LEGO Rock Band arrived on November 3, 2009, for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii, with a Nintendo DS version handled separately by Backbone Entertainment. TT Fusion developed it with Harmonix, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment published it, and it stands as the fifth console entry in the Rock Band series. The pitch was simple: take the instrument-controller formula and coat it in Lego bricks.
Trailer, via rade155.
Four Players, One Living Room
Up to four local players pick up Rock Band or Guitar Hero controllers for lead guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. Notes scroll as Lego bricks. Guitar and bass players hold frets and hit the strum bar as notes cross the target area; drummers strike four colored pads, with wide orange notes marking kick drum hits; singers match relative pitch. Consecutive notes build a scoring multiplier and add studs, the game’s currency, and glowing energy phrases fill an Overdrive meter that doubles the band’s multiplier when activated.
Super Easy and the Family Filter
Five difficulties run from Super Easy to Expert, and Super Easy is unique to this game. It uses the same charts as Easy, but pitch and fret choices stop mattering. That single addition does more for the stated goal of a family-friendly Rock Band than any song on the disc.
The soundtrack runs 45 songs, chosen to keep things clean. Songs export into other Rock Band titles, and downloadable content passing the game’s family-friendly filters drops in — though tracks released after Rock Band 3 will not work because the song format changed.
An Octopus and a Demolition Crew
The tour structure follows the original Rock Band games, but special levels break the pattern. Players fight an octopus. Players demolish a building with a rock concert. Studs buy Lego items for the Rock Den, plus new staff, clothes, and instruments. Character creation mixes and matches bodies, torsos, legs, and heads.
The gameplay and the game’s 45-song soundtrack has been selected to create a “family-friendly” game.
Where It Stumbles
Reviews landed at moderate, and the complaints were fair. Some soundtrack picks sit oddly against a game built for younger players, and so do certain features. The Lego layer never resolves whether it wants to be a serious rhythm game or a toy.
The Rock Den
The Lego layer is not decoration. Building avatars, earning studs, and spending them on the Rock Den gives the game a second loop that the mainline Rock Band titles never had, and Super Easy genuinely opens the genre to players who could not otherwise finish a song. The octopus fights and demolition set pieces are the right kind of silly.
What holds it back is the soundtrack, which is the one thing a music game cannot afford to get wrong.
LEGO Rock Band scores 7.7 of 10.
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