Rock Band 2 Patch Brings Wireless Mic Support

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An update for the Xbox 360 edition of Rock Band 2 was released by Harmonix today, delivering the long promised support of the Xbox 360 Wireless Microphones that come bundled with Lips and were recently released for standalone purchase.

The Xbox 360 incarnations of recent music games releases, such as The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5, are also compatible with the wireless peripherals. Rock Band 2 owners will be prompted to download the patch upon connecting to Xbox Live.

The update also brings with it a number of other tweaks, including new sorting criteria, the ability for Rock Band Network members to sample their custom charts and songs, plus improved hammer-ons and pull-offs, with the full details following below:

A PlayStation 3 edition of the patch, one that can safely be presumed to lack the Xbox 360-centric tweaks, is also in the works and is said to be in certification.

  • Rock Band Network Audition Mode. Available from the "Extras" menu on Xbox 360 versions of Rock Band 2, members of the Rock Band Network can now upload songs from their PC's and audition their songs using our suite of song audition and testing tools. Currently in closed beta, the Rock Band Network will welcome authors to open beta in the coming weeks! Find out more at creators.rockband.com
  • "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!
  • Background Downloading in the Music Store. Purchasing songs from the Rock Band Music Store now no longer requires you to wait for a song to download before you can download another song. You can now queue up downloads to your heart's content, which is going to be incredibly handy with some of the amazing DLC that's coming out over the next few weeks and months.
  • Xbox 360 Wireless Microphone Support. Rock Band 2 now supports Xbox 360 Wireless Microphones, like the Lips microphone. Finally, you can now have a fully wireless Rock Band experience!
  • 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.

    Thanks to manlyman for the tip.

    Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

    From The Chatty
    • reply
      September 25, 2009 12:52 PM

      Yes, background downloads!! The one feature I've wanted since the music store had been released.

      • reply
        September 25, 2009 12:58 PM

        Don't forget Star Tracking!

        • reply
          September 25, 2009 1:10 PM

          Finally!

        • reply
          September 25, 2009 2:28 PM

          That's the one I like to see finally!

          I really like the look of the Beatles song selection screen, with the friends leaderboard pops and whatnot.

          • reply
            September 25, 2009 8:32 PM

            I'd also like to see per-instrument difficulties on the difficulty select screen, because I do a lot of random play.

      • reply
        September 28, 2009 12:12 PM

        They patched in background downloading of DLC? Goddamn, I hate the fucking Wii more than ever now.

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