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| From: MTV Games
Category: Video Games
List Price: $139.99
Buy New: $99.99
You Save: $40.00 (29%)
New (15) Used (12) from $84.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  130 reviews
Sales Rank: 55
Platform: Playstation2
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Edition: Special
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: XXX
Shipping Weight (lbs): 24
Dimensions (in): 29.4 x 15 x 11.3
MPN: 16779
UPC: 014633167795
EAN: 0014633167795
ASIN: B000WPYNJC
Release Date: December 18, 2007
Availability: Pre-Order (0-0 Business Days)
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| Customer Reviews:
 Be In A Band Without Setting Foot In Someone's Garage January 3, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Who hasn't dreamed of being in a band at some point? Like most people, I had been to countless concerts and always wondered what it would be like to play the songs I loved successfully in front of a crowd. With Rock Band, you can do exactly this.
Rock band allows you and three of your friends to start a band and go on tour. Your choices of instruments include a drum, guitar(s), and a microphone. The game comes with one guitar but supports two so that both a bass and lead guitar line can be played. If you already own Guitar Hero, that guitar will work fine with this game.
Additionally, the drum is a high quality electronic drum set that includes four pads and a pedal for the bass drum. While difficult to master at first, it provides the most fun experience and can be extremely entertaining to all around you.
The microphone allows a brave soul to attempt to sings the songs that are being played. While getting the words right is not that important, singing at the right time and on the right pitch is how you get the high score.
More than anything, Rock Band is a social event. It is most fun when 3-4 people are playing and even more fun when you have a crowd of people watching and cheering you on. It is a great game for parties and has an engaging and challenging tour that will keep you going back for more.
 Great party game, certainly better than Guitar Hero!! January 1, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
A few weeks ago I was invited over a friend's house to play Rock Band on his Xbox 360. I absolutely fell in love with the game and just had to have it for myself. Only I didn't have a 360 and I knew it would be extremely difficult to find one for the PS2. I was about to go all crazy and buy a 360 just to play Rock Band when one day I managed to find a PS2 version just by chance. So of course I bought it and set it up as soon as I got home.
Setup isn't all that simple. Unless you want to take 5 minutes to set everything up everytime you play, I suggest leaving everything assembled (that is, if you have room to store everything). Initial setup obviously takes longer. First you must setup every instrument. The mic requires no assembly. Easy enough. For the guitar, you need to snap the end of the guitar into the other piece, then put on the strap, then unscrew the plate on the back of the guitar and insert the batteries (which are included). The drums have several different pieces. This is what takes the longest to set up. After the instruments are assembled, you hook them up to a usb hub which then hooks up to the usb port on your PS2.
In terms of the actual game, you are allowed to have 4 people playing at one time (one singer, one drummer, and 2 guitarists-bass and electric). If you only have a couple of people or if you just want to play by yourself, you have that option as well and you can choose any instrument to play. Just want to sing? That's fine. One of you wants to play guitar while the other plays the drums? That's fine too. The additional guitar is not included with this bundle but if you have a Guitar Hero guitar, that'll work.
What's great about this game is that anyone can play. I played this on New Year's Eve with my 20 year old sister, my 22 year old sister, my 13 year old male cousin, my 15 year old female cousin, and my 40 year old uncle and everyone enjoyed it. I probably wouldn't recommend this for younger kids because even the easy levels can be difficult for adults. There are 4 different levels to choose from-easy, medium, hard, and expert. Each player can choose which level they want to play on. If your singer doesn't know the words to a certain song, you can put him/her on easy while your awesome bassist can play on hard or expert.
For those who don't have Guitar Hero and/or don't know how to play the game, it's pretty simple. The singer sings the lyrics (obviously). The drums and guitars have 4 and 5 "buttons" (respectively). Each is colored. Every player has their own "chart". Different colored circles come in varying speeds down the "chart" and the player must hit the correct colored buttons as they come to the end of the "chart". When done correctly, notes are hit in tune, and music is produced. You play as a band and when one person fails, you must "save" them (or bring them back into the game) by playing really well and hitting every note.
If you have someone in your group that is a good singer and can hit the notes and/or is not all that great at playing the guitars and drums, this is your singer. If you have someone who has good rhythm and doesn't mind playing at an obnoxiously fast speed, this is your drummer. If you have two people who are quick with their fingers and can multitask, these are your guitarists. Other reviewers pointed out that this game is hard and yeah, it can be. Not everyone is going to be good at every instrument. I'm good on guitar but can't play the drums on easy without failing. This is why I think this game is better suited for teens and adults.
A few other noteworthy things to point out. First, this version is different from the 360 version. Obviously with the 360, you can play "online" with other people and you can't with the PS2 version. Also the tour options are different. With the 360 version, you can constantly work up to harder difficulties and new songs whereas the PS2 version is very straightforward-you get new songs after playing the other songs no matter what difficulty level you're on. I've played every song and from here I can only try to beat the harder levels. After I've accomplished that, there isn't much else to do.
There are different options as well. You can configure your game so that there isn't a lag with the song. If your guitarist is a lefty, you can choose Lefty Mode. You can change the volume levels for each instrument so that mom isn't yelling at the kiddos that the drums are too loud. Song-wise, there are only a few songs that the younger generations will know. I'm 20 years old and of the 58 songs, I've probably only heard of 15 or 20. And some of the songs have me questioning why the heck they were chosen for this game. But overall the songs aren't terrible.
Would I recommend this game? For sure. Keep in mind that younger kids might have a really tough time getting the hang of it. Replayability isn't as great as I'd like it to be but I'm hoping there will be new Rock Band games released in the future.
Just as much fun as Guitar Hero December 30, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This game has been a lot of fun so far for me and my family. We picked it up for the retail price (around $160). Usually only one or two of us can play a game like Guitar Hero at one time. With Rock Band, the whole family can play. One person plays guitar, another plays bass (and yes, Guitar Hero Guitars will work with the PS2 version of rock band as we've been playing this way already) and another either plays drums or sings. It took me a little getting use to the new wireless guitar that came with Rock Band. The strum bar is very different from the Guitar Hero Guitars. It doesn't make that clicking noise when you stum it, which is a big plus, but the action you get from the stum bar is different than the Guitar Hero Guitars. The buttons are large and square on the guitar. I find this much easier for fitting my fingers on the button and they don't tend to slide off and hit the other buttons.
The drums are a lot of fun. It helps to have good rhythm to begin with when playing them, but even that's not required. My 8 y.o. was able to play them and make it all the way through songs and had a blast doing it. Even my husband who has no musical talent was able to sit down and get through a song on the drums. The only complaint with the drums is that they are a bit loud when you hit them with the drum sticks. I have seen mods for fixing this and will probably do so soon (foam pad and felt to dampen the noise of the stick hitting the drum). The drum sticks that come with the game are very cheap. Ours came with nicks of wood out of them. I'll be getting a better pair very soon.
The microphone is beefy and seems to pick up singing pretty well. I've only sang one song with it so far, but it worked great.
I've seen complaints about people having difficulty with the game picking up the instruments, but we had no problems at all. We plugged the items into the included usb hub and we were off and running. It took more time to unpack everything out of the box than it did to plug it all in and start playing.
Overall, a great game and lots of fun.
Worth the wait.... December 30, 2007
28 out of 29 found this review helpful
We originally ordered this from Amazon around Nov 2007, but Amazon cancelled the order canceled shortly afterwards because of product shortages. And yet local retailers continued to get them in very short supply. So we took to checking local retailers each morning to see if they had a new shipment for most of December until we finally got lucky.
We've had a blast with it thank goodness, since after waiting this long, my kids' expectations were VERY high. Three instruments come in the box: guitar, drums and microphone. The game comes with a USB splitter that allows you to connect up to 4 instruments at once into the USB port on the PS2. We *WERE* able to use the guitar we have for Guitar Hero (a Red Octane wireless version for PS2) with this game, giving us a band of lead guitar, bass, drums and microphone. I like that we can keep switching around and try the different instruments. It gives you a lot of different perspectives on the same song!
Guitar:
The guitar is excellent. We've been using a Red Octane PS2 wireless Guitar with the Guitar Hero 1-3 games, and while good, aren't as good as the one that came with Rock Band (RB). The new RB one has an extra set of buttons farther up the neck for solos and there are NOT ridges (fret bars) between the keys on this one as there were on the GH guitar. This makes it easier to slide fingers along the buttons with this guitar than it was with the GH guitar, making it easier for the fast sections.
The songs are orchestrated a little more easily, I normally play GH at a "hard" level and get 3-5 stars there... on Rock Band I was able to sight read and get most songs at 5 stars on my first try, so I think they are easier in general.
Drums:
My kids LOVE the drums, and they take some coordination to play. Since I'm not a drummer, it's hard to add a lot here. The height is very quick and easy to adjust which is nice when there are dramatic differences int eh height of the players. The sticks that come with the set are fairly low end wooden ones... we use better ones we already had from a music store with nylon tips that are more solid and feel better. The heads on the drums are very solid feeling and have some give. They don't bounce like real drum heads, but are close enough for us non drummers to get a feel for it. The overall set is a little rickety -- the vertical bars that hold up the heads look like they are just plastic pipe and they will rock back and forth a little. That doesn't really affect the play, but it doesn't have a solid feel unfortunately.
Microphone:
A mic comes in the box and it seems to also be nice and solid. We also have the mics from the SingStar series, and these are shorter than those. We haven't checked to see if they are interchangable yet. The ones with Rock Band have longer cords which is nice -- you can spread out a little more. Some songs also allow you to use the mic like a tambourine and the singer's part (between phrases) sometimes shows a rhythm the singer uses to tap out a tambourine part.
Bass:
A bass does *NOT* come with this game. However, like the GH series, you can select whether the guitar you hook up plays a guitar part or a bass part. So if you hook up the guitar that comes with Rock Band and then another guitar that you already have, you can have one person take the guitar part and the other take the bass. This is about the same in RB as in GH, and as noted the tracks in RB are easier in my opinion.
Overall, an excellent effort and I look forward to being able to get the inevitable add on song packs. Just like GH came out with an "Encore: the 80's" product, I would LOVE to see add on disks for RB. If anyone from the RB team is listening, I'd love to see "genre disks" in particular, like Country hits, Hip Hop hits, best of an era, etc.
 Overrated December 29, 2007
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Ok, I'll make this quick. It's a glorified version of Guitar Hero. Yes, the drums are cool, the mic is cool, 2 guitars are cool. Great party game. Unfortunately, only 58 songs. False advertising on that you can't make you own characters. Great party game, but seeing as you can't do the online thing and get any more songs or really customize or unlock anything, go buy a 360 or ps3 if you want to get the most out of it. Or just buy the game itself to rock out with guitars you already have (gh guitars work with this pretty well). So if it wasn't false advertising on what you could do with the ps2 version, it would get a 5 star because then you wouldn't go in with false expectations.
(and before anyone blasts me for posting this review, it's a great game, but not worth the big money that it's going for. And I like customizing things and unlocking things as well as playing the songs, and there's not that many songs)
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