Music Gaming Goodness: Rock Band 2 Rocks The House
by Derek Wilson on October 24, 2008 1:25 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
So. What's the verdict?
The kick pedal still sucks for the standard drum kit, the difficulty ratings are nearly useless, online play leaves a little to be desired in that the system doesn't penalize people who drop out enough, there are still parts of songs that don't get translated into doing something (with double kick pedal songs going way over the top), and automatic calibration isn't as consistent as we would like. It's almost like a glorified expansion pack that offers some refined bells and whistles and doesn't require the purchase of the original game.
But it really is a great game in spite of all that. One we wouldn't want to do without, especially when playing with 1 or 3 friends who also like music games.
If you own Rock Band with all the instruments, you can spend $60 for 84 songs plus expanded online play, a better (but still lacking) interface, and a few neat extras. At worst, it's just shy of 72 cents per song, which isn't a bad deal even if you aren't crazy about all of them, and at best you'll have a lot of fun with all the additional features and options.
For gamers who haven't purchased the first game and really want to play immediately, skip the first and go straight to Rock Band 2. And then "find" a Rock Band disk somewhere and import the original songs. They charge you five bucks to do so, so we've got no qualms recommending it.
For everyone else who might happen to be sitting on the fence when it comes to music games, there is a an unknown looming out there in the distance. With the monetary investment it takes to get one of these games that comes with some sort of makeshift drum kit, no one is really going to want to pick up both Rock Band or Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour kits. Yes, the Rock Band and Rock Band 2 drum kits can be used with Guitar Hero World Tour, but you lose the use of one pad, so it will change the experience a bit. There are certainly some unique things that Neversoft is trying out that could add a lot of value to the game, but we've had our hands on Rock Band 2 and know it's fun.
Our recommendation for the most part is for people who don't already have a Rock Band drum kit sitting around somewhere to wait and see what Guitar Hero World Tour ends up being like. These games are definitely investments, and the release is right around the corner. Certainly you won't go wrong with Rock Band 2, but it isn't the be all end all game that it could have been. There were improvements made, but it is fundamentally the same game it was before. Guitar Hero has a chance to capitalize on this, and we're not going to jump the gun on recommending one over the other until we've got both in our hands.
If you don't look at it like a one over the other situation, then, by all means, pick up Rock Band 2. You won't be disappointed. Yes it could have been better, but that doesn't mean it's still not awesome.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
24 Comments
View All Comments
7Enigma - Saturday, October 25, 2008 - link
A buddy sent this to me a couple weeks ago. Insane drum playing on Expert in RockBand.http://gamerblips.com/video/this_calling_5gs_all_t...">http://gamerblips.com/video/this_calling_5gs_all_t...
And just to give you an idea of how difficult this really is to play (if hearing it didn't quite sink in):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whkXozib-0g">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whkXozib-0g
silversound - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link
Anybody have any ideas about the guitar hero world tour?Im planning to buy a RB2 bundle or world tour bundle since they are at the same price. Which one is better? Most of my friends got RB, any thoughts?
DerekWilson - Saturday, October 25, 2008 - link
i'll try to get some quick thoughts on GH4 up after we get ahold of it.if your friends have RB 2 and want to play with you online ... then ... i'd prolly go with RB 2 :-)
if you guys get together and play with eachother, it might be nice to add some variety and pick up GH4 so that you and your friends can play a little of both.
GhandiInstinct - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link
Where's the hi-hat pedal?Electronic drum kits have 2 pedals.
crimson117 - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link
"In songs with 16th notes or triplets, there still isn't much that gets by without being fairly accurte." ...unlike the Anandtech spell check process :)JarredWalton - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link
Okay, I may not be the most up-to-date in terms of bands and such, but the number of songs and even band names that I recognize from the RB2 list is amazingly small. Half of the bands/groups I recognize then have one of their B-sides or some other unknown song on the list. RB1 was pretty bad in that area, but RB2 takes it to a new level. Plus there's the "20 free songs" you can get - but I don't recognize a single group or song on that list! If I were to want to pretend to be a rock star, I think I'd prefer to "cover" songs that I actually know. Guitar Hero seems to do a lot better in this regard; Harmonix appears to have cut costs by choosing cheap/free songs to license.Myrandex - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link
I felt the same way until I played it, then I realized that I recognized a lot more afterwards. also as the author mentioned, I eventually obtained a greater appreciation for certain songs or even certain aspects of songs. There are definitely songs that I didn't know that I like quite a bit after playing RB2.And for the 20 free songs, I am greatly looking forward to Static-X "Push It". I love that band and I could think of at least 8 songs that I'd gladly pay for to be in the game (with Push It being one of them).
I recognized some other ones, but not too many. I don't know if the list that I saw was actually finalized or not though. The one song that I was looking forward to the most in RB2 was Linkin Park's One Step Closer. I could think of probably 15 LP songs that I'd also pay for in there.
Jason
jnmfox - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link
+1 to the comments & +1 for more LP songsheadbox - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link
Rock Band is genius- it gives all of the untalented people something to do other than waste money on instruments and annoy their neighbors. It's so well made that people can actually pretend they have some talent, allowing tone-deaf people who can't keep a beat to still have fun with music.headbox - Friday, October 24, 2008 - link
I'd like to add: Rock Band is to music what FPS games are to military training.