Topic: Rock Band 2 To Be 'Much More Competitive' Than The First

[NWR_Neal]

The sequel will have to do a better job including features in its Wii release if it is to avoid the criticisms of the first game.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=16546

 Amidst fears of this holiday's Wii release of Rock Band 2 ending up a stripped-down port like the original, Wired's Chris Kohler has reported that a Harmonix representative reassured him during E3 on that very topic. Kohler says that the Wii version of Rock Band 2 will be a "much more competitive product." Although there was no official confirmation of any specific features, Kohler said "it was understood that this extended to things like downloadable content and online play."    

The June release of the first Rock Band game for the Wii was met with a lot of criticism because, in addition to arriving several months later compared to other versions, it lacked features like character creation and online functionality. It had more in common with the inferior PlayStation 2 version rather than the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions. This fall's Guitar Hero: World Tour is already promising online play and downloadable content on the Wii, and the Wii version of Guitar Hero 3 was a huge hit, appearing in the top 10 sales charts in the USA long after other versions of the game had disappeared. If Rock Band 2 wants to compete in the Wii rhythm game market, it will have to include the features that Kohler talked about.    

Rock Band 2 is scheduled for a fourth quarter 2008 release on Wii.

[Jonnyboy117]

Harmonix said basically the same thing to us at E3, although it was "off the record" at the time.  They used similarly ambiguous terms, but the subtext was that DLC would definitely be supported.  I think the fact that the Wii version is launching last (but still before Christmas) probably indicates they are putting extra effort to get it up to par this time.

[NWR_pap64]

Character customization is also a must. I was honestly they took this out of the Wii version.

[DAaaMan64]

HAHA FAIL ROCK BAND. I want GH to be the game to get for Wii and RB for the other two systems. It'll be funny and good for competition.

[Morari]

I think the fact that the Wii version is launching last (but still before Christmas) probably indicates they are putting extra effort to get it up to par this time.

Yeah... You would have thought that with the first game too. What happened to all of those technical limitations that prevented them from doing everything that Guitar Hero is? Oh, they didn't exist? Shock.

[NWR_Neal]

I hope Harmonix gets their act together with this because I still prefer my music games to made by musicians who are also game developers and not game developed who pretend to be musicians.

Regardless, I have Rock Band for 360. It is one of my favorite games.

[Ian Sane]

Smart move on their part but I already have a Guitar Hero 3 guitar.  So World Tour wins by default unless Rock Band 2 is compatible with the GH guitar.  I'm not going to go to all the trouble to get two sets of fake instruments.  Unless they're compatible, it's one or the other.  I actually was more interested in Rock Band but MTV Games screwed up and Activision didn't.  I'm glad they're fixing the mistakes for Rock Band 2 but Activision earned Wii owners' business.

[Morari]

I hope Harmonix gets their act together with this because I still prefer my music games to made by musicians who are also game developers and not game developed who pretend to be musicians.

Regardless, I have Rock Band for 360. It is one of my favorite games.

Musicians? I don't know if I'd go so far when describing that synthesized Freezepop stuff.

[NWR_Neal]

I hope Harmonix gets their act together with this because I still prefer my music games to made by musicians who are also game developers and not game developed who pretend to be musicians.

Regardless, I have Rock Band for 360. It is one of my favorite games.

Musicians? I don't know if I'd go so far when describing that synthesized Freezepop stuff.

Well, I'd still rather have music games not made by the guys who made Tony Hawk.

[Morari]

The first two Tony Hawk games weren't so bad. Besides, Guitar Hero III seemed fine overall.

[DAaaMan64]

I hope Harmonix gets their act together with this because I still prefer my music games to made by musicians who are also game developers and not game developed who pretend to be musicians.

Regardless, I have Rock Band for 360. It is one of my favorite games.

Musicians? I don't know if I'd go so far when describing that synthesized Freezepop stuff.

Anyone who can right and create music within the bounds of music theory and understand it to an extent is a musician. SYOD follows music theory worse than Freezepop.  So Freezepop = legit music, and it isn't bad music either.

[planetidiot]

Smart move on their part but I already have a Guitar Hero 3 guitar.  So World Tour wins by default unless Rock Band 2 is compatible with the GH guitar.  I'm not going to go to all the trouble to get two sets of fake instruments.  Unless they're compatible, it's one or the other.  I actually was more interested in Rock Band but MTV Games screwed up and Activision didn't.  I'm glad they're fixing the mistakes for Rock Band 2 but Activision earned Wii owners' business.

This.  The first non-xbox console to have RB+GH compatibility will win my money.  Nintendo needs to just force this to happen.  It's bad for Nintendo not to be compatible and it's bad for consumers.

[Morari]

Nintendo would just have to force Harmonix to make their controllers use the Wii remote, as Guitar Hero's does. It's a much better system anyway. Harmonix likes to talk about their "open standards" though, don't they? Yeah... so open that it's last to the party and incompatible with what is already being offered by Red Octane and Nyko!

[DAaaMan64]

Oh come on, don't get Nintendo in on it. They'll **** it up worse.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Oh come on, don't get Nintendo in on it. They'll **** it up worse.

The Guitar hero instruments for Wii are just  modded classic controllers.

[NWR_Neal]

The first two Tony Hawk games weren't so bad. Besides, Guitar Hero III seemed fine overall.

I'm not saying that the early Tony Hawk games are bad but I'd argue about the quality of GHIII. I know people disagree with me but I just vastly prefer Rock Band to GHIII. I don't really like the outrageous and unwarranted difficulty (a lot of the GHIII songs seem overcharted to me) and I prefer the variety of the Rock Band setlist as opposed to the metal-centric GHIII setlist. GHIII just feels like it was a plain old video game while Rock Band actually feels like musical video game.

World Tour seems to be improving a lot of my issues with GHIII so I will probably be getting both games on 360 since the instruments are all compatible.