The latest news on the Rock Band 2 front covers the instruments and a few confirmed song tracks. There have been rumors flying around the Internet about the “leaked song tracks” for the next release with absolutely no confirmation. Now, however, we have solid proof on some tracks and some equipment changes.
First, all instruments are backwards compatible. That’s key to the success of Rock Band because fans of the original ponied up a lot of bones to grab themselves the original Rock Band kit. However, there is an incentive to upgrade your equipment in some regards.
If you like the original Rock Band guitar you’re going to love the new one if only for the color updates, wood grain and actual look and feel of a real guitar not a “toy.” As you’d expect (or hope) the new guitar will be wireless, finally, and will have a sturdy strum bar with even quieter buttons. Wireless alone is a great selling point but quiet buttons is important for folks like me who play the guitar like it was a jackhammer and can easily interrupt the drummers concentration during a difficult set.
The drum kit has been improved as well, with a re-enforced foot pedal to avoid the ease of breaking the plastic “toy” version of Rock Band original. As a person who’s busted up their drum petal and forked out cash on eBay for a wood solution, this is more great news. The drum kit will also be wireless which is great for those of you, like myself, who have kids that run through your line of site or dance while you’re playing. Nobody likes their Xbox 360 being flung off the shelve due to tripped cords.
The drum kit will have quieter pads and a velocity sensor; again, your old kit is still usable without these enhancements but the desire to upgrade if you’re a dedicated fan will be high.
The song tracks currently confirmed:
- “Panic Attack” — Dream Theater
- “Chop Suey” — System of a Down
- “Everlong” — Foo Fighters
- “Kids in America” — The Muffs
- “Give it Away” — Red Hot Chili Peppers
- “Ace of Spades” — Motörhead
- “Hello There” — Cheap Trick
- “Pump it Up” — Elvis Costello
- “Anyway You Want It” — Journey
- “Pinball Wizard” — The Who
This is a great indication to where Rock Band 2 is going, mixing up a great selection of artists with classic hits like Anyway You Want It and Pinball Wizard to newer late generation X music like Give it Away and Chop Suey. Talented artists like Dream Theater are sure to keep Rock Band 2 a challenge to all gamers.
Other great improvements being a World Tour mode now accessible online and the removal of the “Band Leader” concept which always locked you into an instrument once you created a band.
NOTE: Xbox 360 will have a timed exclusive on Rock Band 2, arriving later in the year for the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3.
Checkout the full feature set so far explained at Kotaku.
The TD Gaming Podcast and Videogame Roundtable merge, as Jonah Falcon introduces VGRT regular Jordan Lund to his new listeners, as the VGRT Gaming Podcast is born.
Jonah, you can simply skip the iOS and Facebook games 🙂
@NGP to be called the PlayStation Vita: … I liked more the NGP … Now I could be biased, I never saw the ad you guys mentioned.
@PS4 in development .. oops, no it’s not: Now, if we ignore the PSN security issues, I would consider this kind of inconsistencies funny. Now, what if they’d do the same with PSN? I can imagine the dialog:
Q: Is PSN secure?
A1: PSN is air tight secure.
(a few weeks later)
A2: PSN is not that secure.
@Dungeon Empires out of beta: I see this becoming a pretty big game. It blends some sort of ‘Farmville’ and WoW. It’s … nice!
@Dead or Alive 3DS = child porn?
Besides the age of the characters, proper rating would make this easily avoided.
@Call of Duty: Elite announced: good point, Jonah. They didn’t handle the information properly, and that can turn against them, with or without a real reason.
Jordan, the game you mentioned, ‘Eternal Darkness’, I am following a ‘Lets play’ for it.
@QOTW: none, unfortunately. Well, maybe Rage. While id’s games are not the most cinematic ones, I have to admit I liked most of what they released.
I have not listened to this episode yet, but I’m sure it will be good. I’m glad to see that you are keeping it going. Listening to the show since last November and I’m happy that its not going to die.
Hey fellas, glad to see the TD Gaming Podcast is still alive! I’ve been a fan since episode #118. Just a heads-up – the Schommers used to use a program called “Levelator” to even out their audio. I don’t know if you guys do as well, but if not it might help your output.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelator
I’m keeping the Schommer family in my prayers and wishing you all the best as I continue listening faithfully 🙂
Just listened to the podcast, really enjoyed it, but thats what I expected.
About the “Vita”, I’ve been hearing complaints about the naming , but it seems like no matter what they name it, people are still going to complain.
PS4 – I’m glad that they aren’t working on a new console, they need to work on getting the PS3 back to where it was before all the hacking, but again, it seems like no matter what Sony does, people will still complain. They just can’t win.
Bungie – I can’t wait to see this game. Bungie has really only been known for Halo, and I’m very curious to see what they are going to be able to follow it up with. This game will really show what Bungie can do now that they aren’t tied down to one franchise. Also, saw the trailer for Halo 4, seems unnecessary, I thought the trilogy was fine, but 343 seems capable of making a solid Halo without the help of Bungie.
Call of Duty Elite – I am one of the many that watch Call of Duty commentaries on Youtube, and it was clear to see that the majority weren’t happy about the announcement that you will have to pay. That was before it was announced that you would get most features free. Patience certainly isn’t too common in this community. It sucks that that was the way it had to be revealed.
QOTW – I am really excited for Bioshock: Infinite. Have been waiting to see more on it since the first trailer came out. I love this series and to see that they are taking it to the sky makes it seem like the series is being reborn.
@Will, PS4 issue:
It’s more complicated, the ugly way I’m afraid.
The issue with PS3 is that (1) the root key, the one that validates if the DVD is legal or not, was ‘coded’ in the silicon chip, and (2) that key was discovered.
This means that anyone can build custom software (or pirate games) and ‘stamp’ them as legal.
One way to ‘fix’ this is to change the key.
This means that future PS3 have encoded in them the new key, and all games that follow will also use that key. The issue is that the new PS3s won’t be able to play the older PS3 games (different keys), and that the old PS3s cannot play the new games.
The PS3’s root key issue was using a sloppy “security by obscurity” strategy.
The PSN case is strikingly similar: once the hackers discovered the what (old) version of software PSN used, they could then use a list of known security exploits for them.
If you’re wondering where the podcast is, it’s coming soon. We will be adopting a regular schedule once things settle down post-E3.