Rock Band 2 (Xbox 360)

...timing, was. Anyway, along came Rock Band, from Harmonix, which successfully married these two concepts together. Throw in a bass line, played on an optional second guitar controller, and some drum pads and you had the option of playing together with your friends as a virtual band.


== Gameplay ==

The gameplay will be instantly familiar to fans of the first game, or indeed Singstar or Guitar Hero. The guitar, bass ...
...as an expensive all-inclusive pack Rock Band 2 comes as a solus pack with no instruments of its own. That's great if you've got the previous game and a set of instruments for it, as you can reuse them, which is what I did. However, a full set of instruments costs around £90, so if you're just starting out that's a lot of money to lay out.

In a nice new development it will also apparently work with Guitar Hero controllers, although I've ... more

Introduction

Not so long ago there were two games; Guitar Hero and Singstar. The former let you play along to your favourite songs; not on a real guitar of course, but with a simplified guitar controller that allowed non-musicians to play along. Bizarrely it worked, quite brilliantly, and a whole new genre was born. The latter game was basically just good old fashioned karaoke but with some nifty signal processing that detected how faithful your rendition of the song, at least in terms of the pitch and timing, was. Anyway, along came Rock Band, from Harmonix, which successfully married these two concepts together. Throw in a bass line, played on an optional second guitar controller, and some drum pads and you had the option of playing together with your friends as a virtual band.

Gameplay

The gameplay will be instantly familiar to fans of the first game, or indeed Singstar or Guitar Hero. The guitar, bass and drums is all about hitting the right button on the guitar controller (or pad on the drum set) at the right time. Singing is done into a microphone following a track which gives you cues for pitch and timing. Get it right continually and you'll be rewarded. Screw up and you might not make it to the end of the song.

There are a whole variety of play modes where you can choose to do any instrument as an individual or together with friends as a band. You don't all need to be at the same level as difficulty is selected individually by each instrument. There's also a tour mode, which combines the world tour and career modes of the first game in which you work your way up from small gigs into arenas and unlock additional content in the process. Finally, there's the "battle of the bands" mode in which you can compete online against other bands in time limited competitions.

Instruments

As well as an expensive all-inclusive pack Rock Band 2 comes as a solus pack with no instruments of its own. That's great if you've got the previous game and a set of instruments for it, as you can reuse them, which is what I did. However, a full set of instruments costs around £90, so if you're just starting out that's a lot of money to lay out.

In a nice new development it will also apparently work with Guitar Hero controllers, although I've not tested that out in practice myself. There's also the promise of a new range of instruments that'll allow you to fork out serious money but again I've yet to test any of those. Given that they're not essential for the game either, it's not something I'll be in a hurry to check out.

There's a good solid feel to the guitar controller which superficially resembles a Fender Statocaster. The drums are a bit flimsy though and you'll have to restrain any thoughts of doing an impression of Animal from the Muppet Show, although you can go for it a bit without worrying too much. The microphone is, well, just a microphone; I wouldn't entertain any serious thoughts of recording music with it, but it does its job well enough for the game.

Songs

The game comes with 84 songs, which is a bit much for me to do a track listing here, but if you want to look them up there's one on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_in_Rock_Band_2

Suffice it to say that all the genres of rock, from heavy metal to indie to grunge and a few cheesy 80s arena rock songs are thrown in. Highlights include Motorhead's Ace Of Spades, Nirvana's Drain You, and Judas Priest's Painkiller. The vocal track for the latter is particularly challenging. Nine of the songs are from bands formed by, or associated with, Harmonix employees which gives the game a personal touch. They're pretty good musically and hold up with the more familiar songs quite nicely.

Additional songs can be downloaded, for a small fee and, perhaps most importantly, the game will import most songs - the exception being a handful that they were unable to relicense - from the previous version or any expansion packs, and Harmonix promise to keep compatibility with future versions. You will need a hard disk for this, so if you've only got an Arcade model 360, you ought to consider investing one before getting this game.

Graphics

The screen is dominated by the guidelines for the various instruments with animations of your band in action going on in the background. It's very flashy with great visual effects for when you hit sequences particularly well and the appropriate chaos when you screw up. Since you're mostly going to be focussed on the guidelines though, this is mostly for the benefit of any spectators present, although the 360 delivers it all in typically glorious HD. You can edit your characters in the band and, in a change from the first game, designate stand-ins for the regular band members when playing solo.

Longevity

This is a game that you're unlikely to tire of once you get into it. With new content constantly available, I'd reckon that the only things that'll stop you are encroaching deafness or the next version coming out, in which case you'll just buy it and transfer your songs over again. Alternatively you might decide to start a real band, in which case you'll rapidly outgrow the limitations of the guitar controller, although singing and drumming are still fairly realistic.

Overall

It's an expensive package, but you do get a lot for your money which makes it a good investment. It's not a game that you're unlikely to consider played out in a weekend. Comparisons with Songstar and Guitar Hero cannot be avoided; the former is certainly better for karaoke alone and the latter arguably holds the edge for the guitar mode, and is in the process of branching out into full band territory, but in terms of covering all bases - particularly in multiplayer band mode - Rock Band 2 certainly holds the edge.

It's also an essential upgrade for fans of the first game, as you're getting a whole slew of new tracks and updated playing modes for less than 50p a song. On the other hand, if your guitar controller has been sitting idle for a few months, you'd be unlikely to get it back out again for this game as it's more of an update than a true sequel.

Highly recommended for rock god wannabes.

(Also posted on ciao.com and dooyoo as Phantom_Wombat) 

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