It would be easy to write off Rock Band 2 as an obligatory upgrade to the original game, which is missing the forest for the trees. Rhythm games had become a mainstream genre in video games by 2008, and with four rhythm games released that year, it was clear that the genre was both popular and lucrative for publishers. Activision had two bites at it with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Guitar Hero: World Tour, and Konami would throw their hat into the ring with Rock Revolution, but it would be Harmonix and MTV Games that probably brought the biggest success of all with Rock Band 2.
By the time Rock Band was released in 2007, Harmonix was already behind the scenes, perfecting the formula for a sequel. It was clear after a few months that not only was Rock Band a success, but it landed MTV a massive IP that had to be taken advantage of. Unlike Activision, whose strategy was to provide one big game and a few smaller games a year, Harmonix and MTV decided to perfect Rock Band, shaping it into perhaps its most perfect form with what would eventually be Rock Band 2.
A lot of the choices in development by MTV and Harmonix were a simple strategy: perfect what is there and make it the best it could be. Rock Band 2 was the perfection of the original Rock Band; it is one of those games that not only truly shines as a sequel, but stands as arguably one of the greatest games ever made, and this boils down to the tweaking of the rhythm game formula that sets up the franchise for future success.
Rock Band 2 was focused on major design tweaks that uplifted the overall pacing and presentation of the game. The Tour mode would get an upgrade, allowing for customizable setlists after unlocking most of the songs in a game section, and is no longer segregated between online and single-player. The choices are often some combination of a custom or mystery setlist, allowing you to play individual songs or a random selection of songs for your difficulty.
Through this, you gain money for new items in the store and fans that unlock new venues for gigs. These gigs can also be a mix of the aforementioned setlist combinations, or in some cases a special setlist to expand the game further. Complete these challenges, and you eventually unlock all of the venues and gigs and are free to customize your setlists with more on-disk songs unlocked.
The flexibility of the tour mode was a long time coming. The fixed setlists, while fun for a standard progression, fit less with the Rock Band model due to the massive amount of music found in the game's library. This also accounts for DLC songs, which are intermixed with both random and custom setlists. This also piggybacks onto the added gameplay modes, Tour Challenges and Battle of the Bands.
Tour Challenges are specific challenges, such as specific setlists, songs with a common theme, or songs for a specific instrument, and also include DLC songs, adding tons of content that can be mixed and matched for unique gameplay. Want to do a hard, 3-part setlist while playing three metal songs? How about some drum challenges from Punk Rock bands? These add so much replayability that it is impressive, giving players a reason to mix and match or just go with the flow of their setlists, without the worry of major difficulty spikes.
Player flexibility also extends to the Battle of the Bands mode, which in its heyday was a weekly challenge for leaderboard positions online. Players who played together could go through specific songs as a band, and their combined efforts would have been tracked online with relative ease. Leaderboards are nothing new, but having leaderboards for a whole band was, offering some more incentive to play online or together with a group in co-op.
There were other minor extras added, including modifiers like a "no fail mode" and "breakneck speed mode", which are based on features in other rhythm-based games, along with score duels, tug of war, and a revamped training mode adding more drum tutorials. All of these changes were added as primary features that would complement the game's greatest strength: its song selection.
Rock Band 2 sported a robust 84-song tracklist, all master recordings. For a small fee, the game also allowed for 55 of the 58 songs in the first Rock Band to be transferred over, with only three songs being cut out due to issues with re-licensing. Along with this would be hundreds of songs online through DLC already available, and also transferred automatically into Rock Band 2.
Even without the extra songs, the setlist in Rock Band 2 is, without much exaggeration, the best list of songs for a rhythm game. Much of the game's true strength comes from the selections made by Harmonix this go around, which is tied to Harmonix specifically following a more organic selection process. Harmonix's tactic would be to license several songs from a single band, then select a song that would be most satisfying for all of the in-game instruments. The additional songs licensed would eventually be released as DLC, and in some cases, full albums would be licensed and made available for purchase.
This process paid off, as the setlist in Rock Band 2 is balanced and filled with a ton of fun songs that really allow players on all instruments to shine. Some major standouts include Journey's "Any Way You Want It", Foo Fighters "Everlong", and The Muffs "Kids in America", which offer fair challenges for every instrument. The setlist also includes inspired selections like Social Distortion's "I Was Wrong", Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way", and The Who's "Pinball Wizard," providing a healthy mix of genres and songs that make the setlist strong on its own.
Frankly, the choices of bands are also inspired and fantastic, with some really unique choices like L7, Elvis Costello, Testament, Steely Dan, and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones adding to the setlist. We also get challenging vocal and drum tracks, something Harmonix felt was needed as a full year of playing would allow for more expert drum players. The biggest standouts would be Judas Priest's "Painkiller" and Metallica's "Battery", which would also be the last Metallica song released for the Rock Band series. Finally, Guns N Roses would debut "Shackler's Revenge" from their long-in-production album Chinese Democracy, an album that would be released in November of that year. Axl Rose specifically chose the song, while the remainder of the album would be released as DLC upon the album's release.
The mix of band-centric songs, with harder challenges for each instrument and for singing, gave Rock Band 2 a massive edge against contemporary games at the time. This, combined with the DLC and most of the songs from the first Rock Band, just propelled it to the stratosphere of being, out of the box, the perfect party rhythm game.
Rock Band 2 was a game that was not super graphically heavy, retaining the music-video-like quality of the first game with more customization options available for players. Players can actually put their created character into any instrument now as well, a nice bonus that adds to the replayability without creating four different characters for use.
Finally, Rock Band 2 was also another first in focusing on a redesign for the Nintendo Wii version, allowing for DLC songs to be made available. This set it apart, as it was often relegated to being a similar build to the PS2 version, which lacked the online tools for DLC completely. Harmonix and MTV felt that the PS2 should still get an updated Rock Band game, and the track packs released for the system are still usable for the game. This would be the last PS2 game in the Rock Band series, but it goes out with a bang here.
Rock Band 2 is not only the best of the Rock Band series, but arguably one of the best rhythm games ever made, surpassing even the lofty heights of Guitar Hero 3. Its re-tooling of gameplay mechanics, combined setlists, and steady stream of DLC provided one of the most complete packages for a rhythm game, and really pushed Rock Band to be the premier party game on the marketplace. Harmonix would revisit the series in 2010, but in between would work on four other titles in the Rock Band series, each offering a unique experience that would represent the height of Harmonix's power.