Wow! It's hard to believe that a game that amounts to a fancy version of the old "SIMON" game could be this much fun! It works on several levels.
First, it's a skill-based game: the harder you train, the better you'll do. You are immediately ranked against the rest of the Rock Band world (if you're online), so you can see how well you're doing.
Second, it's fully socialized - PARTY ON! It's almost as fun to watch and listen to as it is to play (as long as you like the music choices being made...).
Third, it puts you in touch with the music you already (or used to...) love. You learn the words (that you thought you knew, but didn't) and the skill the original players had. You gain an appreciation for the REAL talent, as well as respect for those that do well at the game. In seeing all that, you gain perspective on what it must be like to stand in front of 100,000 people and just put yourself out there like that, to get it right or tank.
Last, RB2 is quite a lot better in ways big and small that all the other stuff out there, including RB1.
Needed improvements: moving songs. When I go over to a friends house to play, I want to take my songs with me. Memory card or something? And easier switching of controllers. I'm singing, and want to stop and play guitar without killing the band or redoing everything.
THIS GAME IS A MUST HAVE!!!!
Rock Band 2 is an excellent sequel to the original. Most of the minor quibbles with the first title has been solved. For instance, the band is tied to your account instead of a single character so you can use the band of anyone playing with you. More clothing options have been added, including the ability to add art to certain shirts, allowing you to really customize your look. The art in the game is excellent and the menus are all very quick. It doesn't revolutionize things the way RB1 did, it just cleaned up all the messy parts of the original. The training is much improved and the drum simulator is very cool.
Of note: if you have a copy of Rock Band 1 you can transfer all those tracks [...] for use in Rock Band 2. You can rent it, or borrow it from a friend, and all it requires is 400 MS points and the game will rip all the RB1 tracks to your HDD. You can delete any unwanted RB1 tracks at any time. All downloaded songs (even for RB1) will work with RB2. If you own RB1, I don't see how you could rationalize putting off this purchase. You know how good RB1 is, and this is better.
After playing through Rockband 2 with my flatmates for awhile and going through the functionality that has changed since the original I'd have to say this game lives up to the hype.
Songs:
You're able to use any of your downloaded content for Rockband 1 within Rockband 2. It's unfortunate that the base songs from Rockband 1 aren't able to be used given I don't like having to switch disks to hear specific music but given it would be hard to prove I owned the original and didn't just borrow it to get the songs if they had that functionality. As for the included songs... it's a vast selection of music that would appeal to many audiences and you're given 20 free song downloads as part of the purchase so you can expand that library further from your own favorites. I like the music but have to admit, for many of the songs I usually know the artists but never have heard of the songs.
Mutliplayer:
One of the biggest flaws of the original Rockband was that you could not play on XBox Live with your friends in anything besides quickplay. What this meant was that you'd have to coordinate with friends across the states to play one or two songs but never be able to actually sit back and play through the adventure aspect of the series. This has been added in the sequel.
Local Multiplayer / Solo Mode:
Another huge improvement to the game is the ability to play through as a band without needing all members of the band present. So if my flatmate is out of the apartment and I want to advance our band I can start up my solo career as the singer in the band and do a few of the songs. If he's there later I can join with him again with all the progress I made as well. The real benefit to this is that honestly many people, especially when you have friends over, want to play the game but aren't willing to make a band just to setup each scenario of whether anyone wants to play a particular instrument or not. With the system like this anyone can pick up an instrument and join the band without having to worry about this.
In general the game finally has a pretty strong core engine for multiplayer online and locally which vastly improves on the original. Improves to the game could include a stronger avatar customization option for users who would like to put the time into designing their characters, a better library of songs, and the ability to port over music from Rockband 1 given no one likes switching over disks to play certain tracks. Even without these changes though the game is solid.
"I had no problems with shipping or with the game disc. I'm still rocking out til this day."
"A lot like the first rockband but with some new songs. I really liked the individual difficulty ratings too"
