Review

Rock Band 2

The house lights are down. The crowd is restless. The purple-haired bassist in the leopard print bikini is tuning her bass. The vocalist with the yellow goggles and the blue peacock hair is warming up the audience. The drummer lays into the bass pedal. It’s time.

Hello, London! Are you ready to rock?

Harmonix reopened the music game scene in 2005 when they developed Guitar Hero, allowing the lowliest of rock scrubs to feel the excitement of hitting the stage and playing a variety of well-known rock anthems. In 2006, MTV Games bought up Harmonix, shaking the foundations of the Guitar Hero house, and in 2007 Harmonix redefined the genre again with Rock Band.

Rock Band 2, as the name implies, is everything the first Rock Band was and more. It continues the gameplay set up in the first game; each player picks an instrument and plays in tune with a particular song, hitting scrolling notes and earning a score based on their difficulty and performance. Where Rock Band 2 expands on this is not in the big picture, but in the details.

Initially included on the disc are 84 songs (all master recordings), ranging from Pearl Jam’s “Alive” to Disturbed’s “Down With the Sickness” to Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” to AC/DC’s “Let There Be Rock”. The selection is broader than that of the first game, spanning a larger period of time and covering more genres. Additionally, packaged in with the disc is a code for another 20 downloadable songs (sorry, secondhand sales, you’re out of luck here). Finally, all of the songs from the first Rock Band disc can be transferred for a 400 MS Point licensing fee.

Along with the update in soundtrack come a few improvements to the various game modes. The previous solo mode, which followed the old Guitar Hero model of throwing out a few songs at time, is gone. In its place is the former band campaign, retooled to allow for any number of players at any time. The band, which no longer has a band leader that must play every time, travels the globe, performing pre-arranged and custom-made setlists to earn fans and score stars. New to this mode is the addition of staff members, who add bonuses like opening new venues, increasing the number of fans won, or earning more money.

Yet another new feature is the appearance of challenges, which are added by updates from Harmonix. These challenges follow a particular theme, such as difficult guitar songs, songs by a particular band, or songs from a particular city, and the top scoring players and their bands are displayed on a scoreboard on the world map. The only downside, and it’s a minor one, is that some of the challenges require a particular band setup, ranging from needing a guitar player to needing a full band.

Possibly the most welcome additions are the new modes outside of the tours. The “No Fail” mode prevent any player from failing a song if they miss too many notes, meaning that even the least rhythmic deadbeat can join in with the true rock gods. The Training modes have been streamlined as well; the Drum Trainer includes a Beat Trainer for the standard beats, a Fill Trainer for the long fills that activate the drum’s Overdrive, and a Freestyle mode that allows for importing MP3s from the 360’s hard drive.

The character creator has been updated as well. All of the previous clothing pieces and accessories from the first game have been brought back along with a large selection of new pieces. There is also a new art maker that allows for the creation of new designs and logos by combining various clip art elements. Unlike the first game, a character is not restricted to a particular instrument and thus can be shuffled around for different songs.

No Rock Band review can ignore the Guitar Hero elephant in the living room, and Rock Band 2 outclasses many of Guitar Hero World Tour’s features. World Tour continues the nightmarish character models of Guitar Hero III, still with the same stilted animations and dead expressions; Rock Band 2 continues with its stylized, realistic visuals. World Tour’s guitar sections are too easy (the Guitar Hero version of “Living on a Prayer” is the same as the Rock Band version with 20% of the notes removed), while its drum sections are too complicated, partially due to the placement of the cymbals.

Rock Band 2 takes everything that worked in the first Rock Band and doubles it. Between its absolutely enormous soundtrack, its streamlined gameplay modes, and its quality-of-life tweaks, this is as close to a perfect music game as it is possible to get.