Fender guitars, now with auto-synching
Moving over to the guitars, the new Rock Band 2 Fenders have been improved with a more positive action on the strum bars… though in our play test one immediately failed… so perhaps a bit more work is needed there? That said, the fret buttons still have a positive action but are less noise and ‘clicky’… though I’m not so sure the dark wood effect neck is to my liking.The biggest change to the guitar though is something you’ll maybe use once and then never again but should help everyone struggling with difficult riffs on hard or expert. Any decent GH or RB player will tell you that synching the sound and visuals up to the instruments is the key, especially if you want to perform accurate pull-offs and hammer-ons. But the flaw in the synch process for Rock Band is that it’s basically crap. Sorry, but it is.
John gets ready to rock outThat’s set to change though as Rock Band 2 removes you from the synch process. If you enlarge that picture below you’ll see in the circle a small light sensor. Now when you synch with your AV equipment all you do is hold the guitar in-front of the screen and the screen will flash to synch with the guitar, making the adjustments for you. Next to the sensor is a small microphone, the TV will then play a tone to synch the sound and that’s it, you’re all done and ready to roll.
Click for larger imageBut enough on the kit, how about the features of the game itself?