Title: Rock Band 2
Platform: Xbox 360 (review platform), PS3, Wii
Publisher: MTV Games
Developer: Harmonix
ESRB Rating: T for Teen

For many fans of the series, Rock Band 2 is a foregone conclusion. It isn't a question of if they should get it, it's only a matter of when. Like me, these fans probably graduated from the Guitar Hero training academy, having played through three Guitar Hero games but then falling helplessly into a musical wonderland that included drums and singing when Rock Band was released. The first Rock Band was a fantastic game but not without its flaws. For the release of Rock Band 2, developer Harmonix listened to fan feedback and addressed some of the annoyances of the previous title while keeping much of the game identical. Rock Band 2 is more of a compliment to the experience that the original Rock Band offers than it is a huge stride forward. And that's just fine.

The first task for the Guitar Hero games (and even the first Rock Band) was to get all the songs unlocked. Some would say, "Playing through the set lists IS the game," but I choose to see it as a chore. I count myself among those who feel that these games can only begin once the songs are all available. Depending on how you look at it, unlocking songs in Rock Band 2 is both a chore and a large part of the game. There isn't a direct path through the song list that presents four or five songs to beat in order to open up the next set resulting in a single pass through each song until they are all available. Instead, Rock Band 2 uses the Tour mode and the Tour Challenges to unlock songs.

If linear progression is more to your liking, then the Tour Challenge is the way to go. Each challenge is made up of a list of songs -- anywhere from three songs to nine or more -- that fit together with a theme of some kind (from the same time period, highlighting an instrument, by the same band, etc.). Some of the challenges require more than one person to play in the band or the use of a specific instrument but you aren't forced to complete every challenge before moving forward. Completing challenges unlocks more challenges of escalating difficulty and each song that's played gets unlocked. This may be the faster way to get all 84 songs opened up, but the game does not lead you through that path. You'll either have to complete each one systematically or search through the challenges for the songs that aren't yet available in Quick Play.

Rock Band 2's Tour interface is identical to the first game's.

The other option is to unlock songs through progression in the Tour mode, which is the meat of the game. The tour is structurally the same as the Band World Tour from the first Rock Band -- moving from venue to venue playing shows, collecting fans and winning money in order to open up bigger venues and more songs -- with some distinct improvements. The first and most important is that the Tour can be played solo, with local players and with players online. There is no differentiation between a local tour and an online tour, and you're never required to have certain members in the band. Players can create a band and move members in and out freely, even pulling in people from the friends list or strangers from Xbox Live seamlessly.

In order to create a chart-topping band and launch a world-spanning tour, you'll first need to create your musician. The character creation is carried over directly from Rock Band with a few new choices, but now the characters can play any instrument. This not only saves players from having to create a character for each instrument but it makes switching instruments that much smoother. Like the bands, the character can play in the local tour, the tour challenges and online in other bands.

As the band becomes more popular, they'll eventually be able to hire staff to bring in more money, increase the fan base or get the band booked into out-of-reach venues. Each staff member has a specialty and only one staff member can be enabled at a time. Adding the staff component to the tour was a nice attempt at a metagame but the descriptions for each member are sometimes too vague. For instance, both the Street Team and the Stylist will increase the number of fans gained per show but which one does it better? I assume that the Stylist brings in more fans because he's unlocked later in the game. Maybe it's the RPG nerd in me but stats for the staff members would have been nice -- "+10 to fans" is better than "+5 to fans." A quantifiable figure would also help when considering staff members that can do things like bring in more money at the cost of fans (+10 to money, -10 to fans).

If there is an underlying strategy element to managing the staff I didn't notice it. If I wanted more fans, I picked the most recent member that increased the fan base and did likewise for more money. Obviously, the staff members who unlock venues in their respective geographies are simple enough to take advantage of but the tour never relied on a careful juggling act with the staff. Perhaps that's for the best in order to keep the game about playing the songs, but if you're going to scratch the surface of a strategy metagame, why not gouge it? Include the ability to hire multiple staff members who can improve certain facets of the tour while acting as a drain on others and let me manage them like resources in an RTS. It's just wishful thinking but the staff part of the tour could have been deeper.

NEXT PAGE: Song List and Improvements for Partying

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