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.
Recorded on 16th – that’s before posting the comment on ‘Computer specs’. Still not the happiest Jonah.
@Mass Effect 3 is Origin-only
It’s a pretty aggressive move to push for Origin. I’m sure they will have higher revenues if they would sell on both Steam and Origin.
I think that it will take a bit until every Steam user will have an Origin account, so, at least on short term, I see EA taking a bit of a hit.
Paul, I liked your point on this one.
@EA passed $1B in digital sales in 2011
I also have an opinion that a good chunk came from Steam. Because yes, EA also sold games on Steam in 2011.
Jordan, I like game boxes as well. And Paul, I also loaded games on a Z80 computer from an audio cassette.
Jonah, the games online cost (at launch at least) exactly as much as the ones from the retail store. Why is that? If I’m to pay the same price, I’d rather get the boxed copy, thank you very much.
@Gaikai: Sony or Microsoft won’t have next-gen console
MSFT has it a bit easy: stick to the PC-like hardware, that evolved from XBox360 until now.
As for Sony, don’t know, don’t care.
🙂 Jonah, loved your input 🙂
@SOPA:
Not touching it, it has been discussed to death. Every person who listens to podcasts is aware about SOPA.
@Thief 4 rumored to have multiplayer
All engines do light calculations on all entities now, in order to have a realistic rendering. As long as there is a way to access the results of that computation, any engine should do ok.
@QOTW:
I would say that my first MP game I played was “Battle City” (called “Tanks 1990” on the NES clone we had). A lot of other games followed, like Chip & Dales Rescue Rangers 1 & 2, Monster In My Pocket and a bunch of others.
Favorite game? Man … dunno … maybe Medal of Honor – Allied Assault, close to it would be AvP2. That doesn’t rule out Battle City or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Tournament Fighters. Too tough to pick one favorite.
@Mass Effect 3 as Origin exclusive
I think EA move to get its games as Origin exclusives (for digital distribution) will be a mistake on the long run. Steam already has a huge player base, and some players like me are not willing to have their games scattered in different accounts of different distributors.
PS: I also think that digital versions of games should be a bit cheaper than the boxed retail versions. Some MMO’s did this in the past, where you could buy a boxed version for a few more $$.
@SOPA I’ve already said my piece on it, but it was really interesting to see the blackout on some sites. Webupd8.org for instance, had a huge part of the words in its texts censored when the user visited the website for the first time during the day.
@QOTW:
First game of multiplayer was probably Kings of the Beach for the pc, or maybe some spectrum game before that. But the first that really made me love multiplayer was Quake2, which was also my first multiplayer online experience.
After that I was amazed with the MMORPG experience, firstly with Project Entropia, as I’ve never seen such a complex universe before, and after that I tried a few MMORPGs . Nowadays I tend to prefer the massive online games to normal games with multiplayer, although I would have loved Skyrim to come with Coop.
By the drill, Paul, I don’t mean instant hate mail. It just means that I will just like the podcast 50% less.
@Bioware confirms Mass Effect 3 is Origin-only: Why? I pre-ordered Mass Effect 3 on PC, but I really hate Origin. Oh well, I’ll have to live with it, but I really hope that the online multiplayer won’t be too bad with Origin.
@Electronic Arts passed $1B in digital sales in 2011: I’ve already said that I like my games in boxes, for the very same reasons you mentioned. And also, I’m paying extra for the box, CD and display? Bullshit! Deus Ex: Human Revolution pre-ordered was €34.45 from my online retailer. 5 months later, it is still €50 on Steam and only €16 from my online retailer. That’s €34 less for getting the game in the box. Digital distribution? No thanks.
@Gaikai: Sony or Microsoft won’t have next-gen console: And they are guessing once again. Also, I think that it’s a little bit too early for cloud gaming to catch on and appeal to the masses.
@“What was the first multiplayer gaming you ever enjoyed?”: I would have to say Heli Attack 3 on Miniclip. It technically isn’t a multiplayer, but my brother would shoot using the mouse and I would jump around the bullets. My computer was pretty crap back then and we had no consoles so flash games were pretty much all that I played.
@mass eff 3: in order to play the single player game is required a constant flow of an eletric courrent trough your computer or console. lol
The Battlelog is actually a good and innovative idea, the bad idea is Origin that requires a relativelly high portion of the PC’s processing power that could be used to help me run BF3 in high specs. That is what i like in Paul: he votes with his wallet, and stand for his principles no matter what. Damn you steam for not having BF3 and ME3 T.T.
What is wrong with CD’s? I still have my total annihilation in 2 epic CD-rom’s. INSTALLING THEM NAO
Dear Jordan, in 94, Brasil was already blessed with the NES and the Super NES.
@sony or microsoft no moar console:no comments. is a stupid rumor that will not come true, since both companies are rock solid on the console battleground and will not give up
@QOTW
1st enjoyed mp game: Counter-Strike… millions of hours wasted… WORTH IT