Rock Band 2

It is refreshing to see a sequel that's painfully honest about what it is. Coming out around 10 months after the original, Rock Band 2 is pretty much the same game as the original. Guitar Hero, drums, and karaoke combined into one amazing game that epitomizes what's wrong with America. Rock band 2 comes with 85ish new songs, a huge library of downloadable songs, and for 5 bucks, the ability to take all the songs from the first game and add them to your library.

The biggest change to the game itself is that a band can be formed over the internet, with any combination of people on one console or through the internet. It's not as much fun as playing with your friends in person, but it's the best alternative. Also added is 'battle of the bands' which is a set of sometimes thematic challenges with a leaderboard, rather than a 4 on 4 competition.

Band career mode is essentially unchanged, but it didn't need to be altered. What they did change was that rather than solo careers being separate from band, they can be on the same band profile, which is convenient.

It's still Rock band, with a good variety of songs, and a few new bells and whistles. I paid the money for it and didn't regret it. It's still good for both small parties and wasting an afternoon by yourself.

If you enjoyed the first Rock Band..then I'm sure you'll continue to enjoy Rock Band 2. The songs are updated and parts are getting pretty hard. There a bunch of really good songs. The instruments seem to be relatively the same with the exception of the drum kit. They are trying to make it more like an electronic drum kit. You get more bounce to your stick and the drum hears are more sensitive. If you already have the drum kit from the first game, then you can keep using those, whoever you may want to purchase the additional cymbals, but it's not needed. A great game for parties.

You will probably enjoy this game a lot if you loved playing the first Rock Band. The array of songs available and improved upon instruments makes this a worthy purchase. However, it is not for every Guitar Hero fan.

Rock Band 2 has a better selection of songs and variety to suit our tastes, but game play is disappointing and can be boring and laborious after a while. Seriously, how many double notes need to stream in all the songs. I was hoping Rockband would be more like the game play in GH2 and GH3 with more hammer ons and pull offs instead of the same back and forth strumming reminiscent of "Barracuda" from GH3. The solos are the only enjoyable parts to play and even on Expert the games still lack that "I'm totally rocking" feel I get from GH3.

There were a few things I noticed that will hopefully get fixed, male character singing with a woman's voice in one of the songs. That was just strange (I don't remember what song it was) and you cannot utilize the pause button to switch to lefty mode when you create a set list in Quick Play. Hopefully these little bugs will be corrected n the next update.

What truly makes this game are the new set of drums with symbols and selection of songs.

We are selling Rock Band 2 and getting Guitar Hero World Tour instead.

If you loved Rock Band you will love Rock Band 2. More songs, more modes, more features -Rock Band 2 takes everything that made Rock Band one of the best multiplayer games ever and makes it even better by including 50+ new songs (including my personal favorites, "Eye of the Tiger" and "Living on a Prayer"), allowing players to seemlessly drop in and out of bands to make playing with your friends more accomodating, and on top of that you can easily download all your tracks from Rock Band (for a nominal fee of five dollars) and songs you have downloaded previously.

All things considered, Rock Band 2 allows you to have a library of 200-300 songs at your fingertips, making it the most robust and enjoyable music simulator on the market. If you like Guitar Hero, the first Rock Band, or just enjoy the prospect of rocking out with three of your buddies, don't hesitate. Pick up Rock Band 2.