Anybody that knows me knows that I absolutely LOVE Rock Band. I mean, I can't get enough of it. I find myself downloading songs every week, playing it with friends on the weekend and practicing Snow (Hey Oh) on expert when I'm by myself. Yup, I'm absolutely addicted to this game. So maybe that's why I was so excited to check out Rock Band 2 at E3. Sure it's nothing more than a more polished version of the first game (with 85 new songs), but so what? I'm really just looking for it to give me an online world tour and some new songs. I'm also expecting it to pose for my camera. Check out what my camera caught in these five Rock Band related pictures!
This year I decided that it would be a good idea to get an interview with Harmonix, that way they could show us all of the cool new features in this Rock Band sequel. Our adventure started right inside the MTV Games waiting room, which featured a large glass case of fake plastic guitars, posters, game discs and whatnot. More importantly, though, was the food table that is creeping into the shot at the bottom of the picture. Knowing that we would be tired and hungry, Harmonix was giving out delicious turkey/roast beef sandwiches, along with whatever you wanted to drink. Giving the lack of time we had to actually eat at E3, this open feast was the perfect respite.
When we finally made it into the Rock Band 2 booth (which sat around 15 people) we had one of the Harmonix guys show us all the new stuff. In this particular feature he's explaining how the interface will now resemble the Rock Band Music Store. He was really excited about the whole game, so much so that he managed to curse up a storm even when talking about the most trivial new feature. By the way, I'm not sure why but it looks like one of the wall panels was starting to fall off. Try and not let that affect your opinions of Rock Band 2.
Before we could rock we had to watch Harmonix show us how it was done. When you think about it there was no reason for them to do this, outside of the fact that they wanted to wow us with their high score and expert fake instrument playing. But I didn't care, because I knew the sooner they rocked the sooner I would have my own opportunity to pick up the axe and impress the crowd.
This is Harmonix still rocking. Man, won't these guys gets off the stage so I can play my song? Talk about a bad opening act. Anyway, while they're doing that let's talk a little about that drum set. Do you see that thing? It looks exactly like a real electronic drum set ... which makes sense giving the $300 price tag. Add in that Alesis box and you can actually use it to record real music. Heck, you can even plug it into the Guitar Hero: World Tour game and it will work. It truly is a thing of beauty.
This Rock Revolution drum set, on the other hand, is definitely NOT a thing of beauty. Everything on the drum feels like it is randomly placed, and the whole thing is so small and cramped that it's extremely difficult to play. Also, notice the Guitar Hero III guitar ... that's there because they don't actually have a guitar to show off. It's not because their guitar wasn't done, but rather because they aren't actually making a new guitar. Weird. To add insult to injury, the headphones connected to this game didn't even work, so when I played the guitar I couldn't figure out what song I was playing. By the looks of this drum set it doesn't look like Rock Band 2 has anything to worry about.
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