I remember when I first got Hero. Talk about addiction. Every weekend, my apartment became a stage for Hero and sing-song-alonging (Sing Star) parties. It made things difficult as half my friends wanted to rock out, and the other half wanted to put their singing skills to the test.

All I could think was, why don’t they just combine the two games? And how awesome would it be if they had something like “Drum Hero”? Then one day, as if the peeps at Harmonix heard my crazy thoughts, it was announced that the newest music game to be released would be called “Rock Band”.

I’ve always been a fan of the Playstation platform; however, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to upgrade to the newer PS3. This made getting a copy of Rock Band quite difficult. Any time I hit a store; there were piles available for the Xbox 360 and PS3, but nothing for my last-gen console.

Then it happened, one day when I was least expecting it, there it sat atop the other boxes…Rock Band for my PS2. There was a moment’s hesitation, but I quickly made the purchase, and rushed home so that I could enjoy, finally, the game I’ve wanted for so long.

The concept of playing the drums was the most exciting for me. I have horrible coordination where drumming is involved, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to bang on my drums all day long. The drums were quickly assembled, friends were called, and before I knew it, we were about to rock out for the first time as a “band”.

The layout was basically the same as what we’ve seen before in other music games. There were a few changes, but for the most part, graphically, it remained the same. Characters of course looked different, and in my opinion, seemed to match the actual singer of the song you played. For instance, when playing Learn to Fly by the Foo Fighters, your main character very much resembled Dave Grohl.

I soon had to share the drums, and moved to test my skills on the guitar, as the new Rock Band guitar offered a set of “chords” meant specifically for the guitar solo offered in the song. I could actually play an entire piece of the song, without strumming one note. How cool was that?

Not so cool at all. I found the new guitar to be anything but cool. The added “chord” buttons were much smaller in size, making it difficult to hit just one note at a time, causing me to make unnecessary mistakes.

The other annoyance…the actual “strummer” on the guitar. Gone were the ticks you were used to with the previous music games, and instead you were strumming silently. The lack of tick started to make me question whether I was in fact strumming, and again, I was making unnecessary mistakes.

Unlike Rock Band for the PS3 and xBox 360, the PS2 version was made by a third-party company, and many of the perks added in the game for the other consoles, were not included in the PS2 version. This was very disappointing, as I was excited to create my own character, and play a “world tour”.

The music track was impressive, giving you the option to play classics from the time I was born, to newer stuff that I grew up with. The option of having my older guitar used to play was also great. I could hear myself strum, and the mistakes were fixed.

The game very much follows previous music game releases, with the exception of having the option to sing or play drums. There were many disappointments with the PS2 version of the game, but all in all, I love the concept, and therefore, love the game.