Rock Band

[Fitzy]

Cool new addition to Rock Band 2 is drum solos. See for yourself here:

[King Ellis]

Today we have a free song in the form of Charlene by Stephen and the Colberts. It is nice for his musical talent to finally get some appreciation. Everyone goes ape poopy over his political comedy but his intial forays into the music world were far superior.

[Marsh]

Awesome, cheers Ellis. Free stuff is great, but it always lures me in and before I knew it I had bought Heroes (David Bowie), Time Is Running Out (Papa Roach), Summertime Blues (The Who), and Who's Going Home With You Tonight? (Trapt).

Not that I'm complaining.

[ragbag]

DLC for 9/16

Wake Up Dead

The Conjuring

Devil’s Island

Good Mourning / Black Friday

Bad Omen

I Ain’t Superstitious

My Last Words

Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying? will be available for $10.99 (880 Microsoft Points) for the album, or $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points) per track.

In addition we will also be putting out a Rock Band Tour 4-pack from bands on our Rock Band Tour kicking off in October.

“One of Those Nights” by the Cab

“Hands Down” by Dashboard Confessional-

“She’s a Handsome Woman” by Panic! At the Disco

“Natural Disaster” by Plain White T’s

All tracks in the Rock Band Tour Pack are $.99 (80 Microsoft Points) or $3.99 (320 Microsoft Points) for a limited time (October 14 on Xbox and October 16 on PS3) when they return to $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points) per track or $6.99 (560 Microsoft Points) for the full pack.

All tracks are original masters on both packs.

DLC comes out on Xbox 360 on Tuesday, September 16th and on PS3 on Thursday, September 18th.

[EddieRuckus]

Oh man...definitely getting Peace Sells, and depending on listening to 2 of the songs in the pack, might be getting those as well. Since I'm getting Rock Band 2 and then also either the 4000 point card or two 1600 point cards, my pocketbook will be hurting. Will be worth it though.

Also, hope you don't mind if I added you ragbag, we should play sometime once we both get through the guitar/bass tours.

[Marsh]

Grr.

I'm one song away from completing the guitar solo tour on Hard. Flirtin' With Disaster by Molly Hatchet is a total bitch. I cannot do that last solo, which makes me crash out every time.

This is so frustrating because it is the last song. If there were still loads of songs to do I would happily concede defeat and admit that Hard is beyond me, but it's just this song [one small part of this song] causing me problems. It makes me want to Jeff Jarrett someone.

[JairusCain]

Hey at least you can get that far on Hard... I've beaten only the first two songs on Hard on Solo Tour. I TRIED to quickplay the one song with the two nearly 2 minute solos (the last song on Solo Tour on Medium) on Hard... no luck. Didn't even make it to the first solo.

[NobBe Nobbs]

I'm currently rooted to the final tier on Expert, with just Green Grass and High Tides, Highway Star and Flirtin' With Disaster standing between me and victory.

[-A-]

They've made it easier to gold star songs, haven't they? It's probably a good thing, there were songs that I 100% hit but didn't gold star because I used star power at the wrong point. There's not really much point having an insanely high gold star standard when it's exactly the same as 100%ing the song.

[-A-]

MTV Games and Spike TV are teaming up to bring you "30 Minutes To Midnight: Spike's Countdown to Rock Band 2." Hosted by Geoff Keighley of Game Trailers TV and emanating in New York City, at 11:30 PM, ET/PT.

Keighley will be joined by the 3 top bands on the Xbox 360 Rock Band leaderboard, as well as Rock Band players with serious skills -- including one that can play all four Rock Band instruments at once. Featured artists on Rock Band 2 including Judas Priest, Cheap Trick and Disturbed join the celebration and ask bands to show off their video game musical talents in the various "Rock Band Challenges," such as playing through a song completely from memory with no notes on screen. We'll see who the best of the best truly is.

In addition, 30 Minutes To Midnight will exclusively reveal news on the first Rock Band 2 downloadable album content when Keighley travels to Harmonix in Boston to meet with the creators of the ultimate music game.

Surely the human body doesn't have enough appendages?

EDIT:

Quote from the IGN review of RB2:

Lastly, there is a Drum Trainer, which can help you become a better drummer. It puts you through a series of common drum patterns and works well enough. The Trainer also includes a free play mode, where you can beat the drums without a track. And you can import any music on your hard drive so you can bash along to it.

That's fantastic, hadn't heard about this until now.

Edited September 13, 2008 by -A-

[NobBe Nobbs]

OK, I could see one guitar, vocals and drums by doing what the drummer from Def Leppard did (sort of), but both bass and lead? HOW?

[EddieRuckus]

My guess would be some sort of jerry-rigged setup where they were able to put both of the frets pretty close to each other, using one hand to finger both guitars and strum. Then again, that's just fucking insane.

[lanky316]

Finally gone on a download spree now it's PS3 and not giving my sponging brother freebies. Trouble is, half of them just stick on the loading screen. I've noticed they don't preview either. Anyone had this and know how to resolve?

Oh and I have redownloaded them...

[JairusCain]

So I'm curious. Is there any way to suggest future downloadable songs to Harmonix and co? They've so far released ONE Killswitch Engage song, and frankly, I would LOVE to be able to play "Fixation on the Darkness", "My Last Serenade" and "The End of Heartache". I also want to see "Misery Business" by Paramore on there and several others. I really think they should have a forum or SOMETHING where fans can request songs and hope to God they get released.

[EddieRuckus]

They do at the forums, I'm not sure where you request exactly but I'm believe there's a huge pinned topic dedicated to it. And I agree on both counts, definitely needs more Paramore and Killswitch.

EDIT: Forgot to link to the forums, here you go.

Official Rock Band Forums

Edited September 14, 2008 by Eddie Ruckus

[JairusCain]

They do at the forums, I'm not sure where you request exactly but I'm believe there's a huge pinned topic dedicated to it. And I agree on both counts, definitely needs more Paramore and Killswitch.

EDIT: Forgot to link to the forums, here you go.

Official Rock Band Forums

Thank you. Hopefully we'll see some older Killswitch soon and some other things. I'm thinking maybe some Five Finger Death Punch maybe? Underoath? Senses Fail? Mushroomhead? The game needs more freakin METAL

Hell, why isn't there an option to upload your own music? Lol. I know I've seen videos from Guitar Hero somewhere where people had put their own music on the game...

Edited September 14, 2008 by JairusCain

[Cactus Drags]

I think it's the gutteral screaming that keeps many metal tracks from getting onto Rock Band.

[JairusCain]

Eh, there are plenty of songs though that don't have a whole lot of screaming. "Fixation on the Darkness" doesn't have TOO much, plus, it's easy as hell to still get around those parts on vocals because you don't have to hit a note, just a rhythm. The majority of Mushroomhead is singing and you can get away with doing Waylon and JMann's parts just by doing what I already mentioned for Killswitch.

Underoath on the other hand, a lot of their newer stuff is MOSTLY screaming so that MIGHT not work out too well. But there are quite a few Senses Fail songs that could make it on the game, as well as some Five Finger Death Punch.

[Fitzy]

I was watching the Countdown to Rock Band 2 last night and they introduced a new feature in the game. I don't recall ever reading about it, so I assume it was the first time mentioned. It is called Performance Mode when you try your best to play along with the song with no note chart at all. Should be fun to give it a try when I play in a little bit.

[NobBe Nobbs]

Old news, Performance Mode has been around since GH2.