Guys, Rock Band 2 might not be totally gimped

by Chris Greenhough { Aug 5th 2008 at 10:30PM }

Remember how Rock Band on the Wii landed in stores stripped of the downloadable content and online play seen in other versions? And do you also remember how Harmonix pinned the blame for this on the Wii itself? Well believe it or not, it looks like Harmonix may have found a way to include both in Rock Band 2. Why, it's a goshdarn miracle! Or, y'know, it's Harmonix being completely shown up by Guitar Hero: World Tour and being forced to match Vicarious Visions' efforts.

Wired's Chris Kohler writes how Harmonix representatives at E3 promised him that the Wii edition of Rock Band 2 would be a "much more competitive product" compared to its lame predecessor and "fully featured." Kohler reports that he "understood that this extended to things like downloadable content and online play."

Alright, so it's not exactly a cast-iron confirmation of DLC and online play, but at least Harmonix seems to be putting some effort in this time.

Tags: ea, harmonix, music, rhythm, rock-band, rock-band-2

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

breeze78 @ Aug 5th 2008 10:41PM

Nintendo, love your system but, WE NEED A STORAGE SOLUTION! Please....thank you:>

CalcProgrammer1 @ Aug 5th 2008 11:00PM

We don't even need that, just allow people to use SD cards and USB Mass Storage Devices (both will work with the Wii, all we need is software, I've already used my USB flash drive with Wii Linux, so the hardware is there and functional!) that already exist to store (and LOAD!) VC, Channel, DLC, etc. data. All it would take is a SYSTEM UPDATE. As it's obvious that Nintendo is pushing plenty of updates that DO NOTHING BUT BREAK HOMEBREW, they might find it's a better idea to actually IMPLEMENT FEATURES THAT FANS WANT. Hmm...don't think Nintendo quite gets the message yet. Ah well, until they do get the message, I'm buying World Tour for the 360. Don't get me wrong, I love the Wii and all, but there's no draw towards the Wii version. Everything about the 360 version is better (if nothing else, 20GB hard drive and HD output).

Homebrew is what has kept me using my Wii lately, I've kinda lost interest after getting a 360. I went back and played Twilight Princess (first time I've used it other than the Twilight Hack in like 10 months) just for the fact that I wanted to use the cheat codes to access places I always wanted to see but never could reach.

TheOverlord#2 can has Animals Crossing? @ Aug 6th 2008 1:03AM

Caps Lock FTW!

shadowchaoscontrol @ Aug 6th 2008 7:57AM

@calcprogrammer, u can use an SD card for DLC for GHWT on the wii

Mario Panighetti @ Aug 5th 2008 10:50PM

Sorry Rock Band, I've already pledged allegiance to Guitar Hero World Tour. So far I haven't seen you bringing anything new to the table, whereas World Tour will support my Les Paul and have comprehensive song editing modes. I'm open to whatever possibilities you may have to offer, but your insistence to keep mum on the details isn't inspiring much confidence. You'll simply have to do better than that.

HappyFunBall @ Aug 5th 2008 11:50PM

I agree. Harmonix/EA could have easily made the RB guitars compatible with Guitar Hero, or made the GH guitar compatible with RB, as it just uses wii remote commands (green fret=A button, etc.). But they went the cheap and easy route.

I'm on board with GH:WT.

Mike @ Aug 5th 2008 10:54PM

I'm still buying Guitar Hero World Tour. They made the full-featured promise already; they don't seem to be stringing us Wii owners around.

Ghen @ Aug 5th 2008 11:09PM

track editing seals the deal for me for world tour. The promo video was freaking awesome.

KeegdnaB @ Aug 5th 2008 11:26PM

If I wasn't planning on getting a 360 anyway, I might be happier about this. As it is I'm just gonna get the Xbox version.....at least then I can use the much better RedOctane guitars (I'm not buying another GH, but they do win on axe build quality....the drums remain to be seen)

TheOverlord#2 can has Animals Crossing? @ Aug 6th 2008 1:06AM

Sorry, Harmonix. You won't be any of my money this year.

I would buy RB2(disc-only) if they made the GHWT controllers compatible with the game, but I seriously doubt that would happen.

Kia @ Aug 6th 2008 2:14AM

Call me when they figure out a storage solution. I've got over a gig of Rock Band content on 360, I don't expect it'd take long to acquire the same amount for RB2.

sxp151 @ Aug 6th 2008 4:25AM

I remember when Harmonix was still claiming Rock Band for Wii would get downloadable songs, once they figured out how to do it. Turned out, they never bothered to figure it out.

Yeah, a statement from Rock Band ranks slightly lower than a statement from THAT GUY WHO DOES THE COMMERCIALS FOR OXICLEAN AS LOUDLY AS HE POSSIBLY CAN as far as credibility goes. Thanks, but no, I'm not going to buy your piece-of-crap feature-lacking port.

Not the first time, not the second time. Not ever.

Guess_Who @ Aug 6th 2008 7:10AM

I really wish they hadn't gimped RB1 so much because now all the Wii owners feel ripped off, and it's a shame because it's a great game on 360/PS3, in my opinion much better than Guitar Hero 3. But since RB1 left such a bad taste in Wii owners' mouths, their efforts to make RB2 match the other versions are futile.

Ghen @ Aug 7th 2008 7:31AM

Yes, except the song choice just wasn't as epic as GH3. It wasn't enough rock for me. That's a personal preference though.

J rod @ Aug 6th 2008 7:10AM

The people at Activision/Vicarious Visions seem to care a hell of a lot more about the Wii version of their game then EA/Harmonix does. Rock Band never would have even come to Wii if it wasn't for Guitar Hero 3. So the clear and obvious choice for me is Guitar Hero: World Tour.

I think Wii fans all around the world would almost be stabbing Activision/Vicarious Visions in the back by buying Rock Band 2, since it was them who cared in the first case and continue to care.

DiehlLane @ Aug 6th 2008 7:34AM

What surprises me is the fact no one mentioned a simultaneous launch date across multiple platforms as the reason to get GH:WT over RB2.

If I was planning on buying one of these 2 peripheral-behemoths, I think I'd go with GH:WT just for that fact. Add in the DLC and Online Play and it's a perfect concept.

Oh Harmonix, how you've failed miserably.

Ghen @ Aug 7th 2008 7:32AM

playing against other consoles isn't possible anyway right? so I don't think that would matter.

DiehlLane @ Aug 7th 2008 8:35AM

It's not possible. But having the simultaneous launch means they will be able to fully focus the entire team on updates and DLC rather than only a portion of the team on that while the rest of the team is working on adapting the game to the other consoles.

Taedirk @ Aug 6th 2008 7:52AM

Sorry, you've already lost my trust. Not only were you incapable of implementing DLC and online play, but you put forth a gimped single player mode by flaying the hell out of World Tour mode. I notice there's nothing said about that this time. Plan on giving us the shaft once more? Good luck with that. We'll be over here playing Guitar Hero.

bukizzle715 @ Aug 6th 2008 8:49AM

This really has nothing to do with this current post, but I was reading a lot of earlier posts, and people seem to complain a lot about GH 3's note chart. I'm not a musically inclined person, so maybe I don't understand what everyone is crying about, but GH 3 isn't all THAT hard. Sure there a few songs that are stinkers on expert, but not overly impossible. If someone could tell me with legit basis why RB supposedly has better note charts, that would be awesome.

Guess_Who @ Aug 6th 2008 9:27AM

The 3's & 7's main riff is more hand-cramping on GH3 Expert than it is on actual guitar, for one. Before I Forget is also full of three-button chords that shouldn't be there.

Though personally those are the only major things that stand out to me. Most complaints of overcharting are really just people being whiny about the difficulty. There's also people who complain about them charting instruments other than guitar, which I don't like but which Rock Band does too, though less liberally (my favorite example to point out in GH3 is the Pac-Man sound effects made in to sets of four ascending notes in Through The Fire And Flames). There's also cases where GH3 undercharts things - for instance, My Name Is Jonas's acoustic parts are entirely strummed on real guitar.

tl;dr there are parts in a few songs that are charted really awkwardly and unrealistically but for the most part the overcharting is exaggerated.

sn1per @ Aug 6th 2008 12:49PM

A lot of the songs were over-charted to the point where entire sections are harder in GH3 than they are on a real guitar. They actually had to increase the window of time you are given to hit notes because they made the charts too hard in some songs. I've seen lots of people who only played GH3 completely fail at GH1 or 2, because they actually require your timing to be fairly accurate. And there's way too many hammer-ons and pull-offs, especially in "My Name is Jonas", which, as you can clearly tell just from listening to the recording, doesn't actually have all those hammer-ons when played on a real guitar.

john @ Aug 6th 2008 12:37PM

lol, i didn;t care about the note charts, really who cares, but people that can;t play expert on guitar hero 3 but can play expert on rock band. well maybe some players like a little challenge. i think there just mad because there freinds can beat them in gh3 and they hate loosing. like i'm almost done gh3 on expert on wii but i don't play it 24/7 but yeh. people are just mad because they can't beat the game i think.they probably put 3 notes just to make it harder and there is a reason for it to be there. It's fun and hard so if u can't play it, go in a lower level ya baby's.