Rock Band 2 Wii: Actually the Real Deal

Did you play Rock Band on the Wii? Wait, that's a trick question! No you didn't! What you played was a pale shadow of the full Rock Band experience, just the core four-man-band play without any of the delicious trimmings that rounded out the full experience on the 360 and PS3. No character creation. No downloadable songs. Heck, the animations running behind the songs while you played were just static videos. It was an underwhelming package.

None of that is true with Rock Band 2 on the Wii. Harmonix, flush with proceeds and new staff members, has nobly opted to atone for its past transgression with this sequel. Let me just sum it up: The game has everything on the Wii that it does on the big-boy systems. The one exception is the tattoo editor in the character creator: You can't edit your own, so you're stuck with a selection of premade tattoos to slap on your rock people. But Harmonix's Alex Navarro swears up and down that you're not missing out on anything else at all if you snag the game on the Wii. (And if he's fibbing, we know where he lives.) Even the full online-playable world tour is in there. Not a bad upgrade over last year's game.

Oh yeah, all the Battle of the Bands playlists will show up on the Wii too, and those will be synced with the challenges on the other consoles as well.

To me, downloadable content was the big question with the Wii version, so here are the facts on that.

• When the game ships, 50 downloadable songs will be available. 20 of those will be the free tracks also offered to 360 and PS3 owners, while the other 30 will be a sort of "greatest hits" of the previously released material.
• After release, the Wii game will receive all the same weekly DLC releases as the other consoles.
• Other previously released tracks will also be made available periodically along with the new stuff, with the goal being to eventually get all the existing DLC out on the Wii.
• There won't be any track packs or full albums on the Wii--you'll have to buy each song separately. You'll pay with standard Wii Shop points, but you can only purchase songs in-game.
• In terms of storage, DLC will first go into your Wii's internal memory, and when that's full, you can start putting more on SD cards.

Lastly, all the hardware is up to speed with the units released for the other systems, including the new light and sound sensors used for calibration.

There's no firm date for Rock Band 2 Wii yet, but Harmonix says to expect it "before the holidays."

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