Music Gaming Goodness: Rock Band 2 Rocks The House

Final Words

So. What's the verdict?

The kick pedal still sucks for the standard drum kit, the difficulty ratings are nearly useless, online play leaves a little to be desired in that the system doesn't penalize people who drop out enough, there are still parts of songs that don't get translated into doing something (with double kick pedal songs going way over the top), and automatic calibration isn't as consistent as we would like. It's almost like a glorified expansion pack that offers some refined bells and whistles and doesn't require the purchase of the original game.

But it really is a great game in spite of all that. One we wouldn't want to do without, especially when playing with 1 or 3 friends who also like music games.

If you own Rock Band with all the instruments, you can spend $60 for 84 songs plus expanded online play, a better (but still lacking) interface, and a few neat extras. At worst, it's just shy of 72 cents per song, which isn't a bad deal even if you aren't crazy about all of them, and at best you'll have a lot of fun with all the additional features and options.

For gamers who haven't purchased the first game and really want to play immediately, skip the first and go straight to Rock Band 2. And then "find" a Rock Band disk somewhere and import the original songs. They charge you five bucks to do so, so we've got no qualms recommending it.

For everyone else who might happen to be sitting on the fence when it comes to music games, there is a an unknown looming out there in the distance. With the monetary investment it takes to get one of these games that comes with some sort of makeshift drum kit, no one is really going to want to pick up both Rock Band or Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour kits. Yes, the Rock Band and Rock Band 2 drum kits can be used with Guitar Hero World Tour, but you lose the use of one pad, so it will change the experience a bit. There are certainly some unique things that Neversoft is trying out that could add a lot of value to the game, but we've had our hands on Rock Band 2 and know it's fun.

Our recommendation for the most part is for people who don't already have a Rock Band drum kit sitting around somewhere to wait and see what Guitar Hero World Tour ends up being like. These games are definitely investments, and the release is right around the corner. Certainly you won't go wrong with Rock Band 2, but it isn't the be all end all game that it could have been. There were improvements made, but it is fundamentally the same game it was before. Guitar Hero has a chance to capitalize on this, and we're not going to jump the gun on recommending one over the other until we've got both in our hands.

If you don't look at it like a one over the other situation, then, by all means, pick up Rock Band 2. You won't be disappointed. Yes it could have been better, but that doesn't mean it's still not awesome.