Rock Band 2

Some look at this as the peak of Rock Band, after all it made huge improvements on 2 with a bigger and better career mode, better visuals, better customization, and a more varied and bigger setlist. Rock Band 2 is when the rhythm games were near their peak with Guitar Hero III only having released a year prior and the first Rock Band not even having been a year old when this released. In a way this just felt like an update to the first game but it was a very welcome one. For me personally though this just pales in comparison to Rock Band 3. 3 had the pro keyboard and with the ability to import almost all the songs in the other games it made these older games almost obsolete. Plus there was better character creation in 3 and it was a more fun game to just play random songs, where this game had a better career mode but ultimately is outdated. Plus I just don't really get the appeal of the plastic guitar maybe, the only thing that drew me to Rock Band 3 was the keyboard.

With a broader setlist that still oozed cool every step of the way, a far tighter engine, a cleaner look, an expanded tour that actually altered the game flow, stacks of organically created challenges that gave value to the library rather than cheapened it, and probably the best setlist screen of any of these games, Rock Band 2 was, by the dev's admission, the game that RB1 should have been. RB3 would have more features in an attempt to take the concept all the way home, but it is arguably RB2 that is the best in terms of raw fun and engagement.