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LEGO Rock Band review

Game: LEGO Rock Band
Platform: Wii
Genre: Music (Rhythm)
Developers: TT Games, Harmonix

Staff review by Gary Hartley

June 13, 2010

Blur. Song 2. On the drums. Hard setting.

It was quite the blow to my ego when I first played drums on Lego Rock Band only to find that I couldn’t automatically achieve the greatness I deserved without trial or effort. I didn’t start off on the easier setting nor start off with slower, more manageable songs. No; I wanted to play as the little Lego representative of Graham Roundtree, and I wanted to play Song 2. So Lego Blur shuffled onto the screen and I looked forward to two minutes and two seconds of harmonic glory.

If this was to be a better tale, I would tell you my efforts hit an extreme; that I either played the song perfectly or I crashed hard and people laughed. The truth is, I did okay. The crowd turned against me a few times, but I rallied back each time and finished the song to a reasonable level. Overall, it was lauded as an excellent first attempt by those who bullied me into overlooking my long-standing pretentious standpoint that my mastery of a real instrument made the video game equivalents beneath me. But it wasn’t the glory I desired. In the name of perfection, still armed with my aloof attitude and equipped with a difficulty setting more befitting to my beginner status, I carried on playing. I figured I’d play along for a few songs, then make my excuses and find a less demeaning way to spend my time.

Then, suddenly, it was 3am. Somewhere along the line I had designed my own Lego character with a mop of brown hair and a neon green Union Jack top, and we‘d manifested our own band to take on the tour mode. I’d been playing for some five hours. I was very confused at this turn of events.

Desperate though I was not to let anyone realise, I’d found myself having a lot of fun bashing away at my plastic drums to the chorus of mostly harmless pop singles, glam rock and Korn. The vast majority of the songs are already sitting unlocked should you not want to drop into the story mode (something done to alleviate the complaints and threatened lawsuits of lazy gamers discontent with earlier games forcing you to play through stages to unlock tracks) and, it might be fair to say that the library is on the light side. The forty five songs included on the disk is mostly full of modernistic pop aimed at the younger audience it was assumed this game would be marketed towards. Cameo efforts by the likes of Iggy Pop, David Bowie and Spinal Tap(‘s worst effort) do their best to appeal to those who’d rather chew off their own ears than listen to All American Rejects. Even though the game is full of catchy (if not shallow) tunes, most of these are surprisingly fun to play through. I enjoy playing Sum 41’s In Too Deep. I do, it’s fun, and I don’t care what you think. Stop judging me!

I might enjoy singing it too, if the lines of text displayed for any players armed with a microphone weren’t so ludicrously hard to read.

Maybe in any other game, I would feel pretentiously ashamed from having any kind of musical association with Counting Crows and Rascal Flatts, but the adorable Lego overhaul strips the game of the pseudo-seriousness exhibited in other musical titles, be they Rock Band or Guitar Hero. My biggest rival through the tour mode was a disgruntled drum-playing octopus who wasn’t included in the band due to an obscure rule on sea life not being allowed in a contracted band. My first job had me help demolish a strangely indestructible building by playing Tick Tick Boom at it until it fell over. Your little Lego band is prone to all the exaggerated and wholly adorable mannerisms we’ve come to see from their foray into the likes of Star Wars or Indiana Jones.

From nostalgic throwbacks from Steve Harley’s oddly upbeat song about how his old band hate him to Lost Prophets finally selling out, I could complain about the musical choices all day long. No, really, I could. But I won’t, because it’s so hard to take them seriously when they're made bloody adorable by association. Even if your tone-deaf friend is slaughtering Tom Petty’s Free Falling or you’re stuck on the drums with the repetitive baseline that serves Queen’s We Will Rock You, the game still manages to put a smile on your face.

Except with Blur. Song 2. On the drums. Hard setting.

Time and time again, I come back to it, edging ever closer to perfection. Roundtree can go to hell; I will play this song better than the Lego approximation of him and then, when I do, it’s on to expert. Even if the girl who’s playing lead guitar hasn’t graduated from the new super easy mode, I can actually play an instrument, damn it, and I won’t be beaten by this.

More Reviews by Gary Hartley
	Labyrinth X (Xbox 360) Trial and error so tedious, it even takes the gleam off barely-covered anime tits.
	Spec Ops: The Line (PlayStation 3) Come suffer alongside me. You'll thank me for it.
	Super Black Bass 3D (3DS) Too clusmy to be a sim. Too slow to be arcade. Too ugly to get a second look.

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