# Rock Band 2 **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 6, 2008, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690 "2008-10-06T16:00:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2008, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/41 "2008-10-17T16:53:06Z")
> [@Sanity\_Challenged](#): > > I found Rock Band 2 for the PS3 on Wednesday at Meijer’s (a midwest cleaner, better Wal-Mart), which worked out perfectly as I was buying supplies to host some out-of-town friends. 🙂 I’m not sure whether I should be insanely jealous or suddenly hopeful. The plotting and scheming begins… ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2008, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/42 "2008-10-19T19:30:38Z")
Well, I couldn’t con any of the five stores I visited yesterday to give me a copy early, but I did pick up my copy this morning, and my wife and I have had a blast thus far. No trouble exporting from the first Rock Band, and we’ve had fun with the new songs and the band challenges. Definitely a good time. Again, though – I can’t wait until I can get that ION drum set! ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/43 "2008-10-21T18:17:28Z")
I’ve been adding people I’ve seen playing rock band to my friends list. I think there are at least 7 of us, so some nights we should be able to get a full band going. **Sam Stone** and I started a band called “The Straight Dope” under his account - it’d be cool if that became our official band of sorts, with a rotating group of members (although I think it may require the band “owner” to be playing - or is there some way to spread ownership around with RB2?) Those of you that have the Ion kit - Sam brought to my attention [this upgrade kit](http://cgi.ebay.com/Roadie-Pro-Upgrade-Kit-for-ION-Drum-Rocker-Set-XBox_W0QQitemZ200259332057QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item200259332057&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14) for it. It adds a real bass pedal (it’s a real chain driven counterbalanced bass drum that strikes a pad which detects the hit), a hi hat cymbal, and a drum brain so that you can plug your full kit (now with 2 pedals since the original pedal can then be used for the hi hat) to function as a standalone electronic drum kit. Check out the video, especially the last minute or so. I’m still dragging my ass on deciding whether I’m willing to spend $500 on a video game peripheral, but if I decide to grab the Ion kit I’ll probably grab that upgrade kit too. Edit: Anyone know if any retail stores commonly carry the Ion kit? I’d rather just pick it up rather than mail order. Music stores maybe? ---
**Author:** ![kasuo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8c91f0/32.png) [@kasuo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kasuo)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/44 "2008-10-21T19:56:23Z")
**SenorBeef** and **Sam Stone** , will you two be on again this coming weekend? Sorry about not showing up on time. When I got back, the friends wanted to finish watching the Red Sox/Rays game. ---
**Author:** ![DeadlyAccurate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/45 "2008-10-21T21:37:06Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Edit: Anyone know if any retail stores commonly carry the Ion kit? I’d rather just pick it up rather than mail order. Music stores maybe? We got ours at Best Buy. They had two or three in stock. ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/46 "2008-10-22T00:17:14Z")
I haven’t had much opportunity to play since Sunday (on PS3), but what little I have is a strong reminder that I’m horribly out of practice. Sadly, right now I’m at the middle ground where medium on drums is a bit of a joke, but hard is a little too hard. Practice makes perfect, and I’m not worried that I’ll get back into it. Anybody with the PS3 version know of any guitars that will respond properly in the Rock Band games, but with that satisfying GH “click”? I just can’t get comfortable with the RB soft toggle, even with months of practice. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/47 "2008-10-22T03:07:58Z")
> [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](#): > > Anybody with the PS3 version know of any guitars that will respond properly in the Rock Band games, but with that satisfying GH “click”? I just can’t get comfortable with the RB soft toggle, even with months of practice. My wife and at least one friend prefer the soft button, but I’m on your side. I actually liked the GH guitars with their clackity-clack – kind of like the old IBM keyboards. So far, I haven’t had any real trouble jumping back in to the drums on hard in RB2. We’re still trying to figure out how to eliminate some songs from the list on the PS3, though. I could honestly do without having to play “Ballroom Blitz” again. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/48 "2008-10-22T05:51:41Z")
Polly is about the easiest way to get 25 achievement points on drums. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/49 "2008-10-22T17:47:37Z")
Played it this weekend for the first time - since I didn’t play RB1 a whole lot I didn’t notice any differences in actual gameplay, but there were a heck of a lot of new songs! (Mostly focussed on the newr stuff, which is sort of sad because A) there used to be a good mix which would prolly draw a good demographic of older-than-40 people and other fans of classic rock, and B) classic rock is great fun to play on rock band! I like new wave, punk ,and alternative, but it’s boring to play for me! Also, is it me or did the vocals get easier on Easy and Medium? On RB1 I would have to be rescued at least once a song if I tried on Medium, now I only had to be rescued once in that session. (The alternative would be that I learned how to sing/play better, and it didn’t seem to be that. It seemed that it was just as hard to hit the notes exactly but the scoring was easier even if you didn’t.) ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/50 "2008-10-22T18:25:05Z")
The vocals are significantly easier on RB2 across the board, especially on hard fo expert. They dropped the phoenom detection entirely (it was too unfair for some people because it wasn’t programmed to learn your voice over time like some of those voice recognition programs). ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/51 "2008-10-23T00:23:07Z")
How do leaderboards work? I was browsing through the solo leaderboards and decided to do a song to see where I’d rank. So I go to quickplay, play through the song, and go back to the leaderboards to check how I did - and it wasn’t listed there. And only a few thousand scores were up there. Certainly more people have played that song. So how does it work? Do you have to do some sort of official leaderboard mode to set a score? ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/52 "2008-10-23T01:15:36Z")
Found out you can check your friends list from your PC. Go to [Account with Xbox | Xbox](http://www.xbox.com/en-us/live) then click “get my gamer card” along the top and log in. Then you can see which of your friends are on, what they’re doing, etc. without powering on the xbox. I suggest adding anyone you see from the “aaa SDMB” friend of friend list playing RB2 to your friends list. It should help us find each other better. Is anyone up for an organized Rock Band night once or twice a week? We could fill out a band and try for battle of the bands high scores and such. What times are good for people? What instrument do you prefer? How good are you at it? ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/53 "2008-10-23T01:57:55Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > How do leaderboards work? I was browsing through the solo leaderboards and decided to do a song to see where I’d rank. So I go to quickplay, play through the song, and go back to the leaderboards to check how I did - and it wasn’t listed there. > > And only a few thousand scores were up there. Certainly more people have played that song. > > So how does it work? Do you have to do some sort of official leaderboard mode to set a score? They don’t update right away. There’s about two or three data pulls per day, I think. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/54 "2008-10-23T09:36:38Z")
Alright alright, you’ve all convinced me to spend $300 on a video game peripheral. Whee. Probably gonna be $535 total with the upgrade kit and shipping. ---
**Author:** ![Koldanar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@Koldanar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koldanar)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/55 "2008-10-23T13:51:48Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Is anyone up for an organized Rock Band night once or twice a week? We could fill out a band and try for battle of the bands high scores and such. What times are good for people? What instrument do you prefer? How good are you at it? I’d certainly be ok with a scheduled, or at least pre-planned that week day for this. If we get too many, couldn’t we even start some head-to-head band stuff? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/56 "2008-10-27T21:02:00Z")
Another thing I didn’t mention: when I played it on my friends’ X-Box, it had the songs from RB1 on it, including the stuff he had previously downloaded, EXCEPT gg+ht. He claimed that there was licensing issues with that song and so did not get ported over to the new version of Rock Band. Is he putting us on and just deleted the song after import like everyone else did since he didn’t want to play it on random? (Not that I’d mind, I don’t want it popping up at random either, the moreso because we are in the first stages of love/infatuation with RB that we want to play right up to the point where someone absolutely has to go and we don’t want a 10 minute long song to play at the very end. Although I don’t mind playing _The Camera Eye_ by Rush cause it’s my second-favorite Rush song.) ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/57 "2008-10-27T21:54:50Z")
There were three songs that didn’t, but GG&HT wasn’t one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Robin\_Goodfellow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Robin\_Goodfellow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robin_Goodfellow)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/58 "2008-10-27T23:37:39Z")
Correct! > [@some game site](#): > > Only three of the tracks from the first Rock Band will not be playable in the sequel, the studio revealed on its official forum. As was previously estimated, the ability to export songs from the RB1 disc onto the hard drive and play them in RB2 will cost 400 Microsoft Points ($5) due to licensing fees. > > That fee only applies to songs from the original Rock Band, with all previously released Rock Band downloadable content already compatible at no extra charge. > > The ability to purchase the license and export songs from Rock Band is now available within the Xbox 360 version of the original, following an automatic that was released today. The following Rock Band disc tracks are not available for export: > > ``` > * "Paranoid" as made famous by Black Sabbath (Cover) > * "Run to the Hills" as made famous by Iron Maiden (Cover) > * "Enter Sandman" by Metallica > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2008, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/59 "2008-10-28T02:06:42Z")
Does anyone know how to delete specific RB1 songs from the PS3? ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2008, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690/60 "2008-11-08T05:58:55Z")
Can someone explain the drum fills to me? Do you get extra points or power? And how do you know which fill to use? Is it just memorization/listening to the song (or failing that, a code that shows you the fill)? I know you can go into the fill trainer, but my brain has trouble exporting the fill from there into actual songs. Gamestop seems to be shipping the PS3 Ion on the 19th, so good news I guess. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rock-band-2/466690.md?page=4)