Rock Band 2 Review

By Ned Jordan

After spending some time playing Rock Band 2, I feel that what I've been playing is really Rock Band 1.1. Harmonix has addressed many of the little annoyances in Rock Band, but overall the game experience is very similar in Rock Band 2. Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that "if it ain't broke, then don't fix it". Rock Band 2 is a great game because Rock Band is a great game, not because it's something utterly new that you haven't played before.

I'm sure that there are some of you who are interested in Rock Band 2 that have never played the original game, but rather than cover the gameplay basics in this review, I am going to refer you to the Rock Band review and focus this review on the changes in Rock Band 2. There is an advantage to owning both games in that you can export the songs from the original game for use in Rock Band 2, which will expand Rock Band 2's song list by 55 tracks. Be aware though that this will take up about a gig and a half of your hard disk space and that the charitable music industry is kind enough to only charge you $5 to transfer the license for your songs from Rock Band to Rock Band 2. No wonder everyone loves music company execs. You'll have to export the entire Rock Band track list in one full swoop, but you can go back later to delete individual tracks from your hard disk (bye bye Beastie Boys). Rock Band 2 comes with a larger track list at 80 games, and also includes a code that will allow you to download an additional 20 tracks in the future (at the time of the writing, the tracks and their availability date have not been announced). To this total you can add the hundreds of downloadable tracks available for purchase online and you've got enough music to keep you busy for a very long time. The 80 tracks on the Rock Band 2 disc include some great songs and it's good to see the inclusion of some lesser known bands. Of course, depending on your musical tastes, there are sure to be some tracks you'll never want to play, though. There are also some odd song selections, if you're going to include Devo wouldn't you think you'd want to select Whip It over Uncontrollable Urge?

So what else is different in Rock Band 2 aside from the track list? Probably the biggest change is in how the career mode works. The single player career mode has been eliminated. Rock Band 2 is focused on band careers rather than player careers. You can create a band that you only play alone with and one for use with friends, or simply use one band that you use for both solo and multiplayer play. You no longer need to create a different character for each instrument. Your character can freely switch between instruments in a band as well as join different bands at any time. You can even join friends' bands online or invite them in to your band.

The basics of World Tour remain the same as in Rock Band - you start out playing small clubs and earn stars to open up new cities, larger venues, and unlock more songs to play. You can now hire promotional staff, but their affect on the game isn't really noticeable, so you can just hire the best one available and forget about it until someone new and better is unlocked. Career mode now includes a separate challenge mode outside of the World Tour. This essentially consists of a series of pre-set song lists for you to play and then compare your score against the leaderboards for the challenge. Don't expect to find yourself ranked too highly, though, unless you've got a band of expert level players banging out 100 percents with regularity. If you are among this elite group, you'll also appreciate the Battle of the Bands mode which lets you take on another band head to head in a dual to score the most points.

There are a few other changes that have been made to the game, such as an improved music browser that rates the difficulty level for each instrument in a song in addition to rating the overall song difficulty. Probably the best of these changes is the addition of a ‘no fail' option. This is a godsend for casual players because you won't have to worry about one newbie player causing the band to fail one song after another. This eliminates a lot of aggravation and frustration, and turns Rock Band 2 into a true party game that everyone can enjoy.

There are a few Rock Band issues that remain unchanged in 2. The career mode is still somewhat bland and could use a little spicing up with cutscenes and the like. Also, some of the background animations are too over-the-top and detract from the gameplay. It can be tough to concentrate on your notes when the background starts spinning and pulsating with psychedelic color (doubly so when one of your band mates starts getting woozy and begins missing her notes). The biggest outstanding issue though, is in the way the difficulty levels are structured – there is too big a gap between ‘medium' and ‘hard'. To many players, the medium setting can be boring, with minimal use of chords and a feeling of disconnect with the music you're playing. There just aren't enough notes at this setting. Move to hard and you get faster moving notes, the addition of the fifth fret button, and a marked increase in the total number of notes to play. Players bored with medium may find themselves overwhelmed by the nard setting on many songs. There needs to be a happy median here.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 94%. Rock Band was just the opening act. Rock Band 2 is the real headliner.