Following the pitiful effort that was Rock Band on Wii you can't blame us for having felt very indifferent to the release of Rock Band 2 on the system as we weren't expecting much more from the sequel. However Harmonix has put all our concerns to rest, letting the world know that Rock Band 2 on Wii would be as fully featured as the 360 and PS3 versions of the game. Earlier this year when Activision announced that Guitar Hero: World Tour would feature downloadable content, the music creator mode, full band online, and more the choice for Wii owners seemed pretty clear, however things aren't so easy anymore.
IGN got a chance to go hands on with the Wii version of the game will indeed have the ability to create custom rockers, downloadable content, the new Battle of the Bands mode, the drum trainer mode, and yes, it will actually have Band World Tour mode this time around.
No doubt you may be wondering exactly how DLC will work in the game and this seems to be the area in which Harmonix has one-upped Activision/Vicarious Visions. Whereas Guitar Hero: World Tour DLC songs can be saved to the SD card and are then played by temporarily moving them to the Wii system memory and being played from there, Rock Band 2 will allow players to stream their tracks directly from the SD card with no moving of files involved.
Unfortunately Wii owners will not be able to download song bundles which means that they will need to download each song individually which amounts to spending slightly more points if you want all the songs that would normally be bundled and discounted. When the game releases Wii owners will not only get access to all of the downloadable songs from Rock Band 2, but Harmonix will also choose 30 "fan favorites" of songs that were made available as DLC from the original Rock Band, and will continue to add both new and old songs to the catalog for Wii owners.
Curiously enough while Harmonix confirmed that the Wii version of the Guitar Hero III would be compatible with the game they couldn't give us any details on compatibility with instruments from Guitar Hero: World Tour... yet. Another issue touched upon was that friend codes would indeed be present for the game's online modes and if you still have some nagging questions you want answered, head over to
MTV's Multiplayer blog and leave your question and they will send it over to Harmonix for you.
Sources
IGN hands on
MTV Multiplayer Q&A
MTV Multiplayer Q&A pt. 2
