Innovate, then Perfect.

Preview by Mitchell Saltzman and James Pikover.

It’s not every day you get invited to MTV’s Santa Monica offices to spend some time with Rock Band 2. We got the skinny on everything Harmonix could show off; all of the features that they didn’t get to show at E3.

New Wave

Let’s start with what most people already know and expect from Rock Band 2. The game itself comes with a total of 84 new songs that pull from a wide variety of genres and decades. There’s everything from Metallica to Modest Mouse, Guns and Roses to Elvis Costello, Megadeth to Paramore. The bottom line is that this is one of the strongest and most versatile set lists ever assembled for a music game, and that isn’t even including all of the Rock Band 1 tracks and downloadable content; most of which are compatible with Rock Band 2 (we’ll explain most in a bit). To make things even more impressive, Harmonix is promising that 500 songs will be available in the Rock Band 2 library by the end of 2008. The phrase “something for everybody” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Rock Band 2 has a lot for nearly every possible type of rock music fan.

But it’s not just about the music; it’s what you do with it. New modes of play pulsate further life into the music game, meaning you’ll never get bored. Four in all, each allows up to four players (though some may require less for specific games) to do just about anything they could possibly want while still holding their instrument.

Quickplay, while nothing special in itself, comes with a few new features to make it more appealing. Characters can be chosen in quickplay, so you won’t end up with a punk rocker singing softly or other odd characters. Either select pre-made characters that Harmonix has made (and they know what rockers should look like), or make your own. Don’t worry, picking them is very easy, unlike character selection in Rock Band 1. There’s also the option to make a setlist, so you don’t have to go back through the menu every time you finish a song. Just make a playlist and let the music guide you.

While we quickly peeked at character customization, it’s very similar to that of RB1; simple, to the point, and easy to do. What was more interesting is the music setup. There’s so much Rock Band music available, both for download and on the disc, that it would be awful to scroll through the menu like before. No need to fear, because it’s all done through a quick menu system that sorts based on categories, genre, era, difficulty, and many more. It's almost impossible to not find individual songs with this simple interface.

The World Tour returns, this time getting rid of all those little things that kept you from rockin’ out. No more band leaders, no more ‘everyone must play in the same room’, no more taking five minutes to switch everyone’s characters. Everyone can play together online, with a set of easily changeable pre-made characters, and any band member can play at any time, alone or with any other members. And, of course, there’s a whole new set of venues and challenges to go through, just in case you had your fill of the previous game.

Tour Challenges, the first brand new mode, allows players to choose between various challenges for each instrument and unlock new challenges as they progress. What’s great about this mode is that it’s completely non-linear. If you get stuck on a particular challenge or song, the game doesn’t come to a grinding halt until someone beats it. Go complete other challenges and come back to it later when you feel more confident. In addition, the game will actually make note of what DLC you have and provide new challenges based on the songs that you’ve purchased. Best of all, you can do these challenges with friends, but be warned that not all are for four players.

Also new to Rock Band 2 is the Battle of the Bands mode. Every day Harmonix will update the game with new challenges, each which comes with its own leaderboard. In each challenge you can compete against all of your friends for the highest score and then once you’re the top of your friends list, you actually compete against the top players on the universal leaderboard. During Mitch’s demo he got to play the Steely Dan Challenge that had him play “Bodhisattva” on expert guitar with no fail mode enabled. Fortunately, he didn’t need it since he set the new record on the challenge, beating the previous score by over 20,000 points. Good times.

While that challenge simple in terms of the modifiers involved, Harmonix PR Coordinator John Drake assured us that they have some pretty interesting ideas for the Battle of the Bands. For the hardcore players, try playing through the hardest songs in the game with overdrive disabled. Or an endurance challenge that involves playing through a set of the longest songs in the game without the ability to pause for a break.