Surprise! Rock Band 2 announced

Oh, and also: Guitar Hero, go fuck yourself!

This cant be official, HMX only leaks official news. Im going to go over here and look for clues to see who made up this official announcement.

Seriously though (w0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000t!)

HELL YES!!! indeed. That's exactly what I wanted from them.

I have to say that is rather brilliant, that way the consumer doesn't get screwed over. And yes Guitar hero dropped the ball .

I’d just like to call out “Rock Band Fanboys” for a second on Joystiq in general. It’s just really annoying after awhile, every time I read a comments from a Guitar Hero or Rock Band article, the same remarks show up every time regardless of what information is being shared. Seriously, the story could be “Rock Band Kills 2 children” and the some would say its Guitar Hero’s fault. I own both games and they are both fine. Rock Band has the whole band going and DLC, but game is sort of pointless after awhile. DLC is great, but if I have to blow 10 bucks every 2 weeks or so to keep the game interesting to me, then I rather not play. Guitar Hero is a little more focused and has more long term challenge and is better from a single player perspective but can’t compare on the other fronts.

The point here is, dude what are you all excited for? I read this entire article and there is nothing of note. You already knew Rock Band 2 was in existence. What else, the game will support DLC? I don’t know, where you really expecting the contrary? The game looks that exact same and every detail given was incredibly vague. I contrast, a week a ago there was a very detailed filled and rather interesting sounding GH:WT preview, and people just read the title and said it sucks.

@tooprime

"The point here is, dude what are you all excited for?
...
What else, the game will support DLC?"

The article says that existing DLC will be compatible with RB2. That is the big deal regarding DLC. For your consideration, it has been confirmed that GH3 DLC will not work with GH4, seeing as how new charts would need to be added and all. This means you and your friends don't have to switch discs and sit through more startup screens to play your old RB favorites.

Our worst fears are quelled.

"if I have to blow 10 bucks every 2 weeks or so to keep the game interesting to me"

I stopped reading your complaint after this.

WTF? You don't "have" to buy anything, but I sure appreciate the option to do so every week (GH fails here). You're dumping on the very feature that has led to RB's success? I finished GH3 and it's been on the shelf ever since. RB has offered 4 ways to play a song, weekly DLC, no mandatory 3-packs and no Guitar Hero has without shame copied everything in an attempt to stay relevant.

I understand, I just thought that was something obvious. Harmonix is a very progressive company and it was just something I expected them to do. I was kind of hoping they would find a way to integrate DLC into World Tour mode in RB1, that said what I am really interested in is if RB1+2 DLC will work with games on future consoles and if so will they work cross platform. Like I have an Xbox 360, but let’s say the next Xbox sucks, so I get a PS4. When I get Rock Band, err… I dunno 5, will I still get the DCL I bought on my 360?

JJ, let me put it this way, after playing Rock Band for a 2 weeks, several things happened that dampened my long term experience with the game. First, I learned to hate the set list. The world tour mode makes you play the same songs over and over, and you can’t pick what song you want to play in ranked matches, so basically I listen to that Foo Fighters song about 40 more times that I would have liked, so it got to the point where the only songs I liked were DLC. When I stopped buying DLC I stopped playing the game.

In regard to your other points, I wasn’t dumping on DLC, I was illustrating the intrinsic fun of the package largely rest on DLC. I’m saying the package gets old quick without new songs. Maybe it’s because I don’t like the gameplay like other people. I don’t like drums, I can understand why others do but I can’t stand them, singing is fun but lacks depth, the guitar charts are boring and don’t get me started on the bass tracks. I understand why people can get board with Guitar Hero, I think the fun lies more in the challenge of the game, rather than the song list, that why I don’t care about the lack luster DLC.

This is /also/ good because we don't end up with a hundred million fucking plastic instruments polluting our landfills. It's not just the fact that this is undeniably bad for the environment, but what will the next species think of us if the only remnants of our civilization they find are plastic instruments which make muffled clicking noises?!

Nice to see Harmonix gets it. As for Rock Band... this is getting out of hand. It's worse than the AOL CDs.

Mr. Picklesworth

You can use previous Guitar Hero instruments with GH:WT, and you can use previous Rock Band instruments with Rock Band 2

How is this a win in Harmonix's favor? I seem like something everyone is doing to.

And don't give me the whole "Harmonix cares about it's consumers." argument. They had EVERY FUCKING CHANCE to make the glorified classic controller aka Wii Les Paul work with Wii Rock Band. Sure, things may be different on the PS3, but they fucked us over big time by doing that.

Not bloody likely. From the article:

"We've been working hard with Microsoft and Sony to develop a way to share content between games, and we're really happy that we'll be the first game to support fully functional cross-title DLC."

With GH:WT coming out before Rock Band 2 (and Activision not giving a fuck), you aren't going to see any cross-title support for GH3 DLC.

Was? Rock Band still features heavily in my personal rotation.

Read the article.

Besides Online World Tour is fucking worth it. They also said they'll have new modes, but wouldn't say what they would be.

I'd guess you're right, Mixaboy. They need something to keep it in the public eye and in weekly sales papers.

I wonder if they're going to add more drumpads on the new drumset, though. Like, maybe you can use the old set, but not on expert mode or something.

Would be cool with me if they offered it as a patch or something in addition to the new retail box.

I'm still gonna buy it, though!

You are absolutely right. Especially if you consider the fact that Harmonix originally said that they weren't going to make a RB sequel anytime soon and would treat it more as a separate console by giving consistent DLC to consumers....

Has everyone already forgotten about that?!?!?

Granted, they did say RB was a platform and claimed that they did not intend on creating sequels anytime soon, but they have to do something to compete with the GH franchise pushing out SKUs like a welfare mother.

I imagine they do alright with DLC, but not as well as they would do with a retail released sequel. Besides, by supporting the old peripherals and DLC they are doing a major service to their fans. Now if RB2 DLC were compatible with RB that would really be something, but that would ruin some incentive to purchase RB2, so I don't see that happening.

I should've read the whole interview before I made my post. From Teasdale himself:

"As far as Harmonix is concerned, there's no difference between 'Rock Band 1 DLC' and 'Rock Band 2 DLC' – we're just releasing awesome songs every week onto the Rock Band platform, all of which are playable by the Rock Band titles that support DLC."

So those of you upset about the whole "RB as a platform" thing seem to have nothing to worry about. RB2 DLC will be playable on RB. I guess that means no rhythm guitar, but hopefully I'm wrong.

I don't think they are introducing anything... other than many songs as a new game. I would call this a song pack, like the ones coming for the Wii.

I think they just wanna distract a little for Konami's game and Guitar Hero.

HMX is usually pretty good with community suggestion. If you read the article in full, they touch on a lot of the suggestions made at rockband.com/forums and other places. While it's not re inventing the wheel, can you really consider GH2 a new game? None the less is was considered the best follow up release.

But I guess will find out more at E3.

well if they are going to put out a RB2 with new songs, i just want to be able to play those songs plus the ones from RB1 all together without having to stop and swap anything. i want to go from a rb2 song to a rb1 and back again. i dont want to never play the rb 1 songs ever again because it has some great music.

The 360 version is coming out before the PS3 one.

I suppose that's why... or they didn't feel like it.

Anyway who the fuck cares? Is it that big of a deal?

CAUSE TEH 360>PS3!!!!!!?!!?!?!?!!!!



I am so sorry.

Certainly not, I just think it's absolutely ugly.

Are there laws against editing advertising materials?

Dude, shut up...

RB2 was announced...but for the 360 as a timed exclusive, so now you see why it is the only one shown?....

Moorio's on a roll...lol.

Yes exactly, I dont want to play a bunch of RB2 and then have to change discs because I want to play When You Were Young on RB1.

You actually want to play "When you were young"?

that would be so awesome!

i insanely made a top 50 list of my favourite songs about a year ago and while it's horribly out of date now (and was a week after i made it) While My Guitar Gently Weeps is likely still my number one!

I don't think there is going to be a PS2 version. I'm sorry.

I think you may see a Wii Version, but only because it's in 15 million homes.

And the PlayStation 2 isn't in 127 Million Homes?

Why would they waste their time putting out a full game for the Wii when they can just release a half-assed port and sell 5 million copies to soccer moms and frat guys that have no idea it's gimped?

Because it takes more time to gimp it than port the full version.