also pick up "300K Club" along the way. Now go back to Medium, five star the rest of the songs, and unlock the "Most Likely to Succeed Award".

Finally, play on Expert. Beat the career one final time to unlock "Expert Tour Champ". One last time, go down a difficulty and five star the rest of the songs on Hard to unlock the "Guitarmaggedon Award". You’ve now beaten career on Expert and five starred all songs on Hard and below. All you can do now is practice the songs on Expert. Eventually, you’ll unlock the "Start a Real Band Already Award". Through the course of five starring everything on Expert, you will most likely unlock the "400K Club" achievement as well.

Step 3: The Store

After five starring everything on Expert, you’ll have enough money to buy everything in the store. Do so. Buy all the characters, outfits, guitars, guitar finishes, and bonus songs to unlock the "Life of the Party Award", "Fashion Plate Award", "Gear Head Award", "Fanatical Completionist Award", and "Record Collector Award" respectively. Among all that spending, you’ll also unlock the "Big Spender Award".

Step 4: Bonus Songs

Play through all the new songs you just bought, on Expert. Roadblocks you may hit include the hardest song in the game, Jordan, and possibly Six. You’ll unlock the "Kick the Bucket Award" for beating Jordan, the "Saturday Morning Award" for beating both Trogdor and Thunderhorse, and the "Scenester Award" for beating all of them.

Step 5: Co-op

Start by getting the easier co-op achievements "200K Pair", "Lennon & McCartney Award", and the "Joan & Lita Award" which can be done with a bad player. You’ll need a decent player to unlock the "Joe & Steven Award", "Keef & Mick Award", "Page & Plant Award", and "400K Pair". You’ll need another Expert player to help you get the "600K Pair", "800K Pair", and "Millionaire Pair" achievements.

Step 6: Mop Up

If you haven’t gotten the "Yngwie Malmsteen Award" yet, go play Monkey Wrench on Hard or Free Bird on Medium. Play a song on Easy using Lefty flip to unlock the "Hendrix Award". Finally, go get that "Champagne Room V.I.P." achievement by playing either Freebird or X-Stream on Expert. If you choose the latter, you’ll need to full combo the song and use star power perfectly. Watch a Youtube video or check out scorehero.com to find the star power path required.

Conclusion:

Now you have 49/50 achievements. You’re still missing the "Extra Credit Award" which, if you’ve been following this, you’ve saved for last. Credits do go at the end, after all. The credits are almost a half hour long, so unless you’re really that interested, watch TV during them and then enjoy your 1000/1000.

 

[XBA would like to thank dakisbac for this Roadmap]