Rock Band 2 Updated Hands-On - Exclusive Single-Player and Multiplayer Details
We get our hands on Harmonix's Rock Band follow-up for an encore performance.
Unless you've been locked in a cave for the past year or so, you've probably heard about Rock Band. The game capped Boston-based developer Harmonix's six-year journey to hip the Western gaming world to the allure of rhythm-based games. While Harmonix's efforts with the original Guitar Hero games may have cracked the door open in the States, Rock Band drove a tour bus through it and beckoned your friends over to make themselves at home. The game sold incredibly well last Christmas, especially considering its hefty price tag and music shop's worth of peripherals. Rather than rest on its laurels, however, the ambitious developer is prepping Rock Band 2, a proper sequel, to hit stores next month. How do you follow up a game like Rock Band? We decided to find out by digging into a new, work-in-progress version of the Xbox 360 game to take an exclusive hands-on look.
If you've played the original game, you should be right at home with what Rock Band 2 has to offer. You'll still find the same basic top-level modes--Quickplay, Tour, and Training--along with extras and the music store. Quickplay offers four further options--Solo Quickplay, Band Quickplay, Tug of War, and Duel--that let you duke it out with frenemies far and wide. The game has been tweaked to offer more customization, so you'll be able to switch instruments on your custom characters and adjust song lists.
Probably one of the biggest additions to the Rock Band mix is in the Tour mode, which now lets you do offline and online touring. As before, you'll create a custom character to represent you in the game. However, this time out, there are a number of new options to customize your character's appearance courtesy of new tattoos and some refinements to the editor. Our favorite tweak is the ability to change the instrument your character plays; we lamented the lack of this option in the original game. Once you start playing with your virtual band you'll find that there's a lot more to do here, even though the mode still has the same, somewhat linear style of the original. As always, your basic goals are to play music in different venues, win fans and notoriety, open up new venues and modes of transportation, and take your music global. But the sequel adds a lot more to the mix. You'll find different set list challenges at each venue, as well as customizable set lists you can make for yourself. Most importantly, you'll find gigs to play that yield vehicles you can use to begin your trek round the world.
A new factor on your road to fame is crew staffing: You'll now be able to hire different staff to come along on your tour. Your first hire will be dear old Mom, whose unwavering support ensures she's always around to be hired. It's an interesting system, because your staff choices yield different bonuses to your group as you play, like more fans per gig. The trade-off is that some bonuses appear to also have drawbacks; for example, the same bonus may give you more money per gig but will also lower your number of fans. Our version of the game featured 14 potential hires, which ran the gamut from mom to a tattoo artist or a publicist.
Besides extending your career in Rock Band 2's Tour mode, you'll find new band-centric challenges to test your skills. While in Tour mode you'll be able to make your way across the globe performing, or take a break and try the Challenge or Battle of the Bands submodes. The Tour Challenge mode features seven sets of locked challenges that you'll open up by clearing them. The first set, labeled Local Upstart, features six challenges that you'll have to work through. The challenges require one to four players depending on the focus; the vocal warm-ups challenge can be soloed by a singer, but the drum warm-ups require a larger group with a drummer, and so on. Each challenge gets progressively tougher and offers a fun, bite-size bit of action. Cooler still is that some challenges are generated based on the content on your hard drive, so you can expect album-specific challenges to pop up. Battle of the Bands will offer Harmonix-posted competitions for you to take part in and prove your skills. The mode seems destined to set folks up for an eternal cycle of defending your score--for instance, you'll be pinged when one of your records has been topped, encouraging you to go and set a new one.
Rock Band 2 Quick Links
Summary | Reviews | News | Previews & Features | Images | Videos | DLC & Expansions | Answers | Hints & Cheats | Forum | Check Prices
- GameSpot ScoreN/ANo Rating
Check Prices: $19.99 – 49.99
Content you might like…
-
Rock Band 2 Gameplay Movie 4
What'cha want? Check out Beastie Boys, Rock Band 2.
- Aug 19, 2008
Users who looked at this article also looked at these content items.
Images
Related Unions
Games you may like…
-
Rock Band
(WII) -
Guitar Hero World Tour
(WII) -
Rock Band: Track Pack - Volume 1
(WII) -
The Beatles: Rock Band
(WII) -
Rock Revolution
(WII)
Users who looked at content for this game also looked at these games.
See More Similar Games
175 Comments