For Those About to Rock...
By hexogen 4 Comments
If the original Rock Band laid the foundation for the full band rhythm game, then Rock Band 2 has perfected the experience. It's apparent from the moment you start playing the game that most of Rock Band's problems have been fixed.
First off is that navigating the list of songs is now much easier. Rock Band will have over 500 songs available to play by Holiday 2008, so it's clear that the old way of sorting songs just doesn't cut it anymore. Now songs have an icon that shows whether they're from Rock Band 1, Rock Band 2, or DLC, and there are a variety of sorting options for the songs. Most of the sorting options were in Rock Band 1, but the big difference this time is you can hold down a certain button to skip straight to a certain letter, difficulty level, etc. No more mashing the down button for 30 seconds trying to find the song you want.
Getting a bunch of players into a single band has also been simplified. One character can now play all the instruments (at first I was kind of pissed to find this out--I had named my character 'David D', standing for 'David Drums', only to find out later that he could play all instruments). You also now have to press start to go forward and go through a confirmation screen to back out of the player selecting process. This means no more accidentally going forward or back because someone was jamming out on the drums or guitar while setting up a band.
Once you get to the next screen (in tour mode), you can select three different gameplay modes for you and your friends to play. The first is 'World Tour.' It is extremely similar to the Rock Band 1 band world tour, the only notable addition that I've noticed being the ability to hire staff members.
The second mode is 'Tour Challenge'. The Tour Challenges replace the linear tour mode from the original Rock Band, and replaces it with a bunch of different challenges for your band to complete. Some have certain requirements. For example, the guitar and drum challenges require a guitarist and drummer in your band, respectively. Some challenges require that you have at least 2 players in your band. The game will even take your downloadable content and Rock Band 1 tracks, if applicable, and make artist, album, and Rock Band 1 challenges out of them. The Tour Challenges stand as the fastest way to unlock songs, and are a whole lot of fun.
The third mode is 'Battle of the Bands'. In this mode your band compete in a series of constantly changing challenges that Harmonix makes against all other bands who do that challenge. Sometimes you'll be competing for score, sometimes you may be competing for number of stars. Sometimes you may even be competing for the highest note streak. The battle of the bands challenges also have certain requirements. For example, they might have to be played with only one player, or on a certain difficulty level, or with no fail mode turned on. It's an interesting mode that gives the game a lot of life since it can never be beaten.
In the rest of your practice space you have the rock shop, which has pretty much everything from Rock Band 1 plus a few new things. It's a shame there isn't more new content for it.
Like I said earlier, this is pretty much Rock Band perfected. If you were thinking about getting Rock Band before, now is the time. When the bundle comes out, pick it up, rent a copy of Rock Band 1 and pay the $5 to have all those songs transferred. It's like getting two games in one. You'll enjoy it. I certainly am.