LEGO Rock Band Hot

It’s the sincerest form of block party this side of Steven Spielberg and his geometric farm animals.

You used to build them up and then smash them together with reckless abandon when you were young. More recently, you’ve been exploring dangerous ruins and smiting the Dark Side in hard polygonal plastic form. Now you can pick up a guitar and rock that mother in LEGO Rock Band. It’s the sincerest form of block party this side of Steven Spielberg and his geometric farm animals.

What does the LEGO brand mean to the Rock Band series? Well, for starters, it means a true competitor to Activision’s recently released Band Hero, which is essentially an all-ages, pop-centric remix of Guitar Hero 5. I spent plenty of time with that game just days ago, and while it’s certainly a lot of fun, it’s not going to please a lot of true rock music fans. Rather than a family game that all can appreciate, it’s perhaps better described as a compromise for moms who don’t mind suffering through some modern pop music to keep their kids safe from all the pentagrams and profanity frequently affiliated with rock. Or, if you really love modern pop, you might not mind the relative lack of guitar and instrumental complexity.

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But LEGO Rock Band is different. Unlike Band Hero, although it features even fewer songs (by 20, in fact), this game's still got "Rock" in the title—and the song list reflects that, refusing to wander too drastically off the beaten path of real, actual rock music. That means if you're an actual rock music fan, but you're wanting to involve your kids in the action (and are concerned about the subject matter of the original Rock Band), you'll have a lot less trouble stomaching the musical selections in LEGO than you did suffering through the Taylor Swifts and Jesse McCartneys of Band Hero.

That’s truly the fundamental difference between the two titles. Well, that, and the personality, which is something I erroneously neglected to consider when I made reference to MTV Games’ competing entry in the genre within my Band Hero review. Personality counts for a lot—especially when you’re talking about games designed for the whole family—and it is a source of real value here.

LEGO my Rock Band

Right from the opening cinema (which is, by all accounts, a spoof of the classic Rock Band opening with the band members riding on top of their tour bus while cruising at high speed), it’s obvious that this game knows its place in the series. The theme is basically that of a silly, all-ages reimagining of the Rock Band mainstay laced with LEGO-centric humor. Everything, including the band members, their vehicles, the sets (which range from construction sites to haunted houses), and even the scrolling notes you play during the songs, is fully comprised of LEGOs. The cut scenes exploit this dynamic nature of the game world by focusing on the construction of every object (much like the rest of the LEGO franchise). Of course, there’s plenty of other fantastic humor in the game, as well, such as the America’s Got Talent-esque opening cinema and the LEGOized versions of famous musicians (such as David Bowie and Queen). Or, for that matter, using the power of rock to bring down a condemned building at a construction site.

To elaborate more on that last point, that’s one of the coolest aspects of the game. These special objectives that you’ll find one of in each venue are called “Rock Challenges”, and they’re essentially unusual gigs which are themed based on a specific (far-fetched) goal. Another great example is found when your haunted house set is invaded by frightful LEGO ghosts. What do you do? Scare them off with a stellar performance of Ray Parker Jr.’s Ghostbusters! It’s all in great taste, and it’s tons of fun for both kids and adults.

Here, LEGO David Bowie poetically relates his concerns about his plastic heart getting broken in two.

Other interesting notes include the ability (and sometimes requirement) to purchase multiple entourage members, who affect your rewards and fans, as well as the need to purchase new vehicles to progress to new venues. Money’s never really an issue, however, even if you aren’t so great at the game; the lower difficulty levels provide plenty of dough to keep you moving through the campaign without any serious hang-ups.

Before we get into the song list, let’s take a moment to delineate what else has changed from Rock Bands prior. First off, with family-friendly comes increased accessibility—and LEGO Rock Band clearly focuses on that point by providing a much greater range of options for genre newcomers. The first of these is the new Super Easy difficulty, which is honestly so mind-numbingly simple that I’m partially convinced that you could train a chimpanzee to be your bandmate. It allows you to press any button on your instrument to play the notes as they arrive, and you’re even presented with the option to disable the foot pedal on the drum set. This is, of course, great for youngsters who can’t quite manage the more difficult button-switching gameplay yet.

In addition to that, you’ll find an option to play shorter versions of most of the songs in the game—a great idea if one of your bandmates has a painfully short attention span. You’ll also appreciate the fact that No Fail Mode is enabled by default throughout the entire campaign, so even if they do decide to set their guitar down and go play their DS, you can still keep playing.

I'm allowed to use the word "cute" when I'm describing LEGO Rock Band.  It's cute.

It’s your f

ather’s song list

If your father didn’t approve of profanity or overt sexual content in his music, that is (suuurrrre). Along with the all-ages gameplay options comes an all-ages track list—but that doesn’t have to mean it’s lame. On the contrary, LEGO Rock Band’s song list is, as previously mentioned, thoroughly rooted in real rock music. You’ll find songs from bands like The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Queen, Tom Petty, Foo Fighters, and The Police. For the most part, you won’t find nearly as much hard rock or anything bordering on offensive (though there are some slightly suggestive lyrics from time to time), but this still doesn’t feel divorced from the world of concert rock like Band Hero. In fact, the most extreme outliers of the entire package are probably David Bowie’s Let’s Dance or Carl Douglas’ Kung Fu Fighting—and probably only around 15% of the entire song list could qualify as “unrock”.

Of course, the changes do come with their set of compromises. Most impacting is the fact that there are just 45 songs in the game—and at $50, that’s the worst song to dollar ratio we’ve seen in any major music game in a while (barring those centered on a specific musical group, that is). Similarly, while DLC is again amongst the features, the purchasable songs are filtered based on their content. In other words, it’s literally impossible to download songs which might be considered off-color or include profanity for play in LEGO Rock Band. The same goes for the importing of songs from your existing Rock Band titles; only certain songs can be transferred. Of course, neither of these problems are really all that relevant once you realize that all of the LEGO Rock Band songs can be moved to Rock Band 2 for $10—not a bad deal, then, even if you’re only buying LEGO for the song list.

Another omission from this version of the game is any sort of online play at all. That’s perhaps a bit disappointing, as playing through the career mode really is quite a lot of fun. Plus, as logic follows, you’ll find no special online challenges or anything of the like, either, so the longevity of the game is pretty seriously affected by this. Having said all of that, in the interest of fairness, this is designed to be a predominantly family-oriented game—so it’s designed to be played in your living room with the kids, in other words. But that’s still no reason to strip it of options which might make it more appealing for those of us who are still considering a purchase in spite of not planning on playing in a family environment. I suppose we’re left to export the music to another game and then do our bidding there. After all, it's practically assumed that you own one before investing in LEGO Rock Band, as the game offers no instrument bundle option for purchase.