Rock Band 2 Preview

E3 2008 Preview

One of the biggest titles of 2007, Rock Band made a lot of waves in the gaming community and in the mainstream by offering fun and accessible party-based gameplay for four people. The game succeeded like no game before it in letting you play in a band with up to three of your friends. Now, less than a year later, Mtv Games and Harmonix are getting ready to launch the sequel to the game, Rock Band 2. Rock Band 2 doesn’t change very much from the original game, instead serving as more of an improvement than a full on revolution in the sense that the original Rock Band was. GameZone was on hand to check out some of the improvements made to the game at this year’s E3, and the results are still fun and a lot more polished this time around.

As many heard after the Microsoft press conference earlier this week, Rock Band 2 will have a massive soundtrack, composed of 84 master recordings from a variety of artists, including Jethro Tull, Metallica, and Bob Dylan. The game will support all of the original Rock Band’s downloadable content, and even allow for the importing of certain tracks from the Rock Band disc to save on disc-swapping.

Once you get into the core gameplay, this is essentially the same game as last year. No real changes have been made to the note charts or the band mechanic, as you’ll still have the ability to rescue your bandmates should they suck too hard, and get unison bonuses for performing well.

The biggest change to the game is the hardware. One of the biggest complaints against the original game is that the instruments were of pretty substandard quality, and would break down quickly after heavy use. For Rock Band 2, both the guitar and drum peripherals have been reinforced to feel a lot sturdier and take a lot more punishment. The drum pads have a nice bounceback and feel padded, and the guitar’s strum bar is a little tighter and doesn’t feel as unresponsive.

If you have the original Rock Band, the improved overall quality of the equipment might make it a worthy purchase if you have the extra scratch to plunk down. Otherwise, Rock Band 2 makes a fine jumping point for those who have yet to get into the experience. Look for it to release on the Xbox 360 this September, and other consoles before the year is out.

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