Rock Band 2: Battle of the Bands
Harmonix cranks online competition to 11.
August 18, 2008 - If you don't have an online connection for PS3 or Xbox 360, you're going to miss out on a lot of the goodness in Rock Band 2. As anyone still playing Rock Band 1 can attest, downloadable content adds quite a bit to the experience. So will the new Battle of the Bands mode.
Forget what you think about Rock Band and online competition. Battle of the Bands is not a direct band-v-band mode. Instead, BotB offers a series of challenges where bands post scores in an attempt to better one another. Harmonix is promising that new challenges will be added daily, with old ones often cycling out quickly. The plan is for there to always be 5-10 challenges at any time. And if you're worried Harmonix won't deliver on its promise, remember that this is the developer that's managed to deliver new downloadable songs each week for nearly a year. Over the past three weeks, Harmonix has been testing its ability to post a new challenge daily, and so far it's been a success.
Battle of the Bands is accessed in the Tour menu. The set-up is easy to navigate. You get a scrollable roll of challenges with intriguing names like "The Stalker Challenge," "'Sleepwalker' Star Battle," and "Bass Streak-Off."
Select any of these and you can view the full details. You'll see a general description, where you currently rank, how much you need to increase your score to pass the next person in the rankings, and any special rules for the challenge. You can also check the setlist and the rankings for both friends and the rest of the world.
Some battles offer a single song and may even allow just one instrument. A good example of this is the "Steely Dan Expert Score Battle." Steely Dan's "Bodhisattva" is one hell of a tough song for guitar on expert. So much so that Harmonix turned off the crowd meter so you can't fail the song. Whoever scores the most points, playing guitar on expert, gets the glory.
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So let's say you want to give Steely Dan a go. Once you hop in, you'll see the score of the next person ranked above you. That will be your focus in the battle and you'll see a tug-of-war meter showing where you stand throughout the song. Our band, the Electric Federation, passed Pwnivore and a few others on the way to fifth place. When Pwnivore next hops on to Rock Band 2, he'll be notified that his score has been beaten, what he needs to reclaim his place, and how long the challenge remains active.
There's no limit on the number of times you can play a challenge. And challenge lengths will vary. Some will last a few minutes (yes, just a few minutes) and be open to those lucky enough to spot it before its gone. Most will last a few days to a week. If Harmonix finds a compelling enough challenge, one could stay up for a month or longer. It's a simple, but brilliant system that services those who get tired of World Tour. There will always be something new to do in Rock Band 2.
Challenges won't be limited to the 84 tracks on RB2. Harmonix plans to mix in Rock Band 1 challenges (remember, you can import songs from RB1 to RB2) as well as DLC. So when a new DLC album is released, it's safe to expect a challenge to come with it. And to keep things fun, there will be some "narrative" challenges as well.
You may see "The Evolution of Metal" challenge, which picks a song from each of the past five decades and tasks you to earn the best star average among all five. Currently, there is "The Stalker Challenge," which assures gamers that, "No, it's not creepy if you make a mixtape of these songs and play them outside their window." Blondie's "One Way or Another," Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf," and Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know" make up the setlist. This challenge expires in 4 days, 4 hours as of this posting. So, get yourself a debug and a preview build of Rock Band 2 if you want to post a score.
Harmonix promises to keep the challenges varied. Some will be for full bands, some for solo instruments. There will be family-friendly challenges that will keep players from failing out and those geared to test the experts.
Battle of the Band challenges may come and go, but you will always keep a record of your attempts. In Tour mode, you can access your band's Battle History and see every challenge ever entered and your final ranking. You can view any other band's Battle History as well, so you can check up on friends or stalk a stranger.
One thing missing is the ability for users to create their own challenges. This isn't likely something to happen anytime soon, though Harmonix will be taking plenty of fan suggestions at the official
Rock Band forums.
Battle of the Bands is just one piece of what RB2 has to offer. But it's a big piece. We can't wait to have you demolish all of our puny scores.
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