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Rock Band 2 is the second main title in the Rock Band series and the sequel to Rock Band. The game was first released in North America on September 14, 2008 for Xbox 360 and October 19, 2008 for PlayStation 3 before being released on PlayStation 2 and Wii on December 18, 2008. In Europe, the game was initially released with the instrument bundle on October 19, 2008 for Xbox 360 before getting a standalone release on November 21, 2008. It was then released in Europe on March 27, 2009 for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 before being released on Wii on October 9, 2009. It features new songs, a new tour mode, and more character customization options. Multiplayer has also gotten an overhaul, featuring massive band play online and expanded tour modes.

Instruments

The Rock Band 2 instruments have some improvements over the originals. The drum set has a softer pad system that reacts to lighter hits and makes slightly less noise. There is also a small plate of metal over the foot pedal, which does not make it unbreakable, but makes it stronger at the least. The guitar is slightly shorter and has a de-lagger built in, so HDTVs will no longer have trouble with it. The strum bar still does not click, but it has been made sturdier and easier to strum. The way compatibility works with this game is ridiculously complex, but this is making it simple.

Intro Sounds:

Intro sound for guitar

Intro sound for drums

Intro sound for vocals

Intro sound for bass


What works:

  • Rock Band (for the same console you have RB2 on)
  • Guitar Hero 3 Les Paul (For the same console you have RB2 on)
  • Most third parties (Though they have faults and aren't recommended)
  • Guitar Hero World Tour instruments
  • Guitar Hero 2 Gibson X-plorer on Xbox 360 version.
  • Guitar Hero 1 & 2 Gibson SG on PS2 version.

What doesn't work:

  • Cross-Console instruments (PS3 drum set does not work with Xbox 360 Rock Band, though they both are USB. PS3 drums do work on PS2 and vice-versa since they're the same hardware) However, the microphone does work on any platform since those are not actually controllers, but just USB microphones.

Features

Tour

In Rock Band 2 there is no linear setlist for solo play like in its predecessor, it is more like the band play in that you get fans as well as money, and you play setlists as you go. Unlike Rock Band 1, you will get at least some fans if you play on a lower difficulty than usual instead of none at all. One person can play any instrument you want at any time. This can be single player or multiplayer.

The Leaderboards

As with Rock Band 1, the leaderboards have been added to online play. When you play a song in any mode, be it tour or a challenge, your score is submitted to the Leaderboards, which detail scores by player account, by band totals, or songs by band. Not much has changed from Rock Band 1 besides a slightly easier to navigate menu and a tad faster loading time.

Battle of The Bands

In the game, a new feature that is updated every day is the new Battle of the Bands. When you pick a city with a trophy icon or go to Battle of the Bands from the Practice Space, you will find several battles to play. In order to use these events, you must have online enabled, unfortunately. Some requirements for these battles could be any of the following, including

  1. Highest star rating
  2. Highest note streak
  3. No Overdrive

Once you complete the battle, you will be notified of your place in it on the Leaderboards. You will be listed by band name, not by player name. The Battle of the Bands events do not affect your Tour score or fans.

The New Rock Shop

Now that everything else has been covered, we may move on to the customization. The outfits are now separated into categories like in the previous installment, with one new category. The instruments can also be purchased from here, as well as any accessories you may have come across. You can even change your hairstyle.

Audition Mode

The new audition mode allows you to playtest new releases to review them and to see if they are fit for release on the Rock Band Network. This feature requires an account which is a member of the XNA Creators Club and is connected to Xbox Live.

Modifiers

Name Description Buttons Disables
No Fail Mode Prevents you from failing by hitting the bottom of the bar, making losing songs impossible. Available from start Saving

Online Play

Breakneck Speed Makes the speed of the track go faster than usual. Orange-fretYellow-fretOrange-fretYellow-fret

Blue-fretOrange-fretOrange-fretBlue-fret

N/A
Select Venue Screen Choose a venue to play in quickplay Blue-fretOrange-fretOrange-fretBlue-fretYellow-fretBlue-fretOrange-fretOrange-fretBlue-fretYellow-fret Online Play
Performance Mode Play the game without the track Blue-fretBlue-fretRed-fretRed-fret

Yellow-fretYellow-fretBlue-fretBlue-fret

N/A
Unlock All Songs Makes every song playable Red-fretYellow-fretBlue-fretRed-fretRed-fretBlue-fretBlue-fretRed-fretYellow-fretBlue-fret Saving

Online Play

New Venues Only Only shows new venues in tour Red-fretRed-fretRed-fretRed-fret

Yellow-fretYellow-fretYellow-fretYellow-fret

N/A
Stage Mode Enables tweaks useful for live Rock Band 2 performances such as enabling no fail mode, and disabling pausing Blue-fretYellow-fretRed-fretBlue-fretYellow-fretRed-fretBlue-fretYellow-fretRed-fret Saving

Online Play

Awesomeness Detection Let's Harmonix know that you are really awesome Yellow-fretBlue-fretOrange-fretYellow-fretBlue-fretOrange-fretYellow-fretBlue-fretOrange-fret N/A

Soundtrack

Main Article: Rock Band 2 Setlist

The Endless Setlist 2

The Endless Setlist 2 is the sequel to the Endless Setlist in Rock Band 1. The Endless Setlist 2 contains all 84 songs in the game, and it's played in Shanghai instead of Moscow. After gaining 900 stars, over 468,000 fans, winning a worldwide promoter, and getting into the Rolling Stone Hall of Fame, you will unlock this insane setlist. You cannot play on easy, so if that's what you're used to, maybe it's time you moved up a level. The songs are all listed in overall band difficulty, and the setlist starts with "Eye of the Tiger" and ends with "Painkiller". If you fail a song at any time during the setlist, you will not have to start it all over, you will just continue at the song you lost on. The number of fans you lose is not affected by how far along you are, it remains at a constant 71,000 or so. Completing the Endless Setlist 2 without pausing the game or failing a song will earn the player an Xbox 360 achievement or PS3 Trophy called 'The Bladder of Steel.' This is a reference to the player, who must endure over 6 hours of gameplay with very short breaks between songs. If attempting the Bladder of Steel on Guitar, you are given a short break during AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock". You may be able to take a quick bathroom break, but you run the risk of failing the song if you don't return to the game on time. Good luck, Rock Band maniacs. The songs you have downloaded are not played, it's only the on-disc songs.

Importing songs from Rock Band 1

On the back of your Rock Band manual as well as in game, there is a code you are given to put in on the PSN. This will give you a patch to copy all of your Rock Band songs onto a flash drive/memory stick and be put into Rock Band 2. The cost for the patch way only $5. There are only three songs on the setlist that are not transferred over, because the makers of RB2 do not have the copyrights to those songs anymore. All of your downloaded content will be transferred over free of charge.

Characters

Rock Band 2 includes twenty playable characters known as "Session Musicians". When playing in Solo Quickplay, the game will randomly select a character for the player when playing guitar, bass, or drums. When singing lead vocals, the game randomly selects a male character from the lineup for any songs with male vocals, and a female character from the lineup for any songs with female vocals. The Session Musicians can also be accessed via Band Quickplay, Tug of War, or Score Duel. Unlike Solo Quickplay, the player(s) can select which character they play as. They can also select any of the characters created in the Character Creator. Ten of the playable characters were originally from the first game while the other ten are new for this game. However, these characters do not appear in the PlayStation 2 version, nor are they playable. Much like the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions of the first Rock Band, the PlayStation 2 version contains highly compressed pre-rendered videos featuring bands of animated characters playing specific songs based on the songs' genres.

Session Musicians

Image Name New Character
IMG 1989
American Phil No
IMG 2377
Buzzsaw Yes
Dora Sullivan
Dora Sullivan Yes
IMG 2379
Earl Stephens, Jr. Yes
IMG 1991
Fritzi Kostopoulos Yes
IMG 2394
Grace Williams Yes
IMG 2382
Heather Moonbeam Yes
IMG 1994
Maynard Winter No
IMG 1996
Megan Scott No
IMG 2385
Mekon Gemini Yes
Moosejaw Rockband 2
Moosejaw Boudreau No
IMG 2395
Mothership Q Yes
IMG 2396
Nicky Overdrive Yes
IMG 2098
Ol' Smokey No
IMG 2391
Penelope McQueen No
IMG 1997
Penny Twilight Yes
IMG 2392
Quentin Lance No
IMG 1840
Sharky No
C093BCE0-C99D-4026-B3B8-45A2F04AE19E
Sir Thomas No
IMG 1998
The Duke of Gravity No

Trivia

  • This game has a feature where if your band, or band members have unsuitable words in them the band will temporarily not appear online until you change the bad words.
    • The message that is associated with this issue will state that your band's name is considered "unclassy", even putting that word in quotes.
  • If you have any songs on your console that is not associated with your profile (i.e., DLC converted to work as Rock Band 3 custom) on the quick play screen it will tell you that not all band members own that song.
    • Oddly, this is ignored if these songs are on a console are a part of a challenge, such as the Boston full album challenge, letting you play the songs like normal. Same thing may apply to these songs in story mode when randomly selected (will probably error out if you manually select the song on any custom setlists on the tour mode).
  • Much like the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions of the first Rock Band, Keith Smith and Adam von Buhler from Anarchy Club appear in the PlayStation 2 version of this game for the pre-rendered video of their song Get Clean, featuring Keith on lead vocals and Adam on bass.
  • For unknown reasons, this game was never released in Australia.
  • A silenced version of the solo from the song Shoulder to Plow can be heard in the game's character selection menu. The audio would later be reused for the character selection menu in Lego Rock Band.
  • A silenced instrumental version of the pre-solo section from the song Get Clean can be heard in the song selection and difficulty selection menus.
    • The PlayStation 2 version, however, reuses the silenced and shortened segment from the song Can't Let Go from the first Rock Band.
  • During any gameplay on the drums, the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions reuse the same crash cymbal sound effect heard in the first Rock Band when the player hits the green drum pad for the glowing green crash cymbal note at the end of a freestyle fill.
  • This was the first Rock Band game where any of the pre-made characters have names, but this was only for the 20 playable Session Musicians. On top of that, this is the first Rock Band game to have a list of pre-made characters that the player(s) can choose from.
  • The game reuses the same tutorials as the first Rock Band, but with a few differences.
    • The tutorials use slightly different backgrounds.
    • The Rock Band 2 snare drum and bass drum sound effects replace the Rock Band 1 snare drum and bass drum sound effects in the Beginner drum tutorial and the freestyle fill section in the Intermediate drum tutorial.
    • The guitar and drum tutorials use the Rock Band 2 note tracks.
    • The vocals tutorial uses the song Seven by Vigiant instead of Say It Ain't So and Epic like in the first Rock Band, or any other song from Rock Band or Rock Band 2.
  • Despite none of the PlayStation 2 exclusive characters appearing in the other versions, three of them still appear in pictures in the Rock Band 2 game manual, regardless of which version the manual is for.
  • For unknown reasons, the options to give created characters custom tattoos, make-up, and face paint in the Rock Shop were excluded in the Wii version. Because of this, any of the pre-made characters that have any of these features in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions are seen without them in the Wii version. On top of that, the Wii version also lacks the option to create custom art for clothing, instruments, and band logos, as well as the option to create band quotes.
    • This exclusion on the Wii version is most likely from the console's limitations.
  • From this game onwards (Not including track packs), any excessive notes played after the very last charted note(s) for any song on guitar, bass, or drums will not cause the Score Multiplier to reset, nor will it cause the instrument icon(s) on the Crowd Meter to go down.
  • A few promotional images for this game show some characters using the Standard Microphone and Ludwig drum sets that were in the first Rock Band.
  • This game was originally going to feature a mode called "Jukebox Mode" where the player(s) could simply watch any selected characters perform any selected song, but this feature did not make the final cut for unknown reasons.
  • For unknown reasons, one of the new face types for created female characters called the "Rebel" was not included in the Wii version. As such, the guitar strumming sound effect that plays when the player scrolls through the options is slightly louder in the Wii version when the player scrolls past the two face types featured before and after the Rebel face in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions.
  • In the tour mode, if you are good enough at any difficulty under Expert, you will be given a message saying that you've mastered that difficulty and should go to a higher one for more fans and money.
  • The font between NTSC and PAL regions are different sizes.
    • This might be due to PAL having different screen resolution than on NTSC screens.

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