It seems like it should be the punchline to a joke, doesn’t it? Like someone is pulling your leg and saying; what if they crossed those Lego: Star Wars games with Rock Band? But it’s real and it’s here and, ostensibly, it’s aimed at the same kids and parents who bought all of the other Traveler’s Tales Lego games.

But how does it stack up in the already flooded rhythm game market? Obviously, with the Lego license, there is an inherent appeal, but another $60 guitar game may be a hard purchase to justify, despite the family slant.

Gameplay

Now, I’m not trying to bag on what, at its core, is a competent Rock Band game that lets the very young join in on the action. I’m assuming that, despite what YouTube will have me believe, not every five-year-old is a Guitar Hero expert who can 5-star Jordan on expert difficulty.

I’m sure there are some average kids who have trouble reaching three frets, let alone five, but who still would love to join their parents in this (hopefully) waning phenomena.

Enter Lego Rock Band. It’s got all the cute and charm that Traveler’s Tales has managed to cram in to their Star Wars, Batman and Indiana Jones games. But the problem is that, while the few and too far-between cutscenes may directly reference the style they’ve now become famous for, the rest of the game stands in sharp relief.

Gone is the high level of customization. I didn’t find that I could customize my character to the extent I wanted, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to make a custom instrument! It seems so obvious now, but the building aspect of Lego is completely lost in Lego Rock Band. You can pick the minifigs to represent every member of your band and every person in your entourage but you can’t construct your own alien and police Lego crossed bass.

On top of that, on the Rock Band side of things, there are a few features that are unique to Lego Rock Band. For one, you get a 5th difficulty level to help get newbies in to the swing of things. Super Easy has an extremely generous note chart on the guitars and completely removes the bass pedal on drums. And failing is pretty much non-existant in Lego Rock Band. When you hit the bottom of the crowd meter, you enter ’recovery mode’ and actually get the chance to recover any and all gold pieces you’ve acquired thus far as well as get back into the song.

Sadly, some of the advances made the most recent Rock Band, The Beatles: Rock Band, have somehow not made it into Lego Rock Band. When you pause, there isn’t any countdown timer to help you get back in the song without losing your place, which is something that even Rock Band on the iPhone includes. Also, the tweaks to hammer-ons and pull-offs haven’t carried over and they’re just as hard as they were to pull off in Rock Band 2 before the post-Beatles patch.

And on top of all that, I had real stability issues during my playthrough. I’m not talking about, ’oh, there was minor graphical tearing when I deinterlaced the whoosit’. I’m talking about a real problem with the game locking up at key moments consistently. And it kept happening during crucial loading and saving moments, particularly when I was backing out of the venues menu to my ’Rock Den’ which just so happens to be the main point where the game autosaves your progress.

I think you can see where I’m going with this now. I replayed songs and events umpteen times until I got so sick of it that I abandoned reaching the last venues and last vehicles until a patch is released. That would entirely change my perspective of the game but with these issues (which happened to me on a new Jasper-chipped, RE5 edition 360) it’s a hard game to recommend.

Graphics and Sound

But despite all of the above issues, I do not have a lack of love for this game. I was made to love this game. It combines two of my great nerdy loves; rocking out with plastic instruments and a childhood filled with Lego.

And the game really caters to that. Despite the lack of customizability that I crave, the minifigs look awesome when they’re rocking out and there are a lot to choose from when you’re setting up your band. When last I left it, my band was fronted by a wizard lead singer, had a pirate on bass and a zombie handling the sticks. And my guitar player? A dead ringer for Dimebag Darrell, complete with cut-off jeans, sleeveless t-shirt and metal-styled guitar.

The animations are pretty decent too, the only stilted one being the drummer. Everyone else looks like they belong on stage and has some form of realistic movement.

As for sound, it’s a Rock Band game and obviously, sounds absolutely fine. There’s nothing special that Lego brings to the mix here, as TT keeps its tradition of silent exposition, so the cutscenes add nothing new, audio-wise.

Value

Here’s the clincher for those of you who have already bought in to the rhythm game genre numerous times. If the Lego element doesn’t sell you, and you don’t have kids who you’re trying to woo with video games, the tracklist is less than stellar.

Not only does it contain that kind of middle-of-the-road rock and pop that litter the top-40 radio stations, but there isn’t a whole lot of it compared with previous Rock Band and Guitar Hero iterations. As opposed to Rock Band 2, which had an impressive 84 tracks on disc; Lego Rock Band has a mere 45.

And while there are Lego versions of David Bowie(!), Queen, Blur and Iggy Pop, sadly, it probably won’t be enough to distract you from the tracks that really stand out as odd choices for a predominately guitar-based music game. Songs like the Ray Parker’s fantastic Ghostbusters song and Kung-fu Fighting, seem like good ideas but are pretty terrible note-tracks in practice and shouldn’t be on the disc. DLC maybe, but not as part of the meagre 45 songs you get for $60.

And because of the small song selection, you will probably get stuck playing the same songs over and over again which is particularly frustrating when they’re ones you don’t like playing. I even played the same songs back to back sometimes because of a ’random’ CPU choice or an event.

Conclusion

The Beatles: Rock Band was a success because of its incredible soundtrack and a pure vision when it came to presentation. On top of that, it was the best iteration on Rock Band’s gameplay elements to date.

Lego Rock Band tries to drink from the same well and even has the benefit of tapping a seemingly new audience. But, due to poor setlist choices and stability issues, it’s just not up to snuff when held up against the already impressive Harmonix offerings.