Rock Band 2 is already a good deal…

There is a bit more information that’s coming out regarding Rock Band 2 now, and while everything is mostly positive, I guess most people are thinking that it may not be quite as big an update to warrant a “2″.  Instead, 1up, for instance, is wondering why, outside of the obvious instrument improvements, a lot of the new features couldn’t have been released in a title update.

Now, if you’ve been reading our site for awhile, I think you know how often I like to complain about how things are priced.  But I’m just really not sure what the problem is here.  Most Madden games are basically roster updates, yet people continue to shell out $50-$60 every year for them. Regarding Rock Band 2, let me break it down as simply as possible for people:

For $60, you get 70 new songs.

Considering that current DLC for the game is typically $2 per song (with minor discounts for some songs sold in bulk or albums), this should probably make a lot of people pretty happy, particularly if the track list shapes up to be something like what some of the leaked lists were looking like.  Granted, you don’t get to pick and choose what goes on to your Rock Band 2 disc as you do with DLC, but unless it’s a terrible list, this is probably a minor quibble.  Add in the better online options, more flexibility with your avatars and bands (avatars not tied to an instrument, no band leader), set list creation, a drum trainer, and even without really knowing if there are other features, this doesn’t seem all that unreasonable to me if you like Rock Band or this type of game.

Now, it could be argued that if the rumor that Rock Band 1 songs will be somehow importable into Rock Band 2 is NOT true, then you’re also losing around 60 songs at the same time that you gain 70.  I sincerely hope that the rumor is true in some fashion, as I’d love to be able to access all of my music in one place, but even if it’s not, people didn’t seem to have too much trouble with Guitar Hero 2 which didn’t add too many features either and didn’t allow you to play songs from GH1.  I’ve found that, just like with other new games, most people tend to enjoy playing new content, so gaining 70 new songs at the expense of 60 old ones (which you can go back to with a disc swap if you really want to) probably isn’t a huge deal.

Perhaps this is what’s really bugging 1up, though because, instead of Rock Band 2, perhaps we could just have a title update and a Rock Band Expansion Pack, which would basically be just a disc of 70 songs that you can import into Rock Band 1.  But, I guess expansion packs probably don’t sell as well as fully-featured games, and you couldn’t just sell an expansion pack with fake plastic instruments, so you may as well just make a full game out of it.

Incidentally, if RB makes a habit of somehow allowing each release to be imported into the next, I have a feeling that Microsoft’s obnoxiously overpriced 120GB HDs will suddenly become a hot item. (See, I couldn’t even refrain from complaining about some price in this post).