by Kuriakose Saju
I’m tired of doing the plain, straight-forward review. Especially with a title like Rock Band 2. Everyone knows about this MTV-produced, EA-distributed rival to Guitar Hero where you simulate a rock band.
Instead, I’m gonna take this title and pitch it against Guitar Hero World. Given that the makers of Rock Band 2 and its original were the guys who gave us the first two Guitar Heroes, it should be interesting to see how they’re tackling the two different brands.
It’s drunk-proof: How many times have you found yourself totally rocking out to a track in the original Rock Band, making the crowds go totally wild and then, BAM! You’ve quit the song! With an improved interface, you won’t find yourself trying to smash your fake guitar anymore. GH World Tour, on the other hand, gives you control over the playlist, giving you the option of what song to play during the career mode or whether to play it all. You don’t have to complete every song on the list to proceed.
It’s about visual appeal
Yeah, yeah, it’s supposed to be about the music and all that jazz. But to have fans, you need to look good. Both the titles offer extensive customisation features for your rocker. Hairstyles, tattoos, beards, jackets, helmets… alright, maybe not helmets, but there is a lot of stuff you can tweak and turn so as to ensure your rocker looks like one. Where does Rock Band 2 gain the advantage. ‘Coz they thought of merchandising. You can download posters and design tees and hats based on your band!
“I’m a musician too”
Harmonix has said that if you want to make music, it should be the real thing with the full band experience. This is probably where Guitar Hero World Tour takes the lead again. World Tour allows you to create your own tracks and upload them on to the web. Who knows, maybe that upcoming Kazakh virtual band might want to jam on it!
“It’s not a band if it’s only one person!”
While Rock Band makers have streamlined their controloers. The drums now have quieter steel pads and a sturdier steel pedal, the guitar looks a lot more authentic with a better strum bar and a switch to auto-calibrate itself for your TV and a mic that is meant to actually judge you on your singing and not just screaming the words at the right time. We can vouch for the other two but the mic… we’re waiting for more reports to confirm if it’s just us and we’re actually really good singers! Guitar Hero ventures into an entire band mode for the first time on World Tour, so even they’ve got a drum set and mic to boast of. But given Rock Hero’s experience in the field, we’re going to go with them on this one.
A longer playlist
With 80 songs and the original Rock Band tracks to start with, over 500 tracks should be available for download by 2009. Let’s do the math. If one song is an average length of 3 minutes and there are over 600 tracks, that’s about 30 hours of music that you can rock out to! World Tour offers over 89 songs bundled with the disc and promises constantly updating their online libraries. If they stick to that promise, then there’s gonna be stiff competition for Rock Band 2.
Battle of the Bands
Now this is one mode both sides have come to a consensus on. If you can’t pit your band against other bands then how are you supposed to know if you’re any good? You’ll be able to take your band to the next level and compete online versus other virtual rockers across the globe. There also be a World Tour mode which, by the way, can be played in both in Singleplayer and Multiplayer mode on Rock Band 2 (The single-player World Tour mode is a new addition!). Imagine the number of countries you can totally rock out, albeit virtually.
So, the million-dollar question now is who wins the rock-off? Well, personally, we feel that both games are really awesome and can offer the player (hopefully, that’ll be in plural… it’s a lot more fun that way) hours and hours of unparalleled musical satisfaction. If we had it our way, we’d be writing to the UN to setting up a Videogame Developers Fund, so that more people can invest in good ideas without having to worry about which game is better. Just like what they did with burgers and fries. It ain’t just McDonalds, is it? We have Wimpy’s, Hardees, KFC, Wendy’s… and they all serve the same thing, right? ICICI, you interested?
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