If there was one thing holding Rock Band 2 back from being the perfect music game, it would have to be the lack of support for wireless microphones. A patch has just been released that fixes this problem, allowing rockers to use the Lips microphones (also recently released seperately) in a fully wireless environment. We're pleased with the addition of this feature, but curious as to why it took so long. After all, wireless mic support was announced last year!
The patch also includes several other fixes, incorporating some of the tweaks from The Beatles Rock Band. The change most relevant to gameplay is improved hammer-on and pull-offs for chords. For those who download a lot of music (raises hand), you no longer have to wait for a song to download, and can just queue as many songs up as you like while you play. There are a few other minor features as well. Nice to see the support still going strong for a year old game!
- 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.
Source: Shacknews.com