Not a Review: Eight Things I Love About Rock Band 2

I loved Rock Band, but it was far from perfect. Rock Band 2, on the other hand? Pretty flippin' close. Here are eight reasons why Rock Band 2 rocks my socks off:

1. Insane Song Selection
The math alone is astounding. 84 tracks on the disc + the 55 tracks exported from my Rock Band 1 disc + the pile of tracks I downloaded for RB1 = A WHOLE SHITLOAD OF MUSIC. What's even better is that most of it is legitimately great (or at least fun) music. With 20 more FREE downloadable tracks coming before the end of the year (not to mention the non-free downloads like No Doubt's Greatest Hits!!!) things are gonna get even crazier.

2. No Fail Mode
I've thrown my fair share of Rock Band parties, and way too often I've seen timid first time players cause the band to fail a song and never pick up the controller again. Letting people down is some serious negative reinforcement, and the new "No Fail Mode" removes that completely, letting first timers completely bungle a song while they learn without disappointing anyone.

Six more great reasons to love this game after the jump, including full lyrics for a song readers of this blog might particularly enjoy...

3. Fixed World Tour Mode
The World Tour mode in Rock Band 1 had some serious problems. The most immediately apparent was that the beginning of the tour had you playing the same songs over and over again to progress--my first sit down with the game had me and my pals playing Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" six times. Great song, but c'mon. This is no doubt helped by the fact that downloaded songs and Rock Band 1 songs are integrated into the Tour, so it has much more to pull from. Also, the need to have a "band leader" (a character who is required to be present to play with the band) was a frustrating restriction that has thankfully been removed.

4. Characters Can Play Any Instrument
If you fire up my copy of RB1 right now, you'll see three Albos--singer Albo, drummer Albo and guitar/bass Albo. How stupid is that? RB2 now lets players create a character once and use him/her to play any instrument in the game. Hallelujah!

5. Drum Trainer
Getting taught basic rhythms and fills and then practicing those without guidance in the freestyle mode is incredibly satisfying.

6. Instrument Difficulties Displayed On Screen
I maintained a printed out "cheat sheet" for Rock Band 1 that listed every song along with its difficulty on every instrument. Now I'll never have to flip through the thing again, as that info is displayed right on the song selection screen. It's very useful info for first time players who are looking for something easy, or for long time players that are trying to decide what difficulty setting they should choose.

7. Vocal Scoring Is Much More Forgiving
It never really bothered me because I rarely go above "Medium" on vocals, but I've seen people sing really well on hard and expert and get trashed by RB1's pitch detector. The sequel is much more forgiving. Actually, they might've even gone too far in the other direction, as I've been getting five stars on songs I really shouldn't be, and I watched a friend of mine get 100% on "So What'cha Want" by just mumbling.

8. Speck's "Conventional Lover"
I found myself singing this in World Tour mode without ever having heard it before, and losing big points because I was cracking up at the lyrics. You're reading a site called "Geekanerd," so I'm sure you can appreciate this:

Who left you hanging on that peg all alone
You look near mint to me babe and I wanna make you my own
I wanna be your captain, my Pon Farr is a-risin’
So step on over here girl, my love is enterprisin'

Let me be your conventional lover
Let me show you some conventional love
I don't mean to boast, I don't mean to brag (ooh love long and prosper)
But I'm a man whose only issues all come in mylar bags

Let me be your conventional lover
Let me give you my conventional love
I'll give you my heart, I'll treat you nice (ooh love long and prosper)
And the games that I play only have twenty-sided dice
They're polyhedral!

Let's hit the dealer's room and you something fine
That collectors bust of Cthulhu reminds me of how you blow my mind
Now let me take you dancing in my best Starfleet dress uniform
You'll want to tap my mana once you’ve seen me perform

REPEAT CHORUS

Uh oh... SAVING THROW!

And when we get to mating, I'll always treat you kind
I'll never bend you too far back or ever crease your spine
But there's one thing I won't promise, there's one thing I won't do
Can't leave you in the box babe, this collector is coming through

Let me be your conventional lover
Let me give you my conventional love
I'll give you my heart, I'll treat you fine
And I'll make sweet love to you while we're watching Deep Space Nine

Hell yeah.