Rock Band 2 PS3 Patch Coming Thursday

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A downloadable update for the PlayStation 3 edition of Rock Band 2 is slated to arrive this Thursday, packing some of the tweaks Xbox 360 owners received in September. "We're perfectionists over here at Harmonix, and we want to make sure that everyone's Rock Band experiences are as awesome as they possibly can be," RB2 lead designer Dan Teasdale explained in a PlayStation.Blog post.

Among the changes included: velocity sensitivity for Ion Drum Kits, "much more robust handling of chord hammer-ons and pull-offs," a "Sort by Stars" option in Quickplay, and support for the user-created songs eventually coming to PS3 via Rock Band Network.

While the Rock Band Network and its wealth of user-made content are based on Xbox 360 due to RBN's use of Microsoft's XNA Creators Club platform, Harmonix has vowed that select "stand out tracks" will be eventually be sold on PlayStation 3 and Wii.

Come January 7 RB2 PS3 will be prompted to download the free update booting the music game whilst connected to the PlayStation Network, with the notes below:

  • "Sort by Stars" in Quickplay. If you hit the "Sort" button on the Song Select screen, you'll come to a brand new sort that orders songs by the star ratings that you've achieved on each song. Each star rating gets a category, as well as an "Unplayed" category for songs that don't have a star rating recorded. Finally, you can record your progress towards gold starring every song in your library!
  • Improved "Sort by Stars" fix: Players will not have to beat a previous high score to record a star rating for their songs.
  • Chord HOPO improvements: If you've played The Beatles: Rock Band, you'll notice much more robust handling of chord hammer-ons and pull-offs. This patch implements those changes in Rock Band 2 to provide a more natural chord hammer-on/pull-off experience.
  • Velocity Sensitivity on Ion Drum Kits: Ion Drum kits now support velocity sensitivity in both drum fills and Drum Freestyle mode.
  • Rock Band Network Store Support: When the Rock Band Network goes live, select songs will be available for PlayStation 3 users through a new storefront available in game. Stay tuned for more information closer to the launch of RBN!
  • SingStar Wireless Microphone Support. Rock Band 2 now supports the SingStar Wireless Microphones currently available through Europe! Finally, you can now have a fully wireless Rock Band experience on your PlayStation 3!
  • Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

    From The Chatty
    • reply
      January 6, 2010 10:56 AM

      So when are they going to fix that star-sorting glitch on the 360 that won't let you track stars if you haven't beat the previous high score?

      • reply
        January 6, 2010 12:16 PM

        Can you explain what this bug is? I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

      • reply
        January 6, 2010 12:41 PM

        when MS lets them patch their game for free.

      • reply
        January 6, 2010 7:21 PM

        Yeah this pissed me off. When I sort it by stars it shows me like all single digit numbers for all the stars and then in unplayed it shows me like 300 songs. So yeah sorting by stars is going to be useless for me for quite some time.

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