Graphics: When you’re playing the game, odds are you’re not going to notice the graphics all that much, as your eyes will be darting back and forth across your music staff watching the multicolored notes being hurled at you, but when you take a break from rocking to let some other friends in on the fun, you might find the background activity to be rather entertaining. It’s very clear the developers put a great deal of thought into choreographing the band members for each song, and it’s these little details that go a long way to making the experience that much more real. The only slight downside to the graphics is the lack of options for the look and feel of your rockers. Rock Band 2 offers plenty of pre-loaded shapes and sizes, along with complete customization of color schemes, but since there is a lack of sliders, there’s definitely a limitation to how precisely you can match your avatar’s look to your imagination.

Interface: I remember when I used to watch my friends try to set up a Rock Band game. It looked super-intimidating, complete with screams from the band leader yelling things like “No one touch anything! Okay, everyone hit green! Not red, who hit red? Okay bass, hit green!” The interface hasn’t changed all that much, but once I was in the driver’s seat and learned how to move in and out of menus and options, it really wasn’t so bad. There are two upgrades to the interface that I like. First off, band members can join or leave at any time and move to any band. This means that you don’t need to set up multiple bands for your various groups of friends; they simply create characters and can play whenever they wish. The other simple but nice touch is that you can choose to view a mystery set list before playing it. Technically, I suppose this removes a bit of the mystery portion, but at least the player is now in control of it. My only real complaint is that raising the guitar to release energy doesn’t always work very well. On many occasions I would find myself almost falling over while trying repeatedly to tip my instrument up, but I still couldn’t enter bonus mode. I eventually just gave up and began using the button on the controller.

Gameplay: Rock Band 2 is simply awesome. It’s loads of fun for all ages, and it’s the best thing to bring out at a party. Regardless of what your skill level is, there’s something for everyone in the game, given the diversity of the instruments and the experience you can have trying out each of them. Because of an ever-expanding and versatile library of music, you’d be hard pressed not to find something that gets everyone’s toes tapping. While I’m sure true rockers would say that playing Rock Band doesn’t compare to the real thing, for the multitude of us who’ll never be part of a live band, this experience definitely helps satisfy that dream.

Multiplayer: Trying out a solo tour is certainly fun and warrants replay, but the real joy of Rock Band 2 is getting a group of people to rock out together. Rock Band 2 excels in this regard, as it’s not just two or more people playing together in the same room; to really rack up the points and get the crowd going, all players must work as a team. To get the point multipliers working, band members need to coordinate when to use their energy. There’s something really gratifying about tackling a song together and getting high marks for doing so. Also, I’ve found that people who aren’t playing can have just as much fun watching, listening to the music, and singing along in the background. There’s something truly special about playing this game with a group of your friends.

Sound FX: Almost all of the sound effects are simple, but effective. The small musical cues are usually guitar or drum hits. Even the sound warning you that a song is about to begin is an electric guitar being tuned up, which is the game telling you to get ready. I also think the crowd noises are appropriate and vary enough to never get annoying. There are definitely distinct levels of intensity between the cheers and boos that seem to match up appropriately to the songs and how well the player is doing. Also, I love the touch of the crowd occasionally singing along.

Music: Music, like all media, is a matter of taste and opinion. I for one enjoy the soundtrack to Rock Band 2 more than its predecessor, and believe that most people will agree. This is not because the music is “better” necessarily, but because there is simply more music (84 songs). Most of the tracks are extremely popular, they cover the music of the last 40 years with clear definition, and the songs are representative of several distinct genres. I love that one minute I can play “Eye of the Tiger” and “Hungry like the Wolf,” wanting to get out my sweats and headbands, and the next listen to Jack Black belt out “Master Exploder,” a more recent track from his band, Tenacious D. Also, if you own Rock Band, porting your songs to the new game is easy. It costs $5.00 and is done in about three minutes. On top of that, all the songs you downloaded previously are automatically ready to play. Everything sounds great and many of the songs have been rerecorded to be more compatible with Rock Band gameplay, such as more rocking endings and solos for specific instruments.

Difficulty: I love games that let me decide exactly how challenging you want them to be. Rock Band 2 allows players of all skill levels to jump in and play the game the way they want to play. Each instrument has four difficulty settings: Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert. For guitar, bass and drums, going up in difficulty usually means many more notes at faster speeds with harder and trickier combinations. After about a month of playing fairly regularly, I can dabble in Hard on guitar, but I still feel like I have a long way to go before even attempting Expert. The point is that there’s such a large scale of difficulty, it’ll be easy for most people to find their comfort level and enjoy the game. For extreme novices, there’s even a no-fail mode, so while you might get booed a lot, you can still make it through the songs to learn the mechanics of the game. I really applaud Rock Band 2 for giving seasoned players something that’ll keep them interested, while catering to newer gamers at the same time.

Overall: I really have nothing but praise for Rock Band 2. Compared to the Guitar Hero series, I personally feel that right now Rock Band offers the better group/party experience. Rock Band is about to get some direct competition from Guitar Hero World Tour, which will also offer drums and microphone peripherals, but at this moment, I believe Rock Band is one of the most entertaining and enjoyable gaming experiences you can find.