Gameplay is relatively straightforward. Your band either chooses a single song or a set to play on the difficulty setting each person selects for their particular instrument. For each song, how well the band is doing is measured by a progress meter on the left-hand side of the screen, and keeping the bar in the green means that you and your band are doing a good job hitting all of the notes. Miss too many notes, however, and the crowd turns angry and boos you off the stage, forcing you to try again. As an aid during the songs, each player can collect energy by hitting a series of highlighted notes. Energy, when deployed, can either boost the points you’re earning or revive a fallen team member. At the end of each song, players can see the percentage of notes they’ve hit, as well as the band’s overall rating (up to five stars).

Rock Band 2 offers a few choice upgrades since the first game, starting with the hardware. The microphone is exactly the same, but the guitars and drums are now completely wireless, and make for better ease of movement and set up. Also, the drum pads are a bit bouncier for a more realistic feel when hitting them with the sticks. These new pads are also velocity sensitive, adding a new element when playing the drums. Finally, the game attempts to auto-calibrate the instruments, which seems to work fairly well. I have yet to miss notes because of the controllers being out of sync.

In addition to these improvements, Rock Band 2 also includes some internal cleanup. Players can now jump in and out of bands at will, so groups are no longer restricted to their original members. Also, navigating the music library is a little bit easier, with a few new filtering options added to make it simpler for players to find the songs they want to play. Finally, a brand new mode has been introduced, called Battle of the Bands. From time to time, Harmonix plans to release challenge sets that players can try out, competing against the entire Rock Band community by playing solo or head-to-head and earning positions on the worldwide leader board.

The new Rock Band offers players a whole new library of music—84 songs on the disc alone, plus many more available for download. So how does this sequel hold up in the ever-growing genre of music party games?