The basic options in RB2 include your standard audio/video configurations present in previous RB/GH releases, including the mic sensititity controls which can also be adjusted mid-song. There are also data management options for your character and band information to rename, delete, or remove characters from a particular band.
Lag Calibration
The more interesting section that has been vastly improved upon is the lag calibration options. While there is still the ability to manually calibrate lag by strumming in response to audio and visual cues, for the first time ever there is now an "automatic calibration" feature. In order to make use of this, you must have the newly designed guitar controller for RB2 which has built-in optical and audio sensors. Using the automatic calibration, there are two phases. First you simply hold the guitar up to your speakers which beep every so often as a bar fills on the screen to indicate its progress, when the bar fills the audio lag offset will be displayed, and pressing "green" will start the second phase. Here, you simply hold the face of the guitar up to your TV screen which flashes every so often, again as a progrss bar fills on the screen. Many indicate the automatic calibrations to be perfect; though some have reported slightly unreliable results with the video lag being off by about 10ms. In any case, it's a very creative solution to a problem that has caused a lot of people many headaches - major props to Harmonix for that!
Modify Game
Under "Extras" on the main menu, there is a place for unlock codes to be entered, much similar to GH3's cheat code interface. Once a given option is unlocked, it beomes selectable/deselectable in the interface below and you don't need to ever enter the unlock code again.
Here's a full listing of the unlocks that are available:
- No Fail Mode: Already unlocked - Never fail out of a song!
- Breakneck Speed: OYOYBOOB - Increase the scrolling speed of instrument tracks!
- Select Venue Screen: BOOBYBOOBY - Choose a venue to play in quickplay.
- Performance Mode: BBRRYYBB - Play the game without a track!
- Unlock All Songs: RYBRRBBRYB - Unlock every song in the game! - Disables achievements, saving and online capabilities
- New Venues Only: RRRRYYYY - Only show Rock Band 2 venues
- Stage Mode: BYRBYRBYR - Apply tweaks that are useful for live, public Rock Band 2 performances! - Disables pausing, achievements, saving and online capabilities
- Awesomeness Detection: YBOYBOYBO - Let Harmonix know that you are really awesome!
Several abilities, despite still having unlock codes, are already unlocked by default, including No Fail Mode, Breakneck Speed, Select Venue Screen, and Performance Mode.