I have been salivating over Rock Band since its release. As a fan of music-based games, the siren call of the Next Big Thing was one that was hard to resist. A few things kept me from acquiring the game for some time, though: the high price tag, reports of less-then-stellar instrument reliability, and a set list that was heavy on newer music kept me away from the party for some time.

Finally, I decided to rent Rock Band and see if it was worth my hard earned cash. I figured a play-through of the Solo career mode on guitar would give me a look at all the game’s songs. I could then make a decision based on how much the game rocked…or not.

As I detest Blockbuster, I decided to go to Hollywood Video first to see if they had it for rent. I quickly discovered that the two nearest Hollywood Video stores were shut down, and I had no desire to drive over to Leon Valley Speed Trap, Texas. I dug up my Ballbuster membership card out of the dresser (I knew there was a reason I didn’t cut it up) and hit the road. Much to my surprise, they had the PS2 version, and as I still have my trusty PS2 Guitar Hero SG controller, it was time to rock. Blockbuster still sucks, though.

Much to my surprise, I liked more of the current songs than I thought I was going to based on just looking at the track list (yeah, I know, ‘don’t judge a book’ yadda yadda yadda). I finished the game on Medium in guitar and tried singing a few songs in QuickPlay mode, and it was lots of fun. The diffculty was scaled back compared to previous Guitar Hero games, especially when compared to the Medium = Hard stuff going on in Guitar Hero III. The Medium diffculty on the singing also felt easier compared to the Medium difficulty of Karaoke Revolution. That may be attributed to the game’s focus on the various flavors of rock music, however.

So, at this point, I knew I was going to get the game, its just a matter of when…