Rock Band 2: Great Game or Not?

On September 14,2008 the Rock Band 2 game only was released for Xbox 360. The game was created by Developers Harmonix Music Systems. Rock Band 2 is the sequel of Rock Band, said to be the best music simulation game of 2007. And now Rock Band 2 is here to make it keep its fame as the best music game for 2008!

Rock Band 2 has a new set of 84 songs on the game and 20 free downloadable songs thats pretty much double the amount of gameplay than Rock Band. So if you thought that Rock Band was fun this is pretty much double the fun.The Rock Band 2 version for Playstation 3 is released on October 19. The bundle for both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 will be released on October 19 as well. The price for the Xbox 360 and Ps3 bundle is $189.99 .

The gameplay for the Rock Band 2 game is incredible with new peripherals, new songs, and new improved graphics!

The new peripherals are mostly entirely new except for the shape. The new drums are fabulous and have new characteristics that will make playing drums more inspiring and fun. The first thing that has been changed is the bass pedal. Many people have argued that the Rock Band pedal is trash..and I agree it is too stiff and it is easy breakable, but now Harmonix has come with a possible solution by setting a metallic plate on the bass pedal to make it last longer and it also adds downward weight to the pedal so that it can be pressed quicker. This may be an advantage for songs like Panic Attack, Visions, and Painkiller. Also a new feature included on the new drums are velocity sensitive pads. If you don't know what velocity sensitive pads means, it means that the pads register how hard you hit the pad. So if you hit the yellow pad softly it will make a soft hi-hat sound, as if you hit it hard it will make a louder noise. The two ones that most people notice is what the pads are now made up and the ability of adding cymbals that may replace the pad to make the gameplay more realistic. The new pads for Rock Band 2 are made of rubber and the center of each pad has a foam-like material. This not only causes less noise so you don't get screamed at by apartment neighbors but also it allows more rebound than Rock Band's pads. As for the cymbals the attach from the three 1/8 inch plugs in the back. Each cymbal is sold for $15, or all for a price of $30. Each cymbal can replace the color of the pad it matches. This allows more realistic gameplay because now you can hit the yellow cymbal for cross hand playing instead of the yellow pad or hit the blue cymbal for a crash noise (correct me if I'm wrong because the blue might be the ride) instead of the blue pad. This really will contribute to beginner drummers because this actually might help them learn the basics of drumming faster than a person playing Rock Band.

The guitar is another instrument that has been changed a lot. The new Rock Band 2 guitar has changed color!! Yes it has, it has gone from a normal black and white fender to a fender with a wicked sunburst paint job. These colors make the guitar neater and it makes you feel more special I guess. Another thing that has changed is the strum bar. They have fixed some things from last Rock Band to make the strum bar better. They have made so that it can be strummed more efficiently so that expert level players can strum faster. They have also made the guitar frets quieter so that they don't sound like the old guitar's frets which weren't as quiet as Guitar Hero's frets but now you can have both the quietness and the old feel of the rock band guitar. The most important thing that has changed is the self-calibration button on the guitar which allows you to calibrate the game's lag from the guitar instead of going to the main menu and going to settings and re-calibrating.

Overall I think Harmonix has made a great job changing and improving the peripherals to make them better and more realistic. To some people that are wondering they have improved a little the microphone to make it better so it can sense the pitch of your voice way better. The microphone can also be bought from Mad Catz which provides an actual game controller on it so you can stream through the menu's in the game without the Xbox 360/Ps3/Wii controller.

One feature that many people are happy with that has changed online gameplay is battle of the bands! Battle of the bands is exactly what the name says it is...it is a battle between two bands performing the same song. The new Rock Band 2 game also provides two new features: a new drum trainer, and a menu called "Extras". The new drum trainer teaches you how to do correct fills and also it provides the chance of not only decreasing the speed of the song your practicing but also it can increase it!

The Extras menu has an option of "No Fail Mode" where you are not able to die on songs that are difficult to pass such as Visions. This is a good thing for some players because now they can pass the story mode without getting stuck on a song.

Thank-you for reading and have a great time rocking out!