Rock Band catch-all

Jayhawker wrote:

Last question. Is it worth getting RB2 now, and exporting all of the songs over? Will the songs be a part of the RB2 tour mode?

Yes, and yes.

RB2 will add the songs to the Tour mode and the new Challenge mode (which is where I spend most of my time).

Also, when I am doing the endings, even if I hit the note on the end, I'm stil not getting credit. I did get credit once, but not again. Is there something else I need to do?

You have to make sure that everyone gets it. If even one of you misses, no one gets credit for it.

Jayhawker wrote:

Last question. Is it worth getting RB2 now, and exporting all of the songs over? Will the songs be a part of the RB2 tour mode?

Yes, the songs will be a part of the RB2 tour mode and challenge mode.

I highly recommend getting RB2. There are only a few things you might be missing in the transition from RB1 to RB2. But what you get in return is a hell of a lot more usability, and of course the ability to port over (almost) all the songs from RB1.

My fiancee misses the straight forward, forced-to-beat-every-song single player mode of RB1. Harmonix argues that that was boring, but she likes the personal achievement from mastering a really difficult and frustrating song. The downside of being forced to play every song is that sometimes a song is just plain horrible and not fun to listen to or play. I have encountered at least one of these in each of the first two Guitar Heros, and as soon as I beat each song I vowed to never play them again. The solo modes available in RB2 don't force you to beat every song in order to progress, so you can get around that.

There are only 3 songs that don't transfer from RB1 to RB2 due to licensing issues. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they're Enter Sandman, Run to the Hills, and Paranoid. I believe they are all on the upper end of the difficulty scale.

In terms of usability, think about this: every character you make in RB1 is tied to an instrument. You have your friends over, have them play around with character creator for 5 minutes while everyone watches, and once they're done you all realize that that character is locked into playing that instrument and there's no way around it. Not so in RB2, where every character can play any instrument. It's a small detail, but it really makes me happy to see them take care of that.

In a not so small detail, the "Make a Setlist" interface that you get during World Tour mode is much improved. Like the RB1 counterpart, it lets you sort by a variety of attributes, but it also puts icons next to each song so you can tell if it came from RB1, from RB2, or if it was DLC. And most importantly, it lets you see the difficulty of a song for each instrument. You are going to save yourself so much heartbreak and swearing if you let your family and guests see what they're getting into before you choose the set list.

Also, when I am doing the endings, even if I hit the note on the end, I'm stil not getting credit. I did get credit once, but not again. Is there something else I need to do?

You have to make sure that everyone gets it. If even one of you misses, no one gets credit for it.

The lead singer has to make at least one loud noise, the kind you use to activate the energy meter, during the big rock out ending section. This is their "last note" that they have to hit. If any of the instruments misses their last note, you can tell because it will be grayed out in the icon that pops up, just before it goes "poof".

Overdrive on the guitar can get kicked on by palming the button on the base.

My buddy has problems with his RB1 guitar catching overdrive. It seemed that if you moved the guitar too fast, it wouldn't pick it up. The solution was to perform a slower tilt. Might be worth testing it out on yours.

My Rock Band drums finally broke =(

Anyone know a place that sells RB2 drums and ships to Mexico? ebgames doesn't...

The drum set is available here but it costs 190 dollars and that's just f*cking criminal.

DLC for next week:

We're putting out a sweet Lenny Kravitz 4 Song Pack, including the following songs:

Are You Gonna Go My Way
Freedom Train
Let Love Rule
Mr. Cab Driver

In addition to the Kravitz 4 Pack, we're also putting out two tracks from a pair of fan favorite Harmonix bands.

Megasus - Megasus
Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives - Entangled

All tracks are masters. The Kravitz tracks will be available for $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points) a piece or $6.99 (560 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) for the full 4 song pack pack. The HMX tracks will be $0.99 (80 Microsoft Points) a piece.

You mean I'm going to have to buy DLC two weeks in a row? Darn!

Much to my neighbors' chagrin, Rock Band is the new "playing cards" around my apartment. It really says something about the game's party potential when we find ourselves playing Rock Band almost every weekend, after coming home from the bar. I don't think I've ever had anything, gaming related or not, as effective as Rock Band in a, "what now?", scenario. We get a random cast of characters trailing us home when I mention I've got Rock Band. You'd be amazed at how fast the sun comes up when you've got 3 people wailing out 'Alive' on the microphone.

Now, lets just get some Bruce on here and everything will be right in the world.

skeletonframes wrote:

Now, lets just get some Bruce on here and everything will be right in the world.

Looks like you're going to be stuck with Guitar Hero if you want the Boss' songs. (According to NME) Free, though!

Atras wrote:
skeletonframes wrote:

Now, lets just get some Bruce on here and everything will be right in the world.

Looks like you're going to be stuck with Guitar Hero if you want the Boss' songs. (According to NME) Free, though!

I'm hoping that Harmonix has a press release in store, like they did when Activision announced The Killers pack. So far, the DLC for the last week of January hasn't been discovered, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It certainly makes my blood boil that Guitar Hero is getting those songs, though, believe me. I tried World Tour and could not get into the note tracking on the songs. Do not fail me, Harmonix. Do not fail me.

I'm sure this has already been said somewhere in these pages, but No Fail Mode is the ultimate drunk video game mode. That feature made rock band fun go up exponentially when obliterated. In rock band 1 we used to get too drunk to play and would always end up failing out around 15%. Now there's no such thing as too drunk, I think the last few songs of the night are the best now in comparison because the drummer is just sprawled out in his chair thwomping the drums while staring off into space, the guitarist is hitting 1 in 5 notes but dancing around in some crazy solo in his own little world, and 2 people are holding the singer up, it's glorious. If I loved this game before, I'm not sure what words I can find to describe it now.

casual_alcoholic wrote:

If I loved this game before, I'm not sure what words I can find to describe it now.

I'm sure they would be slurred words, most likely "I love you, man!"

I've been told that when drunk I'm not as good at Rock Band as I think I am.

BadMojo wrote:
casual_alcoholic wrote:

If I loved this game before, I'm not sure what words I can find to describe it now.

I'm sure they would be slurred words, most likely "I love you, man!"

Definitely something along those lines.

casual_alcoholic wrote:

I think the last few songs of the night are the best now in comparison because the drummer is just sprawled out in his chair thwomping the drums while staring off into space, the guitarist is hitting 1 in 5 notes but dancing around in some crazy solo in his own little world, and 2 people are holding the singer up, it's glorious. If I loved this game before, I'm not sure what words I can find to describe it now.

Awesome. It's like Thanksgiving with the family but now with a choreographed soundtrack.

I have now joined you my RockBand 2 playing brethren. Feel free to add me on the 360.

Totally unrelated to the current conversation, but...

I was on a flight from Boston to Nashville for summer NAMM and ended up sitting next to one of the lead producers for Rockband. The company is based in Boston, and we were both on our way to the same music technology conference, so I guess it was less luck and more circumstance.

He's exactly what you'd expect him to be. Covered in tattoos, rings, chains, but really smart and very cool. He had some fun stories about his touring days.

P.S. Will any GWJers be at NAMM next week in Anaheim? I'll be jamming at the Source Audio pretty much all day every day... but I wanna go check in on RockBand and Guitar Hero when I get a break.

TheSleeve wrote:

Totally unrelated to the current conversation, but...

I was on a flight from Boston to Nashville for summer NAMM and ended up sitting next to one of the lead producers for Rockband. The company is based in Boston, and we were both on our way to the same music technology conference, so I guess it was less luck and more circumstance.

He's exactly what you'd expect him to be. Covered in tattoos, rings, chains, but really smart and very cool. He had some fun stories about his touring days.

P.S. Will any GWJers be at NAMM next week in Anaheim? I'll be jamming at the Source Audio pretty much all day every day... but I wanna go check in on RockBand and Guitar Hero when I get a break.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I really love Harmonix, almost all of them are actual musicians and have their own bands. Their lead sound engineer is in Freezepop. A lot of the staff's bands usually make it in as bonus tracks to their games.

IMAGE(http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/01/ottoman.jpg)

Rock Band is just about perfect until you're done playing, look around, and realize your living room is full of Playskool toys and you can't actually play guitar. This ottoman solves one of those problems.

The AK Rock Box Gaming and Storage Ottoman is a pretty standard pleather ottoman that's big enough to house a complete band's worth of Rock Band equipment, but the really neat feature that's not so easily replicated is that an integrated drum lift can raise and lower your drums with a simple one-handed motion.

Priced around $185, the ottoman is available now from Amazon with free shipping. But you could always go the Kiss fan route and pick up an overpriced coffin airbrushed with the antic tongue of Gene Simmons instead. [Amazon via Kotaku]

that's been linked here before, somewhere... looks very familiar.

SommerMatt wrote:

that's been linked here before, somewhere... looks very familiar.

The story on Kotaku is from today. I've never heard of it before now, myself. And while I wouldn't mind having something like that, I don't think I'd pay $200 for one.

AnimeJ wrote:
SommerMatt wrote:

that's been linked here before, somewhere... looks very familiar.

The story on Kotaku is from today. I've never heard of it before now, myself. And while I wouldn't mind having something like that, I don't think I'd pay $200 for one.

That may be, but I know I've seen that exact same picture before months ago.

Thought it was posted here, but it might have been in EGM or GameInformer, I guess.

SommerMatt wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:
SommerMatt wrote:

that's been linked here before, somewhere... looks very familiar.

The story on Kotaku is from today. I've never heard of it before now, myself. And while I wouldn't mind having something like that, I don't think I'd pay $200 for one.

That may be, but I know I've seen that exact same picture before months ago.

Thought it was posted here, but it might have been in EGM or GameInformer, I guess.

I went wedding registry shopping last night and the fiancee added a gaming ottoman on there so she can hide all my controllers and games :). This would be awesome as well, but I'm not willing to shell out $200 for one.

Any carpenter will do that for 50 bucks + materials here...

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Mex wrote:

Oh man Rush is pretty cool, chicks don't seem to like it at all but damn I love it. I never heard them before rock band but they're really good and fun to play in the game.

Those chicks are stupid and you should smack their stupid faces. And don't let Kat hear you say chicks don't like it.

My daughter has what I think is pretty amazing taste in music for just being eleven. She listens to Suzanne Vega and Regina Spektor. She asked me if I had ever heard of The B-52s. And she never wanted anything to with Hannah Montana or Hillary Duff. I introduced her to Oingo Boingo though The Simpsons and a bunch of other Danny Elfman soundtrack stuff.

The next step was Rush, and it was pretty simple. I just put on Closer to the Heart while she was in the other room. Sure enough, she popped in to find out who that was. Then I let her know it was the same band that did Tom Sawyer, that she got hooked on while I was playing APFB. Now she will sing Rush songs with me.

Well, after I let her sing Still Alive, which is one of her all-time favorite songs. Adding that to Rock Band is what got her to sing in the first place. She was too shy, until she found out how fun it was that song. Now she belts out Creep, Maps, and her new favorite, In Bloom.

Your daughter is awesome.

Arise, thread!

I didn't see it posted anywhere else, but a Rock Band 2 title update came through recently (9/25) which provides some nice new functionality, including background downloading in the store and Microsoft Wireless Microphone support. My wife was very glad to finally be able to use an untethered mic tonight.

I'm not sure if it's still the case, but as of a few weeks ago, the Lips game bundled with two wireless microphones was marked down significantly in some retail outlets -- under $20, even.

merphle wrote:

Arise, thread!

I didn't see it posted anywhere else, but a Rock Band 2 title update came through recently (9/25) which provides some nice new functionality, including background downloading in the store and Microsoft Wireless Microphone support. My wife was very glad to finally be able to use an untethered mic tonight.

I'm not sure if it's still the case, but as of a few weeks ago, the Lips game bundled with two wireless microphones was marked down significantly in some retail outlets -- under $20, even.

Hmmmm...I have a wireless microphone still in the package. If I find that Lips bundle somewhere, I'd grab that, and either have three wireless mics, or return the one I paid full price for.

Good looking out.

If anyone wants to play either RB1 or RB2 online, add me to your friends list, my gamertag is estorino. I seem to have misplaced my microphone, so I can only play guitar/bass at the moment, but I plan to have that fixed soon. I'm not very good though, guitar on medium is too easy, but I'm struggling with hard (damn you orange button!). Oh and I am in the central european timezone...

I've looked around and I can't find Danzig's, "Mother" except in GH2 or Smash Hits. Nor Santana's, 'Black Magic Woman' except in GH3. Did I miss any downloads for these songs for RB2 or GH World Tour?-Thanks.

As noted in newest MOJO on-line, 'Queen Rock Band' is on it's way:

http://www.mojo4music.com/blog/2009/...