We played a lot of Rock Band 2 this week. For my family - me, wife, 2 kids (8 and 5) it's a huge WIN! There's nothing like hearing your 5 year old sing along w/ the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Bosstones, and Bon Jovi and your 8 yr old windmilling like Pete Townshend. This isn't our first time playing Rock Band. We played a ton of the first one. My 5 yr old would sing, 8 yr old on Bass, my wife on guitar, and me on drums. We plowed through a bunch of songs, but would always hit a wall because of the difficulty. Which brings me to one of the newest features of Rock Band 2 - NO FAIL MODE.

NO FAIL MODE is great. We can jam away and not worry about any of us failing out of songs. The kids love it. My 5 yr old can strum away w/o consequence. There are couple of other new feature that seem pretty cool, too: challenges and drum trainer.

CHALLENGES I'm still trying to understand the challenges fully, but I like what I've played through so far. They have ones that are for specific instruments and some have time limits. There's some potential leaderboard fun to be had as you compare your particulars against your friends. I feel like this could be a diversion from my GeoWars 2 addiction. I just need some friends to get it so we can compete against each other. I think I maybe getting tired of picking up geoms.

DRUM TRAINER is another cool feature. I haven't fully explored it, but so far so good. It allows you to alter the speeds and different note layouts. It also has a Freestyle mode which allows you to wail away to any song (even songs from your own collection). This is a great one for my kids. See this lets them play along with the Jonas Brothers and that is a big deal. Talking about the Jonas Brothers, my kids are dying for some DLC from the Bros. I know if that day ever comes I won't be able to say no especially with my track record of impulse purchases (I'm looking at you JukeBox Hero and Brass in Pocket).

SONG EXPORTER One more thing, I exported all of the songs from the first Rock Band. What a great idea! Even though it cost 5 bucks it's so cool to have the option. It's crazy how many songs are now available. The only drawback is that it almost makes you lose track of the new ones from Rock Band 2. You really have to keep an eye out for them.

BTW - I had a successful Gamestop trip to get Rock Band 2 (and the Viva Pinata TIP). I took advantage of their get 15 extra bucks when you trade in 3 games. Along with that I recently took a bunch of E-Reward surveys and got a $25 gift card for my trouble. So with all the trades and my giftcard, I got both games for grand total of 15 bucks. Sweet.

For those of you keeping score at home. I traded in (all 360) - Fatal Inertia, NFL Head Coach 09, Viva Pinata, Stuntman: Ingntion, Def Jam Icon, Kengo. Expect for VP, I purchased all of these for the purpose of trading in. They were Best Buy YMMV cheapos and Blockbuster buy one get one free. Head Coach was a freebie in the Madden's 20th Collector Edition ( I got Madden as gift).