Lego Rock Band

Rock Band is the premier music game series out there right now. There's no question. When the series announced a Lego spin-off several months ago, I was the first (and only) of all my friends to get excited for it. And it justified my expectations when it turned out to be my favorite Rock Band game yet. There are pros and cons to opting for Lego instead of Rock Band 2, but I'll get to those later. The past two games have been providers of fun for my group of friends back home for over two years now. As a man who owned both games and loved to download new songs (I've spent like $250 on content for this series), I was a frequent host for Rock Band gatherings. The eventual problem was that I got pretty bored with the games pretty fast. Some of my buddies are typically game for rocking all night. I'm typically spent after an hour's worth of music gaming, and sometimes even less. For a long time, the only thing keeping my interest in the series were the constant weekly song offerings. So, I'd download songs, play them once or twice each, lose interest with the game, put it away for awhile, and repeat the cyclical process. I think my biggest problem with rocking is the repetitiveness of it all. Sit me down in front of Super Smash Bros. and I'll have a ball playing with different characters on different levels. Even shooters like Halo allow for strategy and options - you can play the same level (and people) over and over again, and it's something new each time. With Rock Band, you're either singing, drumming, or strumming. Three options. And no matter what difficulty level you play on, and no matter what song comes on, you're always doing the exact same things over and over again. I like to mix it up. In Rock Band games gone by, I loved making characters with the utmost attention to detail. This small amount of customization, combined with the occasional purchasing spree, was really all I had going for me to keep the game interesting. Until now. offers a unique, fresh new spin on the series - and not just because everything in the game is made from everyone's favorite plastic toy blocks (though that alone is still pretty cool). In Lego Rock Band, there's a much greater emphasis on an overarching storyline than ever before. Cut scenes happen with frequency and show things that happen to your band and your roadies, which unlike crews in previous installments, are tangible, real characters whose misadventures add depth to the overall story. At one point, for example, a roadie gets caught on a balloon and floats off into space. Several gigs later, you're on the moon, and out of the blue, he lands right there with you. The game then gives you the option to play a quick set to honor the reunion of the roadies. Even the setlists always seemed to go along with the current venue, albeit often in groan-inducing stretches. "Dig" by Incubus plays when you first venture underground. "Aliens Exist" by blink-182 first occurs in a setlist on the moon. I'm sure you get the picture. Best of all were the "rock power challenges" that punctuated the story, ten songs played to advance the story in some way. Some favorites included the "Ghostbusters!" theme, where your band members and roadies are running around in a haunted house to the beat of the song, and Europe's "The Final Countdown," played as you power up an alien UFO so that it can take you to the moon. These movie-like challenges weren't just entertaining; they were the only part of the game where it was possible to fail and need to start over. The rest of the time, a "failure" by any band member would result in a short time out of sorts. Before long, the failure would return to playing and the only penalty would be all the notes he didn't get to hit whilst sitting out for a bit. I loved this. All too often in previous Rock Band installments, arguments would develop and anger would set in whenever someone caused the band to fail at the end of a song that came late in a long setlist. Failure meant starting over and erasing all of that setlist's progress. Now? There is no failure. As such, it was much more justifiable for everyone to play on the expert level, where arguably the most fun is had. Another small, simple change that I loved was the game making wardrobe and instrument pieces a one-time purchase. Buy them once, for any created character, and they'd be available to all. But not everything about the game was perfect, or even all that good. For starters, a glitch in the game does not allow you to play any David Bowie, Spinal Tap, or Queen songs that you've downloaded. They appear to be available while setting up "create a setlist" gigs but they're grayed out and cannot be selected. But this pales in comparison to the worst flaw of all: Lego Rock Band does not allow you to import any songs that are more than, let's say, "PG" in nature. Why limit me, the customer, an adult, like that? There should be a setting, sure, that prevents kids from being able to play "The Number of the Beast" or even "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," but to completely block out every song with any references to drugs, sex, or alcohol seems a bit overkill. Want to play Kenny Rogers' classic, "The Gambler?" Too bad! It mentions whiskey in that one line of that one verse, and as such, can't be enjoyed. What about one of the most universally recognized and beloved songs of all time, "Don't Stop Believing?" Nope, sorry. Recall, if you will, that the word "wine" makes an appearance in it. What's especially annoying about this is that one of the songs on the game disc itself frequently uses the word "hell," a word that I know is at least somewhat controversial when it comes to the debate over what words constitute swears and curses. Yet I can't play Dashboard's "Hands Down," presumably because the question "did you get some?" is asked. Come on. In the end though, I'll take Lego Rock Band and its overly sensitive censorship over the stale-as-fuck rest of the series. Childish as it is, it's as enjoyable as a music game can be and it offers several new features that I hope to see all future games in the series adopt. Lego Rock Band is an all-around good game that is best enjoyed with friends. And now, it's been removed from the backlog.