Customer Reviews

Rock Band 2

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The prime difference between what the folks at Harmonix and the people at Neversoft/RedOctane are doing with their perspective games comes down to very important semantics. Neversoft's Guitar Hero series is a franchise. Harmonix's Rock Band is a platform. It's a huge distinction and the truth is that Rock Band's method benefits the consumers a lot more.

So when you're purchasing Rock Band 2, you'll getting a lot more value than you can imagine. Sure there's the 84 song (all master cuts) list and the 20 additional free bonus songs coming really soon, but what's important to note is the promise that Harmonix is keeping with: Rock Band is a platform, meaning every song under the Rock Band umbrella (with a few unfortunate nixes) will work with their games. So not only do all the songs you've been downloading for a year work, but also all but three songs in Rock Band 1 can be ripped to your hard drive (for a nominal $5 for licensing fees). This is a phenomenal value that values the customer more than paying for individual "expansion" packs that have no connectivity to one another. Platform versus franchise.

Alright, so there's a huge value here. But once you dig into the actual game, there's some good and some blah. Harmonix revamped the touring mode so that, regardless of playing single or multi, you have one World Tour. Previously, songs unlocked in solo play would show up in the multiplayer; here, though, regardless of whether you're playing by yourself or with friends, you're unlocking songs as you travel throughout the world. It's a lot more fun and emphasizes group play.

One of the issues I've run into is that the people I play Rock Band with aren't the best of players. We do it for fun and we'd invariably run into a brick wall in the tour where they'd have to move up to the next difficulty and couldn't. So far, we haven't run into that situation and have gotten a lot more out of touring that we used to. I hope this continues as this is the most exciting and fun aspect of the game.

Other game types have been included, as well. Your band can do the "Tour Challenge," which basically throws various set lists at you to get through. These set lists can be songs from a specific band or songs difficult on a certain instrument or songs of a certain theme, etc. A second game type is "Battle of the Bands" and puts your band against another band virtually, with a leaderboard to track your progress.

If you're looking for more character customization options, you'll probably be disappointed. There's a few more new hair types and a couple more faces, but for the most part it feels like the first Rock Band. This is a common thread throughout Rock Band 2: it feels a lot like the first Rock Band. It's more of a slow evolution. By far the best changes are ones that should have been in place the first time around, namely the fact you don't need a band leader and that you can have one character play any of the instruments. This is probably my favorite part of the new game (minus the songs).

But the songs are the real showcase. There's a lot of diversity here with a lot of new bands, some oldies and everything in between. But most of the songs are a ton of fun to play, which is the most important part. If you have Rock Band, this is a no brainer as the gameplay modes are more fun and you're not losing songs. If you're new, this is a terrific place to start. Many many hours have been logged so far and I can't wait for more.

So if you've even heard the words "video" and "game" put together outside of Fox News' patented Chicken Little hysteria over violence and such, you're well aware of just what Rock Band and Guitar Hero are all about. Good. That'll make this easy. "Rock Band 2" Takes every single little thing every living breathing gaming entity on the planet loved about the first one and added every little thing that was lacking and then some. Seriously, some may call this a full-priced expansion pack, but for what you're getting here you'd be an idiot not to buy this game if you already have the original pack. And if you missed out then there is no reason not to start here with the Special Edition's new and improved peripherals. I called the battle between RB and GH a draw before since GH had such a cooler over-the-top style, better translation of music-to-game and better songs to boot. No more. Rock band is the top of the music game hill right now and Guitar Hero World Tour is going to have to rock some serious socks off if it hopes to surpass this one.

First off, the most important part of the game: the music. Like Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam? Sure you do. How about Bob Dylan, Blondie, and The Go-Go's? Darn skippy. Not hard enough? How about freakin' Testament, Mastodon, Megadeth, and System of a Down? My head is banging just thinking about it. Not legendary enough? The Who, Bad Company, Journey, AC/DC, and Fleetwood Mac do anything for you? Heard it all before? Well then check out the brand new never before heard new Guns n Roses song. Favorite band still not here, you say? Lacuna Coil, Sonic Youth, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and two different D's ( Social AND Tenacious) wish to make the pain go away. That's just a few of the EIGHTY FOUR master recordings you will jam out to. Not enough? How about a free code to download TWENTY MORE FOR FREE when they become available? And endless downloadable content including entire albums from Megadeth, Judas Priest, Boston, and an ever-growing list of many mucho more is an even bigger clincher. Plus, for a $5 fee you can import your entire Rock Band 1 library. If you love any sort of rock music, you will love this game.

Okay, the new additions. There is no reinventing of the wheel here, but the road is much smoother. The useless solo mode has been eliminated and instead solo play is integrated into the awesomely awesome world tour mode. I have not the time or the Rock Band-playing friends with too much time on their hands to embark on a lengthy multiplayer campaign so this is a dream come true. The best aspects of the original was saved for the multiplayer. That's no longer the case. You can also choose to play bass when going solo now so three cheers for that. The basslines are translated much better than the guitar parts anyhow. This time around you aren't tied down to any instrument at all going it solo; you can switch freely among them as you progress through the game. You can pass on the songs you don't like (or that kick your rear end) whereas in the original's solo mode you'd have to slog through every single song. Even the Flyleaf and Jet ones. Torturous!

Using the barely upgraded create-a-rocker feature I recreated my original RB band Midget Apartheid's lineup to a T and now I can play with all of my custom thrashers onstage at once when playing alone instead of having a bunch of lame stock-rockers filling out the ranks. I love this. Sadly, my band name was deemed "not classy" by the fascists at MTV Games and I'm barred from online play until I change it. I'm not changing it. It rules. Anywho, the online component is brilliantly integrated into the tour mode with optional battles and challenges where you can compete against other online bands that pop up as you travel. "Sage Tellah and the Spoony Bard Band" is sounding like a cool band name at this point (if you get that reference, you are now my friend). It's not selling out or caving in if I pretend it was my idea, right? I wanna try this new component out!

This is the simply the coolest music game ever put together from top to bottom. The only problem that remains is that a few of the songs are duds ("So Whatcha Want" is awful on guitar) and there are still times when you don't feel like you're controlling the music so much as you're just pressing combinations of buttons because the game says so. Guitar hero always makes you feel like you rule the guitar track. At times in Rock Band you are obviously playing a drum or bass part on the guitar and hearing something you aren't playing and vice-versa. There were also drum parts where all I heard was the bass drum and yet they still had me flailing away. This throws me off to no end because I listen to the music intensely and take rhythmic cues from it. It pulls me right out of the game when I'm hearing one thing and playing something else entirely. I can forgive this because it isn;t always flagrant and everything else is so heavenly. But no excuses, Harmonix. Fix this and you've got a contender the best game of any genre ever. Maybe it already is.

Bon Scott was a prophet. This I know to be true. He hath spake the blessed verse that hath come to be many a decade ago when he bequeathed unto us these words that best describe the experience that is Rock Band 2.

"Let there be sound", there was sound
"Let there be light", there was light
"Let there be drums", there was drums
"Let there be guitar", there was guitar
"Let there be rock"

And so on this day it has come to pass that (ramma lamma lamma lamma) Rock Band 2 is king. It's got the drums, it's got the singing, it's got the guitar/bass, it's got the songs, it's got more songs if you don't like those songs, and it's got a much better interface than any of it's predecessors. You like music? Got an up-to-date video game system? Beg, borrow, steal, or sell your family members' organs if you have to; but buy this game.

vs. Rock Band 1:
Rock Band 2 doesn't add too many features, but the new challenges and especially the drum trainer are great. In the first Rock Band game I constantly ran into patterns on songs I was completely unfamiliar with. I could either fail the song over and over, or hit practice mode. But either way, I'd likely be ill-prepared for the next song. The drum trainer lets you practice pure rudiments, basics that many patterns in the songs are built from. Plus, you get to feel like you are actually learning how to play an instrument (and unlike guitar, you are).
However, my favorite feature is the new World Tour mode, despite having only minor changes from Rock Band 1. Now you can use any members for a band at any time, which actually was the reason my wife stopped playing and I just played on the solo mode (which is now gone unfortuantely). Aside from the missing solo mode, a minor difference (and not so practical now that I have a couple hundred songs), Rock Band 2 really does a great job of upgrading and adding new features.

Songs:
The library of songs added in Rock Band 2 is great. I think just about anybody could find 20 songs on the list they like, probably many more. The list is pretty ecclectic, so I doubt anybody will be a fan of each and every song, but it's definitely a solid list with all master recordings and mainly big names. Of course the sheer volume, 104 songs (including those yet to be released) plus all the downloadable songs you can buy and those in Rock Band 1 are the biggest draw.

Overall:
Rock Band 2 doesn't mess with what Rock Band 1 did right and simply refines the experience and beefs up the content. Harmonix did a great job with this game and I only wish that the bundle had come out as early, as the prices for everything individually is much higher, (not that I need a new mic). If you don't have any fake guitars or drum sets cluttering up your TV area, well, maybe you should hold out for the bundle and save some $$$. Or who knows, maybe the Guitar Hero World Tour instruments will be superior anyway? But if you do have the Rock Band 1 bundle, or even an old guitar hero guitar, Rock Band 2 is a must have.

RB2 doesn't stray too far from the formula that made RB1 so fun and successful. So for the sake of brevity I'm only going to focus on what has been changed.

There are of course many new songs which keeps this game fresh, that is easily the most obvious change from RB1 to RB2. Besides that some of the gameplay modes have been tweaked and some new elements added.

World tour mode can now be played any way you like it. You can play solo, local with buddies, or on Live. To make this new freedom functional the band leader restriction has been removed, so you can play with whoever is around with whichever band you like. No need to go creating new bands when dongman420[this is a fake name ... I hope] isn't available for a gaming session. The inclusion of online world tour is easily the biggest draw, and it's one of those features that really makes you wonder how you ever lived without it in RB1. Too much fun.

There is also a battle of the bands mode, which is exactly what it sounds like [band vs. band], and something called tour challenges. Tour challenges generate random setlists from your library of "hard" songs, although they may not actually be all that tough. The setlists are culled from all of your content, including downloaded songs and imported RB1 tracks, which is a nice treat. It's a neat little feature that keeps gameplay fresh.

As a side note the track select screen is nearly identical to RB1's store screen, which is cool because you can see at a glance the difficulty of song per instrument. I also like that you get album info on each track in the form of a little cover art icon as well as the publishing year. A small change but a really nice touch.

The drum trainer is, for me, the coolest new feature aside from online world tour. I'm an RB drummer and I've sort of hit a wall with my drum skill. The trainer lets you select from songs, beats that are rated in difficulty, and even a bunch of drum fills to help your fills not suck. I've been playing on expert since RB1 launched, but since I've been playing the trainer my scores have become even higher. A great inclusion if you dig the drums.

All the other changes are pretty much cosmetic. The note and multiplier graphics are slightly different, and there are new band animations, background effects, and over drive effects. It's a good looking game but not drastically different from RB1.

Taken as a sequel RB2 does everything right, it takes the gameplay that made RB1 addicting and ratchets it up a few notches. (I will avoid the spinal tap pun ... you're welcome) Harmonix hasn't reinvented the wheel with this installment in the series, but really why would they? They've taken an "if it ain't broke don't fix it attitude" towards RB, and made a ton of little improvements that make the RB2 experience more seamless and more fun. If you loved the first one you'll love this one ... pick it up.

If you liked Guitar Hero or the original Rock Band, then this game is a must buy. And if you have never tried it, you owe it to yourself to unleash your inner rock star.

Mainly this game offers a ton of new music. It comes with 85 songs on the disc and a code to download 20 more. Plus for about $5 you can copy all the songs from Rock Band 1 over to play! They have plans to offer 500 songs for this game by the end of 2008. And the cost for downloading new songs is way cheaper than Guitar Hero.

It's a fun game to play alone, but it is a really fun game to play with friends or at parties. They have also added a no fail mode so you can get through songs no matter how bad one person might be!

Yes - it is worth the upgrade. It's not bad value for 104 songs alone, never mind that the game itself is better in every area.

So what is moved over from Rock Band 1?

Songs and Downloads

Make sure your xbox is internet connected, start up Rock Band 1 and accept the update. A new menu option lets you export all the songs to the hard disk. It doesn't take too long (less than 30 mins), but does chew up a lot of space. Go into your options menu and note your current calibration settings. Now start Rock Band 2...

"Hello there, ladies and gentlemen.
Hello there, ladies and gents, are you ready to rock?
Are you ready or not?"

That's all that gets moved unfortunately... nothing else. First run is a little annoying because of that. It will prompt you for the save location for the song cache, band data, calibration data, etc. etc. and then you have to recreate all your characters, bands and recalibrate. Audio Visual calibration is new, looks prettier, but didn't give me a great result - so I manually set the values I used in Rock Band 1. Worked like a charm. The manual says the new Rock Band 2 Fender guitar has an "auto calibration" feature which sounds cool. Oddly enough all the audio previews in the marketplace don't move over.


Do Rock Band guitars, drums and mic work?

Yes. I tried the wired and wireless Rock Band Fender guitars, Guitar Hero III wireless Les Paul, drums and mic. All worked with only one glitch - the 4-way switch on the guitar is upside-down on menus. Strum down goes down a menu. 4-way switch down goes "up". Strange.

What stays the same?

The menu structure and overall "feel" of the game is the same. The world tour looks very similar, e.g. same venues, same cities, same tasks like "play to get a Van". Izzy from Death of the Cool has a new VCR, but delivers the same Freakin' Hard guitar tutorial.

What's new and worth having?

** Song selection. Shows difficulty for each instrument just like in the online marketplace. Much better than before.

** Solo world tour. Solo career mode is gone, but you can play the world tour on your own... yup you can finally do a Bass tour!

** Band Challenges. Just themed "gigs" really, but Nice. This is the way of unlocking songs. I was pleasantly surprised to see it give extra challenges based on your downloads. For example I got an Oasis challenge.

** Drum Trainer. A completely new feature. Lets you pick your beat pattern, fills and speed and play along. Really nice.


Anything frustrating?

Of course if you've been playing RB1, it's annoying to have to start again and unlock all the songs. I haven't minded too much. It forced me to start on Hard and progressively learn the songs - that's been more fun than I expected.

~~~ It's great. It's what you expected. Just get it. ~~~

Rock Band 2 easily follows closely to it's predecessor. Much like the first game the menus and venues are relatively the same. Given some new songs, and some slightly enhanced visuals and modes, one wont have a hard time switching over.

Infact RB2 is a pinch easier on the timing window for hammer ons and pull offs. If this turns one away the difficulty has been raised to offer more a challenge, songs like Judas Preist's "Painkiller" and Metallica's "Battery" are quite the uproar. Luckily their still is a handfull of easy songs, and of slight difficulty.

RB2 versatile rocking track list feels a little blue. Many awesome songs, but so many filler alt rock bands that don't really live up to a Rock Band feeling swarm the game. It's not even so much the songs are bad, they just really don't fit the experience all too well. Atleast one has the option to transfer all RB1 songs to their HDD for use in RB2. As good as a boat load of new tracks smell it has a slightly offending odor to it. One must pay a light fee, and a few tracks aren't available. This is due to a licensing issue.

Rock out at a party with this stellar title, play at home and crank the speakers, download some tracks and invest some time in good qaulity music. Rock Band 2 is finally here.

This version lacks the 'gear' to immersivley play, but one should already of had access previously if purchasing this variant. Inside the booklet of the game contains a code which allows access to 20 free songs from the Rock Band site, as of now the songs have still yet to appear. Rock Band 2
features a strong online community and an even strong dowloadable content (DLC) basis. Every Tuesday songs are released, upon paying for them you can have access to entire albums! Harmonix has also allowed for single players to play World Tour mode, this is much like the multiplayr aspect of the previous game. 'Touring' locations all over the world unlocking new songs and venues as one progresses, you can even join up with your band to continue.

Overall Rock Band 2 is great, only main issue is unlocking every song is a bit tedious. The equalizers on certain songs sound poorly mixed.

Okay, I never played the original "Guitar Hero" that started this whole guitar peripheral band game thing. But I played the second at friends' houses and borrowed it once. Thought it was pretty great and lots of fun. But the first I owned was Rock Band with Guitar Hero 3. And Rock Band really did it for me. The blaring colors of Guitar Hero were replaced by mellower tones that focused more on the music. And rather than generic rockers you could make your own guy, which I had fun with. What finally got me to quit playing it so much was... I started to run out of songs. I still had some favorites I'd play: Welcome Home, Reptilia, The Hand That Feeds, Afterlife (downloaded), Black Hole Sun. But other than that there wasn't much left to do. Other than go through on the drums (boring) or five-star everything on Expert (not interested).

And then here's Rock Band 2. Basically it's the same thing, but without any of the problems from the first one. There's new songs and quite a lot of them. You can make all the characters in your band and play through tour mode with a single player. Some album information is even given when selecting songs from the list. And it's still the same great fake guitar playing I loved.

But what really clinched Rock Band for me (and the Guitar Hero games as well) was that it opened up to me so much music... So many artists that I'd heard of or had heard a few seconds' worth of songs from, but ones I never could give a chance. A lot of good music is represented here, forcing me to expand my horizons and really get into some stuff I should have liked already.

To sum it up, if you liked the original Rock Band or any of the Guitar Hero games, this is a given. If you're new to the franchises, this is a fine place to start.

(But you may want to use a Guitar Hero controller if possible. The puff of the strummer on the Rock Band model doesn't have a very good return spring, so you kind of have to hammer it on those faster songs. The Guitar Hero controller has a more noticeable click and a fast response so I prefer it. Some people may think differently, however.)

After several months of playing Rock Band 2 and comparing it with Guitar Hero 3, we're ready to provide our review of how Rock Band 2 stacks up!

First, we have been playing all the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games since they first game out. We are musicians and have a sense for how musical systems should work. We spent the months to fully evaluate Rock Band 2 against Guitar Hero 3 and to see how both held up for long term play. We also played both games both with other experience and novice players.

Despite my appreciation for Guitar Hero, I find Rock Band 2 to be head and shoulders better for many reasons. First, simply in terms of playability, it is much easier both for newcomers to pick up and for experienced gamers to easily use. New players who have trouble can be "saved" by their bandmates and the song can keep going. When you're all experienced and playing on harder levels, the wonderful screen layout means you can easily keep an eye on how the group is doing and help each other out.

I enjoy the way you progress through the different cities, unlocking physical gig locations, mixing up new songs, gaining helpers and items.

The character customization, of course, is awesome. I like the detail I can put on my avatar and smile every time I launch back into the game and bring her up.

The song list is great and I really enjoy that the songs I previously purchased for Rock Band 1 are right there, playable and waiting for me.

I love how the band bus in the background goes by with my name on its side, the tiny details in all of the gig locations, the way the characters interact with each other.

It all comes down to great gameplay, though. The game is simply SO much fun to play. I'll go back and forth between this and our other games, and while Guitar Hero can get frustrating, Rock Band 2 is always a joy. I'll play long past when my fingers are sore. It's that addictive.

I really don't have any complaints at all about this game. As long as I can keep downloading new songs, and buy the solid drum kit so that I have the best drum experience I can with it, I am completely happy.

Highly recommended!

I love music, and a wide variety at that. I was very impressed the first installment of the Rock Band franchise. It took everything Guitar Hero laid down as a blue-print and built one of the best, most accessable games ever to hit a console.

One of the best perks about this game: If you own the first Rock Band you can rip the tracks to your hard drive and play them in RB2 doubling your tracks instantly. No disc swapping involved. What a stellar idea! I hated swapping with GH series.

The track list is quite impressive. A nice variety that will satisfy a lot of music lovers. That track list expands nearly every week via Xbox Live with downloadable content. All of the DLC from the first RB works with RB2, no money "wasted" like the GH series. You're getting more than your money's worth before even starting the game up!

The gameplay is addictive and fun. You never really feel forced to complete a song. They are all fun to play and offer a perfect balance between fun-to-play and challenging at the hard and expert levels.

Character customization is much imporved from the first! My fiance play this game together and had an absolute blast creating our characters and customizing our guitars. You can truly get in depth with the customization and should set some time aside to do so.

Xbox Live is where the game really shines. I've already mentioned the huge amount of DLC for the game. The multiplayer is sooo much fun. I live in an apartment and cannot justify buying the drum kit and mic, my neighbors would not appreciate that one bit so I did not purchase them. With XBL you do get to play with a full band. It's quite the expierience just beating the #@#% out of a song with some buddies over XBL and checking your score against everyone else. You can actually play through the entire game on XBL with song completions, points, etc counting for everyone. A true co-op mode!

There is a downside - the guitar itself. The hardware feels flimsy. I'd recomend buying a Guitar Hero 2 Explorer guitar for the game. It feels more responsive. I'm sure you can snag one here on Amazon :)

I can't rave enough about what a fun and worthwhile investment this game, this franchise has been. There are few games that I can enjoy with my fiance and friends at the same time.

For a more detailed review check out IGN's reivew (gaming website) to get a better idea about what you're getting.