Rock Band 2

"If it's broke, don't fix it...tweak it. Harmonix hits it out of the park again."

Once upon a time, there was a little company called Harmonix. They partnered with Activision and RedOctane and created a franchise, called Guitar Hero, that exploded from a "let's see what we can do with this and if it's good roll with it," pioneering game to a revolution in music and rhythm games. Around the time of their 3rd addition to the series, however, the relationship between Harmonix and RedOctane/Activision was severed and the 3 companies split apart. RedOctane/Activision would join up with Neversoft to continue the Guitar Hero franchise while Harmonix teamed up with Activision's rival, EA, to expand their ideas and extend the Guitar Hero idea to other instruments. Enter Rock Band.

Rock Band 1 was just as new and exciting as the original Guitar Hero. Everything in the game felt like a breath of fresh air compared to the aging and increasingly stale formula of the Guitar Hero series. Rock Band incorporated and encouraged the idea of playing together as a band with 4 people, each on a different instrument. The graphics were a huge upgrade compared to Guitar Hero III. The background videos were now so detailed, it really felt like the people on stage were truly into the music. I often found myself missing notes because I was getting enthralled by what was going on in the background. The soundtrack on the disc was also very good, with 58 on-disc songs, but that quickly increased with the addition of downloadable songs, with now over 400 songs available for the game. In terms of gameplay, not much had changed from Guitar Hero; you basically hit the notes when they came to the bottom of the screen (how you hit the notes depended on what instrument you were playing, however). The guitar's gameplay had a few new features, such as the effects switch on the new guitar and the redone Overdrive (RB's equivalent of GH's Star Power), allowing the player to continue picking up Overdrive even after you've deployed it. In terms of timing, Harmonix made the system almost perfect, with timing windows precise enough to be very accurate, but not ridiculously open and disorienting like Guitar Hero III's system.

One year later, Harmonix went ahead and released Rock Band 2, a game that was basically a complete upgrade from Rock Band 1, featuring nearly full backwards compatibility with Rock Band 1. This meant that most of the Rock Band 1 songs from the disc, as well as all of your DLC, was coming along on the ride for Rock Band 2. So from day one, many people would have over 100 songs in their collection to start out with, with more to come. Rock Band 2 featured improved graphics, a revised solo career mode and more modes to play, such as "no fail" mode for those who just couldn't play even on easy and "performance mode" for the true pros who could memorize notecharts. The instrument peripherals also got better, with a completely overhauled drumset allowing cymbals and potential double bass pedals (at the time of writing, this is not confirmed yet), as well as a better guitar, and wireless all around.

Rock Band 2 is a must buy for anyone who loves music and rhythm games. The soundtrack is expected to exceed 500 songs by the end of the year, so there is something for everyone. Overall, the game is a perfect update from Rock Band 1, and is sure to have an infinite replay value.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/08

Game Release: Rock Band 2 (US, 09/14/08)