Rock Band 2 update contains US SingStar mic support

Dan Teasdale, lead designer on Rock Band 2, has posted some updates for the title over on the US PS Blog.

Due to loads of consumer feedback, a few tweaks have been made to the hammer-ons and pull-offs, along with changes to sorting in Quickplay and, finally, the long awaited addition of SingStar mic support in the US.

Here are the changes, which are heavily needed:

• “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!

• Improved “Sort by Stars” fix: Players will not have to beat a previous high score to record a star rating for their songs.

• 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.

• Rock Band Network Store Support: When the Rock Band Network goes live, select songs will be available for PlayStation 3 users through a new storefront available in game. Stay tuned for more information closer to the launch of Rock Band Network.

• SingStar Wireless Microphone Support. Rock Band 2 now supports the SingStar Wireless Microphones currently available through Europe. Finally, you can now have a fully wireless Rock Band experience on your PlayStation 3.