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Download mp3: BGB at LGF: Rock Band 2 Preview and Interview
By wonderful coincidence, EA held the first UK preview event for the upcoming sequel to Harmonix’s fantastic band game Rock Band at the same time as BGB is in London! So, I headed on down to the event to go hands on with the improved sequel, and talk to lead designer Dan Teasdale.
Rock Band 2 is more of a ‘touching up’ of the first game than bringing many new features to the table. There are things like the improved career mode, drum trainer, but the day was mainly about the new hardware and the sheer range of tracks available to play. The standard drum kit is now quieter, with improved, velocity sensitive pads which are much nicer to play on with the improved bounce and feel, and similarly the sunburst Fender Stratocaster has been touched up with a bit more of a firm strum bar and fret buttons which are really nice to play on: and it’s my favourite guitar so far.
However, the true star of the show was the gorgeous Ion Drum Rocker. It’s pretty much a real electronic drum kit… now, sure, it’s expensive ($300, no UK price or date available right now) but it feels worth it – the pads are really high quality, and playing with cymbals is great fun (despite there being no cymbal cues within the game). If you regularly play drums in the game, it’s worth considering as the quality there is so high. Despite the fact that the one at the event wasn’t assembled perfectly and so the arm with the red pad and yellow cymbal slid around and fell off mid-song (I’ll be honest, it didn’t stop me trying to hit it).
I also sat down with Dan Teasdale from Harmonix in a ten minute interview, where we cover the big picture with Rock Band 2’s EU release on all platforms, the latest update on Rock Band Japan, and the lack of European focussed tracks… as well as the finer details that anyone playing the game might be bugged about, such as stars on the quickplay menu, cymbal notation in gameplay and patching Rock Band 2 on PS3 to support Guitar Hero: World Tour’s drums. If you understand those last few things, it’s really worth listening to when things head down the slightly more nerdy end of the conversation…
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