Rock Band Song Pack 2
Dallas Themshirts
Rock Band is a 2007 music video game developed by Harmonix and distributed by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. The game is available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and Wii game consoles. Rock Band is based on Harmonix's previous success with the Guitar Hero series of video games in which players used a guitar-shaped controller to simulate playing rock music. Rock Band expands on the concept by adding a drum and microphone peripheral, allowing up to four players to participate in the game, playing lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals. The gameplay in Rock Band is comparable to that in Guitar Hero along with elements from Harmonix' Karaoke Revolution.
Rock Band for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 and 3 shipped with 58 songs on disk, while the Wii version, released at a later date, contained 5 additional songs that were released as downloadable content for the game. The European version of the game also includes 9 additional songs that have since been released as downloadable content for other regions. The player can expand their music library on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions by purchasing new songs offered on a weekly basis through the consoles' respective store systems. A full list of downloadable songs is available. For the PlayStation 2 and Wii versions of Rock Band, Harmonix has created Rock Band Track Packs that contain a selection of the downloadable content already offered.
With Rock Band 2 and Rock Band 3, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 players can export a majority of songs from the Rock Band soundtrack to their console's storage device by purchasing a "transfer license".[1][2] Additionally, certain songs rated as "Family Friendly" by Harmonix are playable in Lego Rock Band. "Enter Sandman", "Monsoon", "Paranoid" and "Run to the Hills" cannot be exported to any other game in the series. The original recording of "Run to the Hills" was made available as a downloadable single and also in Iron Maiden Pack 01 on June 9, 2009.[3] While initially not exportable to Rock Band 3, "Black Hole Sun" and "Dani California" were made available via a patch released on November 8, 2011.[4] On the European version, "Hier Kommt Alex" & "Rock 'n' Roll Star" can be exported to Rock Band 2 but not Rock Band 3.[5] Exports of the Rock Band soundtrack (with the above exclusions) into Rock Band 4, for those that have already exported them into Rock Band 2 or 3, was enabled in January 2016.[6]
Players can play Rock Band alone through a Career mode for lead guitar, drums, and vocals, earning in-game money for their character to purchase new outfits and instruments. Each of the 45 songs[7][8] has a different difficulty ranking for each instrument part, as well as a total band difficulty. There are a total of nine difficulties, or tiers. In career mode each song in a tier must be successfully completed to move onto the next and unlock the songs in that tier. This tier system is also used for rating the difficulty of the song (the "Band" tier) and its separate instrumental parts for downloadable content even though the songs are not used to unlock new songs in career mode. Once songs are unlocked, they may be played in any mode, including Quickplay, and multiplayer (competitive and co-operative modes) off- or online. Each instrument part in each song can be played at one of four difficulty levels, which include Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert.
A total of 13 bonus songs can also be unlocked through the game's Career mode.[8][9] The bonus setlist consists of bands formed by Harmonix employees as well as local bands from near Harmonix's headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, or from Boston. The exceptions are Flyleaf, Crooked X, and Mother Hips. "Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld" comes from the titular fictional band featured in the comedy show South Park.
The European version of Rock Band features nine additional songs not available on the North American disc. These bonus songs include English, German, and French vocals.[11] These songs were released as downloadable content in the North American market on May 20, 2008.[12]
Rock Band 4 lives in both worlds. As a game, it's the Rock Band you remember from years past, for better and for worse. As a toy, however, Rock Band 4 has created something that's at once imperfect and exciting: a guitar virtuoso simulator with some semblance of creative freedom.
For those who missed out on the Rock Band and Guitar Hero craze, let me just say you're also probably too young to have experienced Animaniacs or Legends of the Hidden Temple. You should get on that, too. Anyway, I digress. A brief history lesson: In 2005, Harmonix released the wildly successful Guitar Hero in partnership with hardware maker RedOctane and publisher Activision. After the equally successful Guitar Hero II, Activision bought RedOctane and the Guitar Hero IP, while MTV picked up Harmonix, who then created a new rhythm franchise, Rock Band. Five years, 30-plus titles, and millions of plastic guitar / drum / DJ controllers later, the rhythm genre seemed to fade out of the public eye just as fast as it had emerged. But like any good VH1 Behind the Music story, the genre is making a comeback, with both a new Rock Band and a new Guitar Hero coming out this month.
Rock Band 4 more or less keeps to the long-standing rhythm game formula: You, the wannabe rock star, play along to popular songs using a guitar-shaped controller, holding down some combination of five large buttons on the guitar's neck and plucking as those corresponding "notes" appear in rhythm. Succeed and the virtual crowd cheers; fail and the guitar portion of your favorite song is replaced by some clunky blips and choral jeering. The same applies for bass, drums, and vocals, all of which make up the full Rock Band experience.
The big change in Rock Band 4 is the introduction of freestyle guitar solos. In lieu of playing a song's actual guitar solo, you're now able to "improvise" your own. In these sections, depending on what combination of buttons you're holding down and how fast / often you're strumming, the game will procedurally generate an impressive-sounding guitar riff matching the key and general style of the song. So instead of a long string of predefined button presses to fly through, Rock Band 4 will offer suggestions of what to do, from strumming fast button combinations at the top of the neck to bending one note near the top and letting it drone on. (The old-school stream of buttons is also available if you want.) You can also switch between a few effects, such as an echo or "wah," via the "pickup selector" on the guitar controller.
At its best, these freestyle solos release that biological opiate we associate with creative accomplishment. We achieve rock nirvana. At its worst, you sound like a passable cover band on a bad night.
And then there's endless solo mode, which takes the freestyle system and lets you play whatever you want over any song in the library. This is the most stupidly fun part of Rock Band 4. Some songs, like Judas Priest's "Halls of Valhalla," work perfectly because they're built for fast metal solos. Others, like The Outfield's "Your Love" and the aforementioned Cake song, work despite the clash in style. I'm almost ashamed to admit how much time I spent in this section; if I didn't have to unlock tracks in other modes, I might not have done anything else.
A few of my more effervescent, more gregarious, more alive colleagues in game journalism are on stage "rocking out" to The Killers. We are on the rooftop of a pricey hotel in Santa Monica, at a press event organized by Rock Band 4's developer and publisher Harmonix.
I'm supposed to be focusing my attention on Rock Band 4, but there's more chance of Ferdinand Marcos leaping onto that stage than there is of me mounting the boards, swinging a guitar strap around my neck and yelling "whooooooo."
I don't care about rock music. I dislike crowds and I dislike loud noises. I don't do public performances, excepting "Toastmasters" which I enjoy from time-to-time, along with half a dozen accountants, schoolteachers and self-improvement nutters.
Look, sometimes in this job you gotta cover games you don't really give a stuff about. I played some Guitar Hero ten years ago and I thought it was kinda stupid. This is not because rock star sims are stupid. It's a perfectly valid fantasy. It's just not my fantasy.
But I can tell from the people on stage, the fact that they are having fun and coming back for more, that Rock Band 4 has something to offer people who get together and enjoy each other and music and the whole rock-'n'-roll ethos. I'm jealous of their ability to enjoy this product.
All video games are stupid, of course. That whole thing of, 'you're not really shooting terrorists or winning the World Cup, you're just pressing buttons' is patronizing and simplistic but every now and again you come across a game that has so little emotional connection to who you are that you end up standing there, gazing at the screen and saying "I'm just pressing buttons and my life has no meaning," to a slightly bemused PR person.
Music games are often about pressing buttons according to visual cues, which is probably why the whole genre collapsed a few years ago. That and the ferocious greed of Activision, which insisted on publishing way too many of these games.
But Rock Band 4 is also not about just pressing buttons. Various instruments, including vocals, have been given carte blanche to express themselves in ways that are individual to the player, and be rewarded for their personal skill. It's not just about sticking to the colors and the lines. It's about adding your own flavor to the song, through drum-riffs and vocal meanderings.
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