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Chances are, if you have any sort of social life, you're already familiar with Rock Band. Forget Twister, even Beer Pong or whatever people used to do at parties, Rock Band is the staple of late night get-togethers and themed bar nights. Thankfully, Rock Band 2 is the same game you love while revitalizing the whole band-play aspect of the franchise with expanded online capabilities and finding a happy medium for the casual or hardcore gamer.

Getting the Band Together

The new World Tour mode shines by integrating the single player career mode, meaning even if you have no friends and are the last person on earth to purchase a gold account, or are the sort of anal retentive perfectionist who doesn't trust their friends to 5 star anything (ahem), you can still unlock challenges, venues, staff and accessories by playing through by yourself, although you won't be able to play certain shows on your own. For better socialized players, band co-op can be done locally or online and you can take a welcome respite from marathon super sets around the world with Battle of the Bands mode. Each time you log into this mode you'll find a series of set list challenges that allow your band to compete on the leaderboards against everyone else's band. The custom battles can be judged on score or note streaks and a variety of other specifications.

One of the best features of Rock Band 2 is the balance between hardcore and casual appeal. If Rock Band seemed relatively easy to beat, this one is not. Some songs have a blistering level of difficulty on Expert although tweaks to hammer-ons, pull-offs, and the strum bar makes them far more playable. For all players, a drum tutorial mode is a good introduction to the game's most daunting instrument, however, the need for any other tutorial modes is pretty much eliminated by the "No Fail" mode, which makes you wonder why it took this long to add the feature. Eliminating fail is the perfect way to avoid hating your friend/significant other/roommate as they pound out the opening riff to the easiest song in the game, fail, repeat and fail and repeat again. It's also useful for testing out your abilities on higher difficulties and for when you're playing in a casual (read: party) environment with players of varying skill levels. A simple code unlocks all the tracks for quickplay if your band hasn't completed enough of the World Tour yet.

Let There Be Rock

Rock Band 2 has a killer track list seemingly compiled from every mix tape you were proud of in college. There's a smattering of indie rock like Dinosaur Jr.'s "Feel the Pain", Sonic Youth's "Teenage Riot" and The Replacements' "Alex Chilton" with hits you forgot were so awesome (Smashing Pumpkins' "Today"), the classics like Journey's "Anyway You Want It", Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue", and Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way"  and the songs that, despite all the other great music, your friends will inevitably end up playing over and over and over ad nauseum. Just see how quickly they select Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" and Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger". There are also a few bands that don't seem on par with the rest like System of a Down or Paramore, but somewhere out there, they are someone's guilty pleasure. Harmonix kept the lid on a couple tracks until recently, like AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock", Metallica's "Battery", from back from when Metallica was good, and Guns n' Roses' "Shackler’s Revenge" off the as-of-yet unreleased "Chinese Democracy".  Sadly, if this highlights "Chinese Democracy", then one can only hope Axl Rose will be co-opted into some sort of b-list celebrity reality show that delays the albums release until approximately never.

If the track list doesn't grab your interested yet, Harmonix promises over 500 songs available for download by Holiday 2008 and for a nominal $5 fee you can import every track from Rock Band as well. Now, not all the songs are as fun to play on every instrument, but a helpful box in the song select menu rates each song on its difficulty for each instrument. Yes, guitarists will have to suffer through drum solos, bassists will suffer through guitar solos and vocalists will have lots of time for hand claps, but guess what? That's what happens in real bands!

Band Gear

Rock Band 2 is compatible with Rock Band's guitar and drums, so shelling out a considerable amount of cash for the new peripherals is optional. Of course, everything is wireless now, and Harmonix finally seems to have gotten the guitars spot on, with a sleek design and large start/back buttons with a convenient guard built over "start" to prevent accidental and highly frowned upon mid-song pausing. Depending on how much your neighbors hate you, the quieter drum pads are a quality upgrade and the reinforced bass pedal seems prepared to take a beating. For the scores of people forced to return their Rock Band guitars for repair and worried about how the new ones hold up, head to a local retailer with a store display for Rock Band 2. If you had your friends over every night to play, there is no way you can wreak as much damage on the equipment as several hundred sticky fingered 5 year olds can over the course of a week at Best Buy. Somewhere, there is a mathematical equation that proves that.  

The Final Countdown

Since Rock Band 2 is so completely band-centric, it only makes sense that there are added customization features, and not just for your avatar. You're able to make, in a similar fashion to the tattoo creator, a band logo, add a band quote and assign your band stand-ins, for when your primary band member isn't jamming out. The character creation has been slightly expanded, with new clothing (Thrifty Threads), hair-dos, accessories, piercings, make-up, and everything else you need to look like a rocker even if you can't play like one.

It's hard to be disappointed in Rock Band, and 2 is no exception. The game is accessible to all levels of players with major improvements to online play and a thoughtful track list conceived by a team who obviously knows music. With more tracks on the way and expanded gameplay modes there's enough content to keep your interest for a long time.

Review by: Abbie Heppe