We’ve always operated under the assumption that the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games had a stigma. At least to real musicians. Yes, yes, it sounds snobbish. Get over it. Here was this game about playing instruments that took so long to get good that that you might as well be practicing the real instrument itself. It’s not like you can take the Rock Band instruments to the mall and impress some chicks with it.
In fact, most of the time, it’s only your nerdy friends and siblings that actually watch you mash the faux fretboard on the Xbox or PS3 or Wii. These games, just like Dance Dance Revolution (C’mon, who’s gonna go to a club and jump around like that?) are in this sub group that encourages kids to imitate real skill. So what makes LEGO Rock Band different? You’re a Lego. Duh.
It’s terrifyingly adorable and there is no pretense that you’re some kind of legend. To be honest, we’re unrelentingly enormous fans of all the Lego games and what Traveller’s Tales has done with the property.
Just had to get that out of the way.
As opposed to the regular Rock Band, where you live vicariously through people who ‘look’ like rock stars, LEGO Rock Band allows you to imagine that all those little towns you made of Legos as a kid are real. Of course, it is aimed very specifically at kids, so they over-the-top silliness is to be expected. Though it doesn’t hamper the fun for older players at all.
You’re sort of the badass Lego figure that has to rock their little yellow hearts out. There’s no delusion: you are a Lego and Legos are not real. This may sound like a downer, but it’s not. Many of us like escape reality, but this game is for kids and the kids in us. Children are often in La La Land most of the time anyway. Do we really want little Johnny to put down his real Ibanez electric/ acoustic to pick up that little plastic guitar just because he wants to be Awesome Mohawk McGee?
No, but this fantasy land is just a pleasant little fantasy land.
All the social aspects aside, LEGO Rock Band offers more than just songs for its players. The ability to customize your plastic figure with a plethora of shirts, pants, faces and hair can have you distracted for hours. When playing story mode you can earn money to buy exotic characters like a train conductor, a zombie, or little pilots reminiscent of Top Gun. You also have the option of creating the look of your whole band along with renaming it anytime you want. Honestly, having a character called Jaundice who’s a zombie playing a killer guitar is high on my list in ‘Awesome Things I Can Do’. And only LEGO Rock Band gives me this opportunity.
There are negatives to this title, though. The song list out of the box is roughly half that of regular Rock Band. This may be largely because it’s aimed at a much younger audience, but having only 45 songs to rock out with instead of the 84 in Rock Band II (this doesn’t includethe hundreds available to buy through downloading, obviously) kinda … stinks.
One major concern, in the grand philosophical scheme of things, is the censorship of the songs. Even if it is a title for youngsters, we have a huge and unavoidable disdain for censorship in any capacity.
Another big letdown is the lack of online play – though, again, this is almost definitely due to the fact that the game is geared towards kids around 10 or 12 years old. The unpredicatability and potential unfriendliness of social encounters online is enough to give most parents the jitters (a concern I have myself), but it still has to be factored as a negative for the game itself.
Lego Rock Band runs smoothly, despite the excess loading screens that pop up more than one would like. You can play song after song and up your entourage, gain another tour bus, and move from venue to venue all within a short period of time. In regards to being kid friendly, the song choices are respectable and non-offensive: some Bryan Adams, All American Rejects, Queen and random bands from the 80’s and 90’s. As with every other Rock Band iteration, you can buy new songs from bands like No Doubt and System of a Down (which, strangely, isn’t really a band we would associate with ‘kid-friendly’…).
The game would make a great holiday gift for young ones who are ready to rock, but maybe not to the more adult tunes we love. And the inherent friendliness of the Legos brings us back to a time before Power Wheels Escalades and Baby Alives (“A doll that does everything so your kids don’t do anything,”- CCFC).
Long live the Legos!
Final Grade: B+
Available for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS
