A minor amount of improvements that made all the difference... or not?
Again, the main idea in this game is for you to play either as vocalist, guitarist, bassist or drummer and either unlock songs and items as you build your way to the Hall of Fame.
The game system didn't change at all. Press the buttons accordingly to the colors indicated in the screen. Tilting your guitar up will activate the Overdrive. Hitting the green button after a sequence of empty spaces will activate the Overdrive on the Drums. Screaming (or just talking) on the yellow sections of the lyrics will activate the Overdrive while playing as vocalist. Things are as simple as this. The game is as fun as the previous one, some graphical improvements seem to have been made since the last game, which is great. So, why do I sound like I lack any interest... at all?
Well, you see, the differences between this game and its predecessor are minimal. Okay, there are new songs. Okay, there are new scenarios. So..? The characters build is still the same and very few extras were added. The faces, hairstyle and attitude seem to remain unchanged. Ok, better the same than less, but still, I was expecting to see something innovative, but even the clothes seem like a copy+paste from the previous game! Guitars also seem to be pretty much the same. I liked the guitar models in Rock Band, but don't remember seeing in the second game something that was NOT in the first game.
The songs... Well, I would say that it has got to the extremes of "love or hate". Some songs are pretty much the reason WHY I played this game, because they're just FANTASTIC. On the other hand, a couple of songs are just irritating. Those kinds of songs you just play because they're in the set list and you HAVE to play them if you want to... unlock achievements, trophies or whatever.
Also, is it just me or the difficulty reaches discrepant levels if you compare Hard mode with Expert??
Oh, Solo Tour is gone. Now, rather than playing Solo Tour to unlock new songs, there are several Challenges. For each challenge you beat, you unlock a set of songs, making it faster to get new ones. There are specific challenges for each instrument and one mode called "Band Challenge". The name is self-explanatory, you have to beat those challenged with more than one player.
Now talking about the good things: do you remember the hundreds and hundreds of complains about World Tour on the first Rock Band, that didn't allow you to play only by yourself? Well, now we can live happily ever after, for World Tour Mode can now be played solo. The venues are the same, but if you usually play online, temporary challenges with specific conditions will randomly pop-up on some venues. Beating them will put your score on the Rock Band ranking.
Another cool feature added in the game and made all the difference for me (since I like to customize the band and stuff): now you can customize your band members. No more weird people on your band! You can build whatever characters you like and put them to play a determined instrument. AND you can also use the same character to play whatever you want (that was a sad limitation in the previous game, in which, if you build a guitarist, s/he could ONLY play guitar or bass, but you wouldn't be able to use this character to sing or play drums, for an instance).
There is a cool feature added on this game: you can import all songs from the previous games to this one and make a giant set list to play with the Rock Band 2 engine, but you'll have to pay separately. Worthy if you don't want to keep changing discs the whole time.
Overall, huh, yeah, nice game. If I had to choose between this game and the first one, I would pick this one because, frankly, between this game and Rock Band 1, there is not much of a difference. Except for the amount of songs maybe. Heh, whatever.