Angel_Gamer

Positives:
- Perfect for DBZ fans, especially if you enjoyed the original Budokai series
- Great visuals
- Cool super attacks
- The addition of drama pieces are a good idea

Negitaves:
- Online play can be laggy if using a cross country connection and definitely not enough there to keep you coming back
- You probably wont enjoy this and definitely wont know what's going on if your not a DBZ fan
- Only includes the first three sagas
- Drama pieces and rank requirements get repetitive fast

DragonBall Z: Burst Limit is your typical "hey it seems people don't like our current games, maybe we should take a step back" game. After the garbage that was the Tenkaichi series, Atari decided that maybe the original Budokai series has something that could possible be done again. What I mean from this is that instead of the 3D fighting areas and battle/combat style they had been doing for the last three console games, they went back to just 2D fighting in a 3D environment.

Burst Limit is unlike a game such as Street Fighter and more on the Soul Calibur side of things, minus ring outs. It has you fighting one other enemy on a 2D plain but at the same time lets you move in a 3D way to create yet another 2D plain. If this confuses you, don't worry, it doesn't really matter. This element of battle and game play is much like the original three Budokai games and pretty much mimics the basic idea of them all.

The single player mode has you going through different 'scenes' in the DBZ show/movie history and recreating them in a one on one fight. Along with some good looking cut scenes, it makes for a pretty good time. One thing it doesn't seem to realize is that there are people out there who either don't know what DragonBall Z or don't care enough to have watched all one million episodes and don't know the story line. It has you going through each fight in the correct order based off the show through each of the first three sagas of DBZ (yes thats right, it ends after the cell saga) but what it doesn't do it tell you what's going on and why each of these things are happening. Unless you have watch the show, you have no idea how and why these characters are beating the crap out of each other. What makes this element worse is the game decides that you can finally get the privilege of knowing these answers after you finish the around twenty something fights that make up a saga by use of a voiceless cut scene.

Aside from that, Burst Limit doesn't really have many other great flaws. As stated, it revisits it's original roots but that's what makes it so great. Once you drop the giant 3D arenas in which causes you to have to try and use the environment as more of a weapon than what the show was really about (your fists and energy) you can get back to actually back to what DBZ is actually about, hitting people really hard. This game should make most fighting genre fans happy and should please DBZ fans all around.

The graphics of this game are very good, and combining that with the monstrous flashing lights that people into the game and show will know as energy attacks, your in for quite a good looking game. Some of the stronger attacks look really good when shown on these powerful consoles and well surpass the Budokai series. Some of the better light shows will be seen when two powerful attacks collide and the sparks are flying everywhere.

Also this game involves online play, so you can battle with your friends or anyone. One thing that lacks here is there is some lag to the fights if your not in the same country and the person. Aside from straight one on one fighting online, there isn't much else to do. Though there really couldn't be to much else to put online so overall the online component isn't a wonderful feature that will have you coming back to the game.

Probably the biggest point about this game s its use of in fight cut scenes known as "drama pieces." These stop the fight when you meet certain components and cause a short, maybe less than 8 second cut scene. At first these are a cool idea, but then you will begin to notice that they do the same maybe dozen scenes over and over and they're not even a little different. The only different is the character performing it, other than that they just pasted a different body onto the motion path.

Another add on is the requirements that your ranking per fight is based on. These are things like "perform an ultimate attack" or "finish while destroying the battle field" which once again, start off as a cool idea and will make you want to try and meet as many as you can. By meeting enough or these, your overall ranking for that fight will increase. The downside to these is that they never ever change. For every fight you can just do the same thing to meet the same requirements and you will usually get the same ranking. It would have been real nice to see some storyline/character specific requirements thrown in there.

Overall this game meets the standards you'd want if your a DBZ fan but will come up as shallow and not worth while for others. Though it does have a lot to do if your wanting to finish every fight and get a good rank on each one of their difficulties. The online play is a must have section to this game but wont last long for you and definitely wont have you coming back to this game over and over.

Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 is the sequel to the major hit Xbox Live Arcade Game - Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. It contains the same gameplay style you've grown to know and love but adds new modes and ways to think about playing. With the added elements to the game and overall visual overhaul, it turns out to be a game well worth your money.

Since the last Retro Evolved that was one of the first XBLA games to be released, fans have been awed by it's gameplay and visual style. What GW2 does is take the same gameplay and make you think about using it in new and interesting ways, together this adds for harder challenges, more to do and a lot fun. If you don't know, GW2 make you move a ship around the screen with the left analog stick while shooting with the right analog stick. the longer you survive, the harder then enemies become and the quantities grow. If things become to hectic, you are equiped with a set number of bombs that will clear the screen.

The biggest difference between GW2 and it's prequel is the addition of geoms. In the first Retro Evolved you gained score multiplyers by surviving longer and longer, in GW2 you can collect geoms to increase your multiplyer. Geoms appear after you destroy and enemy and with this addition, you are now able to get high score of unimaginable digits compared to the first game.

GW2 has six gameplay modes in it. You can unlock each new mode by playing the previous mode a certain length of time. The first is Deadline, which you start out with from the get go. It's basically the general GW style of play, but you only have three minutes to play it and unlimited lives. This mode is more of an introductory into the GW game and style of game it is.

The next is King which has you unable to fire your weapon unless you are inside small areas. When inside you can shoot as much as you like, but the areas will shrink and go away after a few seconds. This causes you to need to know how long to stay in a shielded area and how long to stay and destroy enemies.

Next is Evolved which is once again the basic GW game. This is manly what Retro Evolved was and you can go on for as long as you survive.

The fourth mode is Pacifism, which is much like the first Retro Evolved's pacifism achievement, in which you cannot shoot. This mode renders your weapons completely useless for the entire game. You must make the enemies follow you through small gates, passing through a gate causes it to explode destroying nearby enemies.

Waves is the next game and focuses on orange enemies that are on a set axis and move back and forth between walls. By adding many of these together in a line it acts as a wave and more and more of these waves are sent at you.

Sequence is the final mode and it's really anything crazy new, it's more of a level system. Each level has you fighting certain enemies and in certain orders. This mode is by far the hardest and requires tremendous skill.

The graphics have been updated since Retro Evolved to make them sharper and much more colorful. Destroying each enemies has them explode shooting sparks of their color out, combining enemies destruction can make a wonderfully beautiful light show. Each mode also has it's own music and modes like King has the music muffled unless your in a safe zone, while Evolved has the original theme but remixed. The music is probably one of the best things about this game as it's high paced and doesn't get repetitive. When you get destroyed by an enemy the music screeches to a halt and then wipes back into play. While using bombs causes the music to sound warped for a minute.

The achievements this time around are also much easier and seems to be at a good pace between all the modes. From things as easy as unlocking all modes, to things more like rub up against all the wall space in pacifism twice. One would probably have liked an achievement in the area of "get ____ points combined in all games" but this game doesn't require that. It does have a similar one that requires you to get at least a million points in all modes, but this game gets quite addictive, and just updating your high score is enough satisfaction in itself.

Another new update to the franchise is multiplayer. In each mode you can play them in co op with up to four people. There's even a mode called copilot where one person will drive the ship, while the other controls the gun. The multiplayer mode is only local and not online. Which at first glance at this game can seem like a let down. The thing is though, online multiplayer would most likely ruin this game due to all the lag that could be brought up. Any bad connection leading to the slightest lag will cause you all to mostly screw up, or die. This game is just too fast paced, split second timing and decision making to let any lag be a factor. To counter this they have made user high scores a huge part of this game. Each mode select screen shows the top high scores of everyone on your friends list. Also, during each mode in the top right hand corner you will see the highest score on your friends list so that you have something to play towards beating.

Overall Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 is a great game to continue the Geometry Wars franchise. If you enjoyed the first game, you will find this perfect will all the graphical and audio updates along with the new styles of play and gameplay modes. For 800 points ($10 US) it's definitely worth your money and will make any Geometry Wars fan and new comer quite happy.

Positives:
- Beautiful graphics
- Very enjoyable music
- You get your money's worth, and then some
- Loads of different modes to keep you interested
- High scores keep you wanting to come back and play more
- Co op play adds new ways to play each of the new modes in fun and friend-included ways

Negatives:
- N/A

From Square Enix, the company behind Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, comes something new and different that will end up leaving you with a smile and satisfaction each time you close the DS's lid. The World Ends with You (TWEWY) is an adventure/RPG game that tries new things and recycles some of the old. It has the classic teen characters with crazy hair trying to save the day or just survive.

The spiky haired protagonist this round is one Neku. A boy finding himself in a parallel Shibuyo, the community within Tokyo, Japan. The game starts out with some great anime slideshow fluid cutscenes that reveals this game is gonna be big and strong. The art style is crisp and solid throughout the game which is just lovely for the entire thing. You can really feel the Japanese element of this game is quite strong.

The difference of TWEWY apart from the normal RPG you've come to expect from SE is this one involves fighting on both screens at the same time! Check off mind blown. At first this is incredibly hard and somewhat daunting to have to do right when you get in there. For you who don't like this element, sorry but your stuck with it throughout the entire game, though it does get easier. So the learning curve on this game is quite long. The game requires you to input button comands using the D-pad for the top screen while making specific movements with the stylus for the second half of the action. Fortunately they have ways of making this easier and you can focus on just one screen for the just.

Like the classic RPG, there is leveling up and like the various games, you can level up the weapons you use. Instead of swords or wands in this game, you fight with Pins, which are pins that have magical powers that perform different tasks depending on which stylus movement you use during battles. Some require tapping, slashing, drawing circles, making big lines, etc. and some even require the use of the built in mic. You do gain the classic experienced points or EXP so your characters can gain levels and get stronger, and you can also gain Pin Points or PP which is like experience points for your pins. Other than the obvious winning fights to get PP, there are several other ways of getting PP and even new Pins in TWEWY. When you save and shut off your game, for every 10 minutes that the DS is off, you gain one PP, so you can imagine how nice this is for when you wake up and see you have a bunch of PP from doing nothing. Also you can set your DS in Mingle mode which sets it into a wireless mode and if your DS gets near either another TWEWY player in mingle mode and another DS with anything doing something wirelessly you will gain PP. Even if your a person who wont ever be near someone else with a DS they added in an Aliens thing for mingle mode that are like the other two options, but just appear randomly every now and then - no second DS required.

Also added is the usual clothing system in which you can put on different clothing for stat boosts or special abilities. Though it would have been nice to see the new clothing on your character outside in the game or in a battle and such. So the clothes end up just being a short quick thing to do. Though the stores you buy clothes, food or sometimes pins have different shop owners everytime and you can grow your level of friendship with them to unlock new things. Becoming closer to a shop keeper will get you the abilities described on the clothes/food/pins they have and it can unlock new things to buy as well.

Overall TWEWY is an incredible game and Square Enix hit it off great. This was the perfect way to introduce a new game into the world. Having it on any other system would get rid of some of the key elements that you will grow to love and not want to leave. It has great visuals and audio throughout it all and to add on with a great story line that will make you want to find out what happens next. An amazing game for the DS and defiantly worth picking up.

Positives:
- Great music
- Great art style and graphics
- Addictive gameplay
- Earning PP in different ways if a very cool and well thought out idea
- Interesting multiplayer mini game
- Great story line
- Fun battle system
- Unlock new things throughout the entire game

Negitaves:
- Long learning curve
- Battling can stay difficult for a while
- Very easy for the first 8 hours or so

Castle Crashers is the brightly animated 2D beat 'em up by game developers; The Behemoth and runs for 1200 Microsoft points. The Behemoth was well known for it's first game Alien Hominid HD on the Xbox Live Arcade. It does a good job bringing humor and platforming to a standard beat 'em up style that you would think wouldn't be popular in today's consumer mindset. Though this game does suffer from a few bugs that can harm it quite a bit.

The game has you chase after evil bosses that stole four princess's from the castle. Your quest involves you going through many areas such as the standard locations that would basically represent the 'fire area,' 'ice area,' 'forest area' and so on. Each area has new enemies in which you will need to kill and make it to the boss so save one princess after the other.

Castle Crashers is much like the game TMNT 1989 classic, in the way of it's beat 'em up style of gameplay. So if you liked that game, it's pretty safe to say now that you will enjoy this one. A beat 'em involves usually a high multiplayer value in which you move through levels just button mashing to kill enemies who are walking around and causing havoc. It also relies quite a bit on an RPG element since each enemy you kill awards your experience points or EXP points that helps you level up. You also get more points to use towards stat upgrades like magic and agility.

The biggest thing this style of game has going for it would be that it's a big social game, meaning it should have great multiplayer. Castle Crashers does that; but only for local co op. When the game was launched it's online became apparent that it's pretty crippled. Many people find that they can't get into games or even go online and find other people to play with. Trying to invite a friend in was impossible for me to be able to do and the one time I managed to find someone to play with, the game disconnected the instant we choose our characters. Though some people do seem to not have to much trouble, they only seem to be able to play for a few hours before something goes wrong. This fact really harms Castle Crashers because even with playing the single player alone, you can tell that it would be that much more fun for each friend you have with you.

With that being said, the game still stands quite strong on it's own as a single player game. Each new area involves something new that you need to take into account. Whether this be new styles in which the enemies fight, or new gameplay elements. In some areas you'll find yourself pitted against hooded thieves as they jabbed me with knives and shot me with arrows, while others will have you balancing on fish while you slash at a giant water cat thing. With other side missions to do like trying to find all the animal orbs or unlocking all the weapons in the game. The game even has arenas set throughout the game's map page so you can just get into a random brawl while trying to unlock new characters. Along with some humorous scenes and funny jokes this goes together quite nicely.

Though the game seems to try and go off three main modes, the adventure, an arena and a mini games where you mash the X and Y buttons called All You Can Quaff. Besides the adventure, these seems to try to make these a big deal, making the mini game even available in online and for leader boards. Though this game lasts maybe less than thirty seconds and that's about it, it doesn't interact in the main game at all and comes off as something the creators just stuffed in there for no reason. The arena option also seems like something just randomly thrown in, but has a little more significance. This would be for someone who just wants to play a quick game and kill a bunch of guys. Though it ends quite quickly and doesn't provide anything for a the win so it seems like turning your 360 on and loading up the game would take longer than this mode some times. There's also no way to change the arena mode you have since it's set to the first arena you unlock during the story. So your getting the same thing you have inside the main adventure mode. Some inter-connectivity would have been nice between the three modes with something even as small as getting some EXP points.

The graphics in the game are quite nice as everything seems quite smooth. It follows the same design as Alien Hominid did with it's flashtoon like look. Even at times it feels like this game would be fine as a flash game. The colors though are so vibrant and bold that they look nice on the usually dreary background. With all the different looking weapons, spells and items you can use, you can see a lot was put into this game. Let alone the many different landscapes you'll come across. The games tries to reach many different locations and succeed in replicating them beautifully.

As stated before, there are some bugs in it and one of the main ones I found where in the frame rate. While playing through a level that involved me riding a deer through an abandoned mill while other deer fled along side me. To my surprise I noticed one of the other deer wasn't actually moving in a set motion, more just stuck in one position but moving along side us as if it was flying. The next bug I saw was when fighting a boss, I hit him but for some reason he remained in the air being hurt by some unknown force. I knew this was probably just a random glitch since I played it again and this didn't happen. Among those were some freezing issues that occurred a few times and with all these together, it brings the game down a little. One of the biggest known bugs was that people's data was being erased for no apparent reason, I for one didn't run into this problem but it didn't seem to be only a few cases.

The general value you will get from this game is that it would have been worth the 1200 points you threw down. Being that this was one of the few XBLA games to be priced over the average 800, you would expect that you should be getting your monies worth for it. Castle Crashers would reach that expectation if it weren't for the broken online play it contains. While yes single player is fun and will have you enjoying it and laughing often, you always feel that this would be better if you had some buddies or random strangers to tackle those castles with. So overall I can recommend it, but at the same time I'm very close to not being able to what with all the bugs. I did enjoy the game and haven't run into memory loss problems, but I'm always disappointed that the online didn't hold up.

Overall: 8/10

If your one of the many who didn't play the original Viva Pinata or find that it's just a child's game, you really don't know what your missing. Though now's your chance to see what this whole thing is about with Rare's sequel to the first: Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise.

Viva Pinata is all about taking care of a garden full of Pinata pets with focus on collecting them and making them romance. Like a real garden, you'll also be able to grow many different types of plants and decorate it with various materials and objects. Though the main point is to have specific items in your garden to attract foreign pinatas and get them to move in. In VP2 you are doing manly the same thing. Which, if your just coming from playing the first one; you might find yourself bored now. The biggest problem with this sequel is that it feels more like an expansion pack that a true stand alone game.

Like it's predecessor, your main goal is to gain levels by growing new plants and trees and making new pinatas come and join your garden. With each new level you will find that you can buy more things, get new equipment and sometimes get more garden space. The game works well in dishing out the experience points, rewarding you each time you see a new pinata, each time one visits and lots for making new pinatas residents and then romancing them. The main point of this whole thing is to keep expanding your garden and get newer and more valuable pinatas. The next main thing it wants you to focus on is romancing pinatas, which involves them having a baby. To do this you must meet each pinatas romance requirements before they can get busy. Romance requirements can be anything from eating a seed to eating a pinata.

What was a major flaw in the first game was all the loads screens it had for even tiny things like buying one seed. You have to open the menu, go to the next menu, wait for it to load, go through some dialogue then go through the stores menu, then buy the seed. VP2 fixes this issue a bit buy letting you have a seed buying tool in your first menu, so there's no load screens if your just buying some seeds. What makes it that much better is if your over a plant and go into this tool; it opens up a selection of fertilizers instead of seeds. This tool makes things much faster and your not always being forced to waste time at a million loads screens.

The thing with this game is that your always multitasking four or five things are once. You may have just planted a tree, so you need to keep an eye on it so it doesn't dry out, but at the same time you might be trying to romance two pinatas, but at the same time one of your pinatas is getting eaten. So the game can get quite hectic, quite fast. This thing alone is probably the biggest note to set it back for being thought of as a game for kids. It require some serious thought to how things work and lots of focus on many things at once. The thing that probably makes this game the hardest is the idea of sour pinatas, which try to ruin your garden. Every now and then you'll have to kill one by breaking it open with your shovel, just to find it laid two weeds. If you don't get rid of those weeds fast, your gonna have an infestation on your hands.

One thing for people who don't want any of this hassle is a new mode called Play For Fun; where you just get to do whatever you want with unlimited money and no worry for any sour pinatas coming in. This also makes getting new pinatas easier so it essentially just makes the game loads more easy and stress free. Though you won't be able to get any of the achievements when playing this mode and it takes a lot of the rewards out of it. Playing the main mode can be more fun because your constantly being rewarded for all your efforts, which is a nice thing to have.

Probably the biggest difference from the first game is the ability to leave your garden to go to different regions. Some pinatas will only be in the two outside regions: Pinarctic and Dessert Desert and you must go there to get these pinatas. When you in the region you must bait traps to capture the pinatas, like other pinatas you will need to check to see what kind of bait work for which pinata. After catching a pinata you can bring it to your garden and begin working on meeting its resident requirements. This works as an good idea but you'll find yourself ignoring those areas a lot of the time because there's plenty of pinatas to get in the main area. It also doesn't get new pinatas as much as the main region does. This is probably the biggest reason this game feels more like an expansion.

Another big difference this game has over it's prequel is the inclusion of Pinata Vision. This uses the xbox live vision camera to scan cards in order to get special things in your garden. Any card you find can be held up to the camera and whatever the card if for, will plunk down into your garden. Now this works fine in theory but it's much to easy to just find a bunch of high level pinata cards online and use them in order to boost your level. Which is fine if you want to just breeze your way to the top level, but it takes away most of the gameplay.

This game also supports online play with up to four people. So now you can have co-op gardeners going around helping you out. This is a great addition for sometimes the stress of a huge garden can become over bearing and it's nice to have a friend to cut some of the work off you. It also has the option of limiting your guests controls so that they don't just got around killing all your pinatas. This idea is good overall and can be fun if you have people who you know won't be jerks.

Apart from this game being looked down upon from the 'core gamer' Viva Pinata 2 is a great game and will get you addicted if your new to it. It shouldn't be looked at as a kids game because a lot of small kids probably wouldn't be able to take all the stress that can build up if you get lazy. So it's okay to like this game and still be into Gears of War. Though if your into the more fast paced games out there and don't really like games like Harvest Moon, you probably won;t gravitate towards this game. Don't take me wrong, this game doesn't match Harvest Moon, but it's probably the kind of game that would be closest to this, specifically the farming part.

Overall Viva Pinata is a fun and good experience for all. You'll most likely find that you won't have this game and the people who are into it, very much like it. Though it does feel more like it should have been an addition to the first, or maybe some parts should have been DLC, you can't really get to angry at that fact since this game sells for budget price at $40. If the beautiful graphics don't pull you in, hopefully the cute and fun pinatas will.

Rock Band 2 is the sequel to the highly popularized music rhythm game by Harmonix. The game is clad with fake musical instruments; a guitar, a drum set and a microphone. What Rock Band 2 does isn’t so much a true different take on the first Rock Band, but more just fixes some of the issues the first one had and does so in a surprisingly ‘well worth you money’ way.

Rock Band 2 is a music rhythm game that focuses around making you and your friends an imaginary band. By having fake instruments to be tapped, strums or sang into at certain times, it simulates the experience in a way you would want from fake rocking in your basement. A music rhythm game requires you to hit notes that move across the screen at a certain time. With RB2 you have a note track coming down towards you with colored bars on them. When the bars go in the area at the bottom that matches their color, you have to play that note. Playing that note differs with the instrument. Playing the guitar requires you to hold down the same colored fret button and strum when the note is in place, same goes for the bass. Playing the drums requires you to hit the corresponding color pad when the note is in place, or stepping on the foot pedal accordingly. If your using the microphone, you need to sing the words as they scroll across the screen. You will see lines for the singer and those indicate what pitch you should be at. If the line is high up, sing high and vice versa.

The major difference from the first game to this one is the exclusion of the average single player mode you found in RB1 or the Guitar Hero games. This may seem like something a little crazy but it’s really not because if you’re playing RB, I’m pretty sure you’re playing with friends. The tour mode does a great job giving you stuff to play for a long. It would have been nice to still have the main ‘go through every song’ kind of mode again, because then you can see how well you can play songs on that difficulty. Though it doesn’t harm it that much since when you beat these kinds of modes, you never go back to them, like ever.

Instead of that, this time it’s main focus is on the Band World Tour mode that the first one had. Though the first game had this as a solid multiplayer mode but with some flaws, and the flaws were quite big. Things like having to play multiplayer (or trying to do two instruments at once) made it something you couldn’t play any time you wanted. Now you can play that mode by yourself, which makes sense since there are no other major modes to play alone. It also helps that they brought in the idea to let one character play any instrument you want, so now you don’t need three characters to get all there is out of each instrument. Most importantly they now allow for band world tour to be played online with other people. This is probably one of the best additions to the game for this mode was easily the thing to play in the first game and now being able to play it whenever you want makes it great. And even though you may not be able to talk to the person you’re playing with, it doesn’t feel like you’re missing too much.

Another big addition to RB2 is the idea of band challenges or battle of the bands. In these you get requested to do certain songs in a set list and it’ll rate you on how well you did overall by things like the highest overall score, or the amount of stars you earned. These will be posted up on the leaderboard and by the looks of it, will close and more will be added throughout RB2’s life. Some of these will require an entire band, while some may just be solo or even things like you can play anything as long as there is one vocalist. One of the best things with this is that it shows the overall leaderboard and that it shows your friends leaderboard as a separate section. So you can see which of your friends did better on each individual challenge. Though because of all the leaderboard stuff this game has, it needs to update the servers each time you finish a song/song set which from what I experienced (with a decent connection) took a good ten seconds. This may not sound like much, but when you’re sitting there staring at a loading screen just cause it needs to update scores, it gets old, fast.

The hardware bundled with the special edition of the game is slightly different now too. Though at the time of this game’s launch, you couldn’t pick up the hardware, which always sucks. But if you did have the RB1 controllers, you can use those. The new hardware comes stronger and has sensors in some of the instruments so that you can just hold up like the guitar to the TV and it will calibrate for you. This is a huge advantage now because calibrating is always a hard thing to do and is extremely important in this kind of game. Though when trying to calibrate the RB1 guitar for this game, it never seemed to be able to get it to work. I have no idea why.

Harmonix has always focused quite a bit on downloadable content and just getting your RB library to be as big as possible. This has included with every week they release three new songs to download and every now and then they release a free one. They added the ability to have all the downloadable songs from RB1 to work in RB2 and vice versa. One thing you can do is that if you have the first RB, you can export most of the songs from that game onto your hard drive do you can play them in RB2, and of course these songs will show up during world tour mode put into set lists and what not. Another bonus Harmonix has done is added a code on the back of the manual that will get you twenty free download songs. It tells you to go to their site to input the code in order to get a redeem code to be emailed to you to use in the Xbox Live Marketplace or Playstation Network. As of right now it’s just a message saying thanks for buying the game but having the news of getting twenty free songs is quite great and puts RB2’s songs that come with the game over 100.

The biggest thing with Rock Band has always been the multiplayer aspect. Even once finishing every mode completely, which by the way will take a long, long time; you will still be coming back to this game. With the amount of songs they offer that are rivalled by no other game, you will always find yourself with new things to play. If you don’t have friends around to come over and play, you can always play online with one of the three online modes, or just play them by yourself. Though the game can sometimes seem intimidating to some who aren’t comfortable singing in front of their friends or just in general think they suck at the game. RB2 fixes this by adding a no fail mode where you...can’t fail. This is a great idea, but it still has the crowd bar on the left so you can see how well your doing, which I don’t think was necessary. It will never hit the bottom but it will go down into flashing red, so your track list will flash red. If you’re someone who knows they’ll usually be in there, it can be innerving that it’s always flashing red at you. It would have been a better idea not to have the crowd bar at all so you can just focus on the song and no indicator of failing ever shows itself. After all, if you’re using this mode, you probably don’t really need something telling you you’re doing well, your just there to play and mess around.

Rock Band 2 is the best band rhythm game out there to date and is only rivalled by it’s prequel currently. You can just see that this game was made by people who know what it’s like to go through the real deal here, where over two thirds of the loading screens are information of the band your about to play. Along with subtle notes and how things are generally run in the tour mode, you can feel this game was made properly. Overall, it just feels tight and well put together. You will find yourself having endless hours of fun despite how awful your friend can sing Hello There by Cheap Trick. And with the no fail mode, it’s fun for everyone. You’re definitely getting your monies worth for this game, even if you’re buying all the hardware as well.