Rock Band 2 Wireless Guitar, Wireless Drums, and Game Impressions

by Sarkis Daglian at Sep 13, 2008 2:22am

Last year Rock Band made its debut and revolutionized the music gaming genre by going beyond the guitar and adding the other key elements that form a music band, the microphone and drums. While Rock Band was a massive achievement, it did have its faults. The launch hardware experienced massive issues such as keys sticking on the guitar to drum pads which didn’t seem to pick up hits and were a nuisance (for those around us anyway) to play especially late at night. The game play side while fun, left a lot to be desired in terms of online functionality and breaking the mold of going from venue to venue knocking out the song list and repeating.

I don’t feel comfortable labeling this as a review. Unfortunately for me, and a testament to Rock Band 2’s improvement over the original and very high level of depth I’m simply not done with Rock Band 2 and frankly I’m not even close. There is still a lot of unlocking songs, hopping online with my buddies over live, and creating sick logos for my band to be had.

When Harmonix sent along the Rock Band 2 review kit the first thing I did before a note of Rock Band 2 was played is check out the hardware carefully. This is more thoughts and impressions as I’ve played the game the past week and with the peripherals.

So just how are the new drums? It’s safe to put your Rock Band drum kit on ebay. The Rock Band 2 drums aesthetically and functionally make the Rock Band drum kit look like it was made by fisher price. You’ll instantly feel the added sturdiness to all components of the drums from legs to support poles. The support poles and legs actually click lock in this time so moving the kit around isn’t a problem.

The pads themselves are a rubbery material which does dampen the noise a bit when compared to the previous kit but at least for my play environment I didn’t find the difference to be jaw dropping. If you live an apartment complex with thin walls, it may make the difference between being yelled at by your neighbor at 2 am and not, but in a house it’s negligible. Easily my new favorite component is the metal bass drum. It has a very slick metallic look to it and is a lot more comfortable on the feet than the first drum kit.

The improvement in functionality on the drums is astounding. In game, this is what the drums are supposed to play like. There are no more dead zones on the pads. In Rock Band, I would feel cheated on the drums because I knew I hit a certain pad and it didn’t register. That is gone in Rock Band 2. If you miss a note, you missed it. The entire kit feels more responsive and I noticed a significant increase in my drumming ability and score. The kick drum is still a challenge but is more comfortable than before and more responsive. The game does a better job in Rock Band 2 of making it obvious when the kick drum has been hit then in Rock Band. With all the improvements, suddenly medium drums note charts went from being difficult to easy.

There is always constant debate regarding the best guitar to use for the current gen music games. For the sake of full disclosure, I am partial to Guitar Hero III’s guitars. The Rock Band 2 guitar is an improvement over the original in some ways and a step back in others. The new guitar is sleeker than the last one and the wood finish does look incredibly sharp. The trade off is that you may notice your friends who aren’t as hardcore as music games shy away from this guitar because seeing the colors associated with each key is more difficult. The keys themselves are greatly improved and do offer more of a click feedback than the original Rock Band guitar which made playing songs disorientating. The strum bar also feels more responsive and provides the player better feedback while still striking that balance of not continually clicking in an annoying fashion. For all of these improvements the head scratcher design decision comes from the whammy bar on the Rock Band 2 guitar. The whammy bar is simply too long (that’s what she said) and interfered with my strumming to the point where I turned it 180 degrees and simply didn’t whammy the long notes. I understand the guitar was going for authenticity, but for a video game it would have been better had it been a few inches shorter. Overall, I consider the new guitar an improvement over Rock Band’s but it still does not hold a candle to the Guitar Hero III guitars. If you liked the original Rock Band guitar, you’ll likely dig the new one if you can get past the whammy bar.

Rock Band 2 from a music standpoint is simply the best music game of the generation. The soundtrack is un-be-liev-able. It looks great on paper when you see the track listing but actually playing through the world tour mode or challenges and unlocking songs has given me multiple moments of “Oh I didn’t even know this song was in the game, but hey I really like it!”. Also, Harmonix has once again done a fantastic job at creating note charts that are fun to play while remaining true to the song without any phantom notes.

Difficulty wise, I’m not a great player but a decent one. If you’ve played these types of games before the medium may be too medium so it’s best to at least try to play hard. This does lead to some issues later on the in the game with the way world tour is set up.

Would tour has been overhauled. The grind from song A to song Z is now done away with and what is presented to the player is a more true to life band experience. You can also take the journey online to conquer the world with your friends over Xbox live. In Rock Band 2 you’ll still play a few songs assigned per venue to gain money and cash. But the interesting twist is the mystery shows and special play sets each gig unlocks. It’s within these playsets the real fun begins. You’ll hit a mystery 5 song play set and have no idea what you’re going to play. If you’ve imported tracks from the original game the amount of variety in the tracks make it extremely enjoyable.

A great balance been achieved between the use of new songs and old songs. For example, you’ll hit a gig in San Fransisco where you’ll be prompted to play a show where you’ll get double the pay if you can 5 star each song in a mystery list. If you receive a song from Rock Band you’ve already played you may have an easier time with the challenge. Other times, you may get a new song that is seemingly impossible (Hi there Mighty Mighty Boss Tones) which will bring a swift end to your bid. You’ll also play other shows like benefit concerts where you can choose to make no profit from your gig but gain double the fans. As your success grows you’ll be able to hire staff for your band from your mother to groupies to agents which all have various effects. If you have a good agent, you obviously make more cash. If you have a street team or groupies, you gain more fans.

I didn’t find the overall character customization this time around that deep at the start but as you gain cash you can buy a boat load of new accessories and get ups to wear for your rocker from the shop. However, one cool feature was a logo creator that looks like a mini version of something that was put into Forza Racing a year or so back. I expect to see some pretty insane logos in the coming weeks for bands out there.

Rock Band 2 is simply a mammoth game. Even after all this, I haven’t dived into online as much as I would have liked or the other modes. My sole mission at this point is to unlock songs as fast as I can because of the killer soundtrack and other quality songs I know are out there. If I had to score this game now it would one of the top flight Xbox 360 games no questions or doubts about it. Look for my full review coming later next week.