Early 2009 prediction for the merging of two franchises as seemingly disparate as the Lego series and Rock Band would have garnered pretty high bookkeeping odds. Scanning daily for apologetic rebuttal but with a depressing lack of April fool’s return, two weeks after the news of Lego Rock Band’s existence broke I geared myself up for a coming holiday release. Though I remained jocularly incredulous, trickling details made Lego Rock Band appear, at least conceptually, a near-perfectly formed music experience. Finally reaching PAL territories with Harmonix’s characteristically trite attention to punctuality, a love of Traveller’s Tales layered collect-’˜em-ups and Rock Band’s previously pitch-perfect rhythm action inspired a day one purchase.

Lego Rock Band is in essence a watered down, re-skinned Rock Band 2. Avatar stalwarts of the Rock Band series are here reduced to inch-high minifigures, scrolling brick highways replace what we have come to accept as notes, and every utterance of ‘œscore’ is replaced with the Lego series familiar ‘œstuds’. Marketed similarly to the somewhat soulless Band Hero, Harmonix’s foray into family-friendly music gaming differs immediately in its Lego caress: a pedigree known for providing a consistently outstanding contribution to cross-generational inclusion. Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones play out like early episodes of The Simpsons: traditionally slapstick humour met with a mature underlying critique. Successfully pitched as being able to entertain children in droves without alienating adults in patronising boredom, the gameplay itself services a demographic so completely, that like Popcap’s puzzle genre monopoly, it seems a lost cause for rival developers to even bother drawing close.

Harmonix’s presence is unmistakeable in the game’s tightly charted tracks, overall presentation, framework sheen and déjà vu inducing career. Traveller’s Tales offer their usual character, a staunchly adhered to policy of family accessibility, and frequent disregard to v-sync lock. It would appear that the unlikely pair have produced a true compound of each team’s respective output. But, external to heaped reputational praise, is the amalgamative title itself any good?

That’s quite the body suit…

On start-up, the opening homage to the pre-rendered introductions of Rock Band and Rock Band 2 is unmistakeable. With a face of absolute childish glee, I sat through the vehicular FMV whooping and clapping like some guffawing idiot. When an extremely familiar title menu buffered into view over Suddenly I See replete with a simplified big-cat graphic I was spinning on drum stool championing the title’s direction like a wordy Catherine wheel.

30 minutes later, with band set up and minifig customised, it suddenly became apparent that aside from the added nobbles on the note highway, I was playing Rock Band 2. Admittedly the experience was sunnier, funnier and all round more charming than the precursor’s cold exterior, but under the façade of the detach-in-the-middle musicians flailing grab-machine hands over Fender licensed guitars, this was still Rock Band 2.

Absolute focus.

Lego Rock Band finally presents a serviceable reason for the identikit crowd members of old and the Rock Challenges, amusing vignettes which harness the power of rock to fight dinosaurs, octopuses and level buildings. However, as has become increasingly apparent with updates to the graphics engines that power our duelling series of rhythm action, the “eyes on the road” style of play leaves the vast majority of on screen activity as eye-candy for inanimate furniture rather than players themselves. When played in multi-player, the challenges at least afford each instrument breaks to admire what is basically a lavish, Lego quick time event. However, the countless missed notes suffered at the hands of these non-sequitur encounters when control returns eventually encourages players to stare dead eye at their empty space, ready to resume action.

Post song, it is unlikely that any player has any idea how the metaphorical war was won and suddenly the assimilation of franchises begins to feel gloriously unnecessary outside of the game’s sprightly menus. Like Guitar Hero 5′s inclusion of gig challenges, the goal for each and every set remains the same: play the song as well as you can.

A 45 page Choose Your Own Adventure book.

Progression suffers from Rock Band’s usual World Tour repeats. It isn’t impossible to pick a new venue and yet play the same song first solo, then in a pre-built duo setlist and then for a third time within a mystery lucky dip. The reduced track list, here capping at 45 rather than its direct predecessor’s 104, means that repeats are far more likely. The special events, replacing Rock Band’s traditional Record Executive or MTV bonuses, may inject a little humour by dressing up your band as clowns for a builder’s birthday at the construction venue, but it doesn’t make the repetition of Check Yes Juliet any more palatable.

A user’s series DLC is taken into account in random or “choose you own” sets, however, the reliance on content bought external to the title itself feels somewhat of a cop-out in adding length to the game’s tour. It is not unreasonable to expect an avid player to breeze through the game’s reduced venue set in a long weekend.

No Hammer Smashed Face!?

The decision to implement a content filter on available DLC is an interesting one. On paper, the publisher boasts that its inclusion builds a safe environment for the game’s intended audience. All songs on the music store approached using the Lego front end are deemed appropriate for youngsters and pre-purchased content is split on loading the disc. However, in execution it is difficult to fathom why Harmonix didn’t include the filter for scaremongering parents, whilst simultaneously appeasing users outside of the “E for Everybody” demographic with a simple switch to enable more exotic audio content to be played and displayed. The ESRB warning, flashed on game load, absents Harmonix and Traveller’s Tales from responsibility of DLC substance meaning the filter was an issue of development, rather than age classification.

Interesting too is the choice to limit celebrity minifigs to performing their own material, something inevitably influenced by Activision’s Cobain and Stefani melodramas. Frustratingly, this awkward system means that the inclusion of We Are The Champions et al are restricted from multi-song sets in quick play due to needing their own custom venue. The problem was already combated by The Beatles: Rock Band where each song needed its own streamed art credentials and thus buffered the varying backgrounds to sprawling sets between performed numbers. However, as with other development inconsistencies, it seems that Lego Rock Band found life further from Harmonix’s meticulous grasp than perhaps divulged in press release and media explanation.

The Guitar Hero / Rock Band theft paradigm.

The track list attempts to appease the game’s entire cross generational fan base with reasonable aplomb. The critical difference between the disgustingly twee output of Neversoft’s Band Hero and Lego Rock Band’s song choice is that each and every track on disc would have a reasoned place on the Rock Band music store. Tracks like Counting Crows’ Accidentally in Love may occasionally steer the title into love-sick whimsy, but the inclusion of Queen, Bowie, Iggy Pop and Blur as the game’s titular celebrity avatars announces a setlist comfortable under its series steering title.

For once, shifting the Guitar Hero / Rock Band theft paradigm in opposition to its usual tilt, Lego Rock Band employs a new “super easy” mode a la Guitar Hero: World Tour. Coming across as a grossly unnecessary inclusion when the standard “easy” difficulty now also incorporates a permanent no-fail modifier, the mildly patronising instruction to open strum / hit anything / gurgle incoherently attempts to open the already generation-defying title up to even wider age berths. Doubly confusing, is the total reinvention of the failure system across all difficulties, where in DJ Hero plagiarised style, you simply can’t fail. Rock Challenges present the only opportunity where players are unable to leap back to life with minimal score loss, placing them at odds with the rest of the game’s stages since the felling of Lego foes is what drives the story and thus career mode forward.

Venues are structured in a sensible difficulty arc, with easy tap along numbers like Ride a White Swan and We Will Rock You slotted in early to warm up the title’s new umbilicaly linked and catheter-tied players. There is now less of a difficulty apex than in previous titles with all songs at least passable by the vast majority of plastic musicians on their chosen difficulties. However, those that like a challenge will still find something to enjoy in the latter echelons with Fire and Aliens Exist lightly taxing even seasoned drummers and guitarists alike. Thankfully for percussionists, there are none of Band Hero’s perturbingly strange bedfellows like Taylor Swift’s country-pop dirge Picture to Burn sharing a set alongside the wrist breaking 16ths of Dashboard Confessional’s Hands Down.

Shop ’till you drop, or get gradually sick of navigating awkward menus using a fucking strum bar.

Outside of spearing a particular demographic, customisation is the only real reason for the Lego branding. The walls of the central tour hub, as well as all characters from band mates to entourage are editable, with each song spewing usable unlocks at you like a particularly generous cascading penny machine. Despite clothes, character and instrument purchases being handled using a carbon copy of Rock Band 2′s store interface, the lack of genre defined sections to break up the stream of plastic shirts and trousers leaves the shopping experience feeling limited and comparatively clunky.

The customization of the Rock Den seems to aim to appease the tough-to-scratch itch sold wholesale by Nintendo’s Animal Crossing and Nintendogs, yet fails miserably. The collection itself is completed by natural progress rather than by any particularly Herculean accomplishments.  In failing to offer any sort of rare item bank, there becomes little point in struggling with the horribly long winded item purchase and placement aside from putting a little clock or busker’s guitar in a corner of your studded hovel for sake of personalisation.

A few other points worth mentioning…

• Menu transitions occasionally hang for unreasonable amounts of time. Whether this is attributable to my wheezing ‘˜box or shoddy quality assurance is currently unknown.
• Pausing mid-song incites a delay of about a second before the familiar menu appears. Coupled with the curious absence of a count-in on game return (although present in The Beatles: Rock Band), an unexpected phone call means a dropped combo, no questions.
• Why is there so much tearing in the Rock Den? The sweeping camera between options feels clunky and slow as the game, at least when output at 1080p, tears frames on pan. Aside from being inserted as an inside joke as a knowing reference to every Traveller’s Tales Lego title before it, the graphical anomaly felt sloppy and unoptimised.
• Cutscenes suffer a similar fate to those in Lego Batman. Working around a theme rather than actual, recognisable source material as in Lego Indiana Jones or Lego Star Wars means that while Lego’s trademark humour is retained, the knowing adult-baiting references just aren’t there.
• A number of included tracks, as per usual, have already featured in other titles. Walking on Sunshine, Kung-fu Fighting and Let’s Dance all featured in Band Hero, while Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast) made its rhythm action debut in Guitar Hero: World Tour.
• The drum samples used in fills, introductions and outros are a return to the snare plus three tom setup of the original Rock Band rather than utilising the hi-hat sample of Rock Band 2.
• Online modes have been dropped completely, presumably to shield the ears of young ‘uns from the constant, harping swears of potty mouth gangsters over Xbox Live.

At three quarters of the game’s current RRP, Lego Rock Band would become an almost essential buy. As it stands, in head to head comparison with previous and rival titles Lego Rock Band is forced to rely on charm alone to sell itself in an increasingly crowded market. While fair to rightly applaud and award the game sole rights to the youth demographic it looks set to pillage, it doesn’t carry the familiar cross-generation Lego draw of previous Traveller’s Tales developed titles.

Taking the game as a glorified DLC collection softens the blow slightly, but even taking the view of an optimistic reductionist, the title has its flaws. Compared with individual track purchases, Lego Rock Band offers reasonable value, yet the age old argument remains that given the equivalent cash, the user would be unlikely to leap at each of the 45 tracks on offer. Marred further by the 800 MS Points ransom demanded to unlock the content for play in the tighter Rock Band 2 (in staunch opposition with previous instantly exportable track packs) , Lego Rock Band becomes an expensive proposition whichever angle you choose to take.

You should play this game if’¦

…Lego still gives you a childish thrill and you don’t mind paying full price for what amounts to little more than an admittedly well presented DLC pack.

Final Score

Lego Rock Band does very little wrong and yet it is the genre’s unerringly tight structure that lets down any real opportunity present in such a bizarre franchise collision. Coupled with a difficult to justify price tag, it remains a fun, if unnecessary, overpriced experience.

(What does this score mean?)