TheXboxLife

Don’t be alarmed Rock Band fans, there isn’t much change in the new Rock Band 2. The interface and menu that your so familiar with hasn’t changed at all, but the game itself, just took a huge step forward to make your Rock Band experience that much better.



In the new version your now looking at 80+ songs/artists to choose from; the developers truely stepped it up in making Rock Band 2 not as repetitiveness a game as it was becoming. Beyond that, when it comes to your song choice collection, you will also have a the ability to import songs (for a $5 fee) from your mp3 player/computer and play them.



As for game play, you won’t be needing to go out and purchase all new equipment, the guitars from Guitar Hero 2 & 3 will still be compatible, as well as previous Rock Band equipment. One great new feature is the drum trainer, where you can learn basic skills and rhythm without having to hear like crap on stage. Still, once you’ve learned the basics, the best way to get better is to just play some songs and suck, just not as bad. Along with the drum trainer is the fill trainer, which will teach you useful skills to spice up your filler parts so you don’t just sound like some off rhythm idiot for those 5 to 10 seconds. That feature is rather useful because it never hurts to actually sound good.



Of course you will still be able to play solo, or with your friends, but now you won’t have to worry about failing the same song over and over because your buddy can’t pick up the guitar rhythm. There is now a fail off feature where you can continue to sound awful for as long as you want, and not get kicked off stage.

As for the previous Rock Band songs, 55 of them can be easily integrated into Rock Band 2 by paying the $5 fee, and burning/ripping them all at once. Any other songs you made have downloaded are also able to be added to the new game. You will also have the option of picking up a 20 song bonus list, so overall you can have the option of playing 100s of songs, just as long as you have the hard drive space. All of these songs you will be able to play during World Tour mode.



Yes, everyone’s favorite, the World Tour mode. Well, not much has changed, except for a few things that will actually improve your game play. No longer will your character be specialized in one instrument, you now have the ability to change equipment at any time. You also won’t have to bump up the difficulty rating to increase your fan base. Of course it helps, and you’ll gain more fans faster, but playing at a low difficulty will not pause your progress. As your on tour you will be playing different types of sets, be able to hire and fire different personnel and overall have more control over your tour. While you are touring, you will also be challenged to score-based rock competitions to prove your skill over the rest of the planet.



The coolest new feature to the World Tour mode is being able to go on tour with your friends, and other groups, and tour together. A very nice new feature so that you and friends can team up online and tour the world together rocking, it’s not so fun though if your playing with some random individual who keeps selecting songs you hate. Either way, great new feature that everyone should enjoy.

Overall Rock Band 2 isn’t a bad game, it’s just the same, which isn’t a bad thing considering they worked on previous features that needed to be toggled a bit, so they did a good job. The amount of songs your able to play is ridiculous, and in the end you can play whatever you want. The new additions to World Tour mode are great, and should really improve an already fantastic mode. Is it worth picking up? Yeah, I’d say so.

8/10