microphone |

Publisher: MTV Games, EA

Developer: Harmonix

Release Date: 9/14/2008

Available On

Rock Band stole the show from Guitar Hero as the best rhythm game and broke the boundaries with the drum peripheral and the excellent multiplayer to really make you feel like you’re in a band. I’m not going to explain how Rock Band is played since most people have already played it, so I’m mainly going to focus on improvements and updates.

Well, everything here that you loved about the first game is still here, but improved. I’m going to start with the hardware, which is actually much better than the original, and the most noticeable are the drums. The first game’s drums were poorly designed, with pieces constantly coming apart and a lot of plastic parts. Rock Band 2’s drums have a metal cover on top of the kick pedal; it’s bigger; the drums are quieter thanks to the pads being a softer material than just rubber; the base of the drums actually stays together since there is a whole locking mechanism on them, so moving your set won’t make the base come apart. Other than that, everything on the drums is the same; there are, however, three extra-colored plugs for the cymbal attachments (which are very poorly designed and not recommended), along with the drumsticks being a couple of inches longer. The best part about the drums is that they are wireless, and the batteries last forever. With three AA batteries, I only changed them once in a five-month period, and I played a lot.

On the guitar, it is also now wireless, with a wood-type texture on the next (instead of that ugly plastic), and the buttons are a little further apart so you can feel which button you’re hitting. For some reason, the bottom buttons are still the same, and I still find them useless. The microphone is a little bit lighter, but otherwise, I found no difference between this and the original. While all the hardware is well designed, it’s also more solid, stable, and responsive.

On to the game now. When you start the game, you’ll notice a nicer menu, more modes, and a longer World Tour. The first mode you’ll want to try is the training mode (if you haven’t played Rock Band before), but there is also the new drum trainer mode. You can work on your rhythm or just hit along to your own songs via the Xbox Guide, which I found fun and great. I know a lot of people tap things to their favorite songs, so now you really can while choosing several different drum set sound schemes. When you pop into the World Tour, you’ll notice there’s a venue in almost every city in the world, it seems. I bought this game in February, and it’s now June, and I still haven’t finished the World Tour (and I play several setlists every day).

While the fan, setlist, and star systems are still intact with a new manager element added, You can hire new managers that gain you extra fans, cash, or something along those lines. While there are 25–30 cities in the game, there are at least 2-3 songs plus 3-5 setlists in each city. By the time I got around to unlocking the hidden cities (including the endless setlist, which is an 84-song marathon), I had thirty million fans and over 2,500 stars. Yes, that is a lot of playing, and the World Tour is actually almost impossible to beat. The best part about Rock Band is the multiplayer, and Rock Band 2 adds some greatness to it with a few new modes.

There is now the long-awaited Band World Tour, so you can take your whole band through the World Tour and complete it that way. While the other modes are still here (Tug of War, Band Duel, Co-Op), nothing else has changed. There are some other cool modes, such as “Never Fail” and “Break Neck Speed.” These are cool modifiers for people who are really bored. On to customization: there are more items, including the new Thrifty section, but everything else is the same. The graphics are exactly the same, and customizing hasn’t changed. You can create a band logo, but it’s not any deeper than you’re familiar with. Now my favorite feature about the game is that you can import songs from Rock Band 1 into the game (for a $5 fee, of course), but this is well worth it.

When you’re done with that, head to the store, which has 500+ songs available to download in every genre imaginable. After you get bored with the songs on the disc, buy some songs! Rock Band 2 is such a great rhythm game; it’s solid, smooth, fun, heavy with songs, and has lots of quality.