threevue

Believe it or not, quite a few things happen behind the scenes here at Threevue HQ. For instance, did you know that we spend lots of time procrastinating, napping, and dry-heaving from worry worting? Bet you didn’t. And because we’re so busy, sometimes we let reviews of games slide right through the cracks. Cleaning House is a feature in which we attempt to right the wrongs of our past, and provide you with some quality, half-assed product. Enjoy!

Russ:
I was ready to wait until Rock Band 2 hit the bargain bins before picking it up. Really, the first Rock Band was enough to wet my whistle – the weekly downloadable content didn’t blow me away every week, but what came available was good stuff. In its first year, I was treated to full albums by The Pixies, Foo Fighters and The Cars, while getting some pretty solid packs from the likes of The Police and Oasis, too. My drums worked fine, and I had two fine plastic guitars to tide me over. I knew that there were some slight tweaks but overall it was the same game with a bit of a makeover. But yeah, then I had it in my hands one day while shopping and I said, “ah, what the hell”, and went for it.

What I didn’t realize was how significant all the slight tweaks were. The single-player world tour is much like the multiplayer one found in Rock Band, which brings awesomeness to your TV without having to rely on other people. In other words, you can rock when you want to rock. Being able to create setlists and change instruments on the fly are also welcome additions. There are several new features that I haven’t even tried out yet, like the drum tutorial or the ability to play drums along with songs on your iPod. Ultimately, this means that I still have more adventures to uncover in the weeks, months and years to come. Couple this with the fact that you can play your RB1 songs and DLC means that this game has moved beyond a “game” status and into a “music experience”. Man, just writing about it makes me want to plug it in right now; and that’s saying something.

96/100

Tyler:
Rock Band 2 has gone and accomplished the goal that Rock Band tried to achieve, which was to make a more contemporary and widely appreciated group music game. Guitar Hero has its perks, but all in all it just seems like it’s the first generation of an iterative game. I mean, you could even call the games themselves platforms. I speak best in analogies:

Guitar Hero is to Rock Band as Myspace is to Facebook.

Myspace isn’t really a bad site, it’s just that Facebook came along and did the whole social networking thing better. If Facebook never existed we’d be very happy with our Myspace.

What I’m trying to say here is that Rock Band 2 is my favorite game to play with a room full of friends. The song selection is the best out of any game out there and the constant stream of DLC is giving this game legs longer than Dikembe Mutombo. The main problem I have with the game are the less-than-extraordinary chord progressions of many songs (being that the guitar is the main instrument in the ensemble), and I don’t feel that I “solo like a bastard” as much in RB as GH.

88/100