Rock Band 2

Publisher: Harmonix Music Systems
Developer: MTV Games
Distributor: EA Games
Genre: Music
Release Date: September 14, 2008
Platforms: Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii

Reviewer: Dan

Leave it to EA Games to go and make a game that is basically a $60 "Roster Update." Fans of Madden should already expect this, but it may come as a surprise to you and your bandmates that Rock Band 2 is just a cheaper version of Downloadable Content.

I'll say right now that there is nothing wrong with the game. In, fact it's quite good. But the problem with Rock Band 2 is that it's so similar to the first Rock Band that it just left me rather underwhelmed. The leap from a game like Guitar Hero to Rock Band probably jaded me a bit, so maybe I was expecting too much. To save time and effort, I'll refer you to Eric's Review of the first Rock Band. I will, however, go over some of the changes they've made.

One of the first things you'll notice when you start playing is the changes to the single player tour mode. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but the single player tour mode is now just like the multiplayer tour mode from the first game. I have a sort of love-hate thing going on with it. I like the fact that it's a lot more interesting to grind through all of the songs to unlock them all, but for some reason, I really have a hard time knowing what my progress is. Yes, they do keep track of how many stars you've obtained and how many fans you have, but it really isn't clear about what songs you've unlocked (which is the only reason I go through the tour mode).

I also have to ask myself if I really even want to unlock all of the "fantastic" songs (comments section is below). Note to EA, Activision, and Konami: STOP PUTTING BEASTIE BOYS SONGS IN YOUR MUSIC GAMES! They're a great band, but I'd rather go on Blood Moor runs to level up in Diablo II than play a Beastie Boys song in any of these games, unless we're talking about the first ever Grindcore song, Riot Fight.

There is, however, a few things that were done right with Rock Band 2. For one, all of the songs you've downloaded for the first one are all compatible with Rock Band 2. There is also apparently a feature/update that allows you to export all but 2 (licensing issues) of the songs on the original Rock Band to Rock Band 2, which is nice if you don't feel like switching discs (I'm thinking Rock Band will suddenly become very cheap to buy used). There is also a promise to have over 500 songs available for the game by the holiday season. I'm thinking they're including all of the songs currently available on both games and for download, but that is still over 250 songs to be released during the next 3 months.

In case you're wondering why you can only find the 360 version in stores (at the time of this writing, anyway), it's because the 360 got a month to be exclusive. PS3 owners can at least take comfort in the fact that if they decide to pick up the bundled version released in October the drums, guitar, and microphone will be 100% compatible with Guitar Hero: World Tour. Harmonix and Activision finally worked out their differences (at the rather strong urging of Sony) and we now have cross-compatibility with both games, meaning Rock Band guitars now work on Guitar Hero.

Final Verdict

I'm fairly certain I bought Rock Band 2 because it's the next Rock Band. While it isn't a bad game, it feels like it was just a game update for Rock Band 1 that came with a whole bunch of songs (that I'm not sure I even like). There really haven't been enough features added to this one to justify a purchase right away. If you really want to play all the fancy new songs, I suggest you at least try to find a used copy somewhere. If I never knew the first Rock Band existed, I'd give Rock Band 2 a 9 out of 10 (they still don't have hammer-ons and pull-offs obvious enough). But because I do know that it exists, I'm going to give the upgrades a 6 out of 10 because there really aren't enough of them to justify the price tag (at least Madden this year is freakin' awesome).