RB2 Notes -- I'm making a note here: Huge success

[spatch]

1. Double note HO/POs. I cannot stress this enough. Double note HO/POs. This is awesome. Maybe if you get far enough on Expert in RB1 they showed up but I never saw them in my beginning chops, but here they are in RB2 on Hard, even. DOUBLE NOTE FREAKING HO/POs.

2. The band animations and character interaction is much more detailed and rich. The guys wander all around the stage, sharing the mic to sing harmony, posing all band-like during songs a lot more than before. The camera got too close to my bassist and he kicked it away at one point. At another point during Come Out and Play, there was a cut to my drummer and she smirked at the camera and went "You gotta keep 'em separated." OKAY THAT WAS PRETTY MUCH THE BEST. The band is having fun onstage, goddammit, and that means we are too. The crowd is also a lot more active, which adds to the energy during a good song.

3. The band challenges are the best way to get people to play DLC more. Want your glam rocker to do an all-Bowie set? Here you go, it's all made for you and you get some cash out of the deal as well. Want to play Doolittle in its entirety? Go right ahead, and get rewarded for it. I am really loving the bass challenges because they turn out to be the best songs to bounce to. Pump It Up, Cool For Cats, Psycho Killer, and Go Your Own Way have kickass basslines which I will gladly play over and over and over and over again.

4. BODHISATTVA. BODHISATTVA. BODHISATTVA. BODHISATTVA. BODHISATTVA. BODHISATTVA. BODHISATTVA. BODHISATTVA. (whew!) One of the XBox Live challenges on launch day was to see how long an unbroken guitar streak you could get on this, one of the hardest songs ever. It was absolutely freaking exhilirating even though I only got as far as 194 notes and sank into leaderboard obscurity. But that's okay, because I ROCKED OUT ANYWAY. The best part of this is that Bodhisattva is the Steely Dan song that's so unlike the other well-known Dan songs, so not West Coast Mellow, that I am sure there are people who are going into this game thinking "Aw geez, it's gonna be all... wimpy like that whiny one they do about wanting a name when they lose" and instead getting FRANTIC FAST 12-BAR GOODNESS with some wild solos. Thank you Harmonix for showing those naysayers that yes, the Dan can rock when they want to. Now bring in Reeling In The Years and we'll have a party.

5. Being able to pick your bandmates even when you're playing solo is pretty much worth the price of the game just so you'll never see the freaky mummy girl or the Marilyn Manson lookalike again coming in to ruin your Jimmy Buffett set. Though I do admit it was very amusing to watch the bearded lumberjack guy sing Still Alive. But that's in the past. The present involves Prisoners of Funk and their all-appropriate look. Yeah, man.

Comments

[tcb.livejournal.com]

Does RB2 have a bass solo tour? That's the one thing I didn't know about RB1 that has pissed me off. I love bass, and the forums show plenty of other people loving it too, so why didn't they put in a bass solo tour in RB1?

[dfan.livejournal.com]

We thought it would be boring. It seems we were wrong (although to be fair, since it isn't in, we don't know if people would be excoriating us for putting in a boring bass solo tour if we did).

RB2 has no solo tour at all. You can play in a World Tour by yourself, and there are challenges that provide a similar feel (but far more flexible) to the old solo campaign.

[spatch]

I think a solo bass tour in the RB1 fashion might've gotten pretty old pretty quick, but the way RB2 lets you solo the BWT and choose between guitar or bass for each set makes it work just fine.

And I love the challenges, though I think I'll be saving the RB1 Setlist challenges until I've forgotten about runs of Should I Stay Or Should I Go / In Bloom / Maps / Mississippi Queen. :)

[unferth.livejournal.com]

Oh, is bass what Cool for Cats is about? I tried it on guitar last night, and it was not exactly challenging. Except for trying to anticipate when the long sequences of guitar silence were coming up, meaning I should save my overdrive.

[spatch]

Yeah, Cool For Cats is pretty much a song for the bassist and drummer (drum solo!) kinda like how So Whatcha Want is a song pretty much for the vocalist.

But man, what a bassline!

[tcb.livejournal.com]

See, that's what I love about bass. Generally, yes, it's less "interesting" than the guitar, but there are some bands (Boston being one of them) that really makes bass worth it.

[janric.livejournal.com]

Damn you and your earlier-release 360 *shakeyfist*

*bitter*

*impatient*

[sandrylene.livejournal.com]

*same exact sentiment*

I'm supposed to wait more than a month?! *dies*

[dfan.livejournal.com]

Yay!

Chord HOPOs are indeed new in RB2.

[mholmesiv.livejournal.com]

Personally I hate the HOPO stuff, because the shorter bars are just too similar to the normal ones to be easily identified in time to do it right. But then I'm not one of those insane people who play on expert, even "Hard" is hard enough that the game is no longer fun for me.

[spatch]

Have you tried RB2 yet? The HO/POs are more easily identifiable than they were in RB1, honestly. And if you can play on Medium and have a good time with it, then have fun on Medium and darn the rest. (dfan taught me that one, or something similar to it, a while back when I started on the GH series.)

[silenceleigh.livejournal.com]

You can pick your bandmates? AWESOME. When Bryan and I play, refugees from country bands keep sneaking in.

I think RB2 is on its way to our household--we should have it this week. This game is hell on my writing productivity, but I don't care.

Also, I don't like playing guitar but I love playing bass. I'm musically challenged and don't have good twitch skills, and I am hopeless at drums and nearly hopeless at guitar...but I can play bass! Which is good because that means Laura can sit close enough to the TV to read the words and do vocals and both Bryan and I can play.

[cursethedark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the HO/PO chords are new for RB2. And let me tell you, I did not see those coming.

I had to leave town to get my copy (stupid local Wal-Mart!), but I've done a fair amount of rocking since then. I'm about to go for a plane with my band, Holy Roller Empire. Also, you'll be glad to know that even for all of the songs I found out about, there have been plenty that I didn't see coming and was super excited for (the main ones being I Was Wrong and Lump.)

And yeah, those Battle of the Bands challenges are pretty sweet. I just did the bass groove challenge, Alabama Getaway/You Oughtta Know/some other song that I can't remember but it had "Girls" in the title.

I have noticed that there seem to be a lot of songs that will be both in this and GH:WT. I'm slightly bummed about this, as I've no doubt that I'll be sick of many of those songs by the time WT comes out. I mean, even if they could have got different songs by the same band, that would be OK.

I leave you with this thought: holy crap, singing "Eye of the Tiger" is ridiculous fun.

[spatch]

Did you notice some of the existing DLC has had chord HO/POs added to 'em, too? Now the slide guitar part of Skullcrusher Mountain is all slidy and stuff.

[cursethedark.livejournal.com]

Yep. That song is where I first ran into 'em, in fact.

[dogofthefuture.livejournal.com]

Shut up, Steely Dan rules. You Steely Dan haters can go to HELL.

[tcb.livejournal.com]

word.