LEGO Rock Band
Block party.
The Rock Den is the hub from which you can buy new vehicles, access new gigs, watch old cut-scenes, customise your band or hire new tour staff in Story mode. It increases the number of loading screens between you and a song, which is never a good thing, but you can decorate it with things that you earn throughout the tour - teensy LEGO guitars, plants, signs for the walls, couches, speaker sets, all sorts. In true LEGO tradition, there's an overwhelming amount of stuff to unlock, buy or collect as you complete gigs - everything from lovingly-created LEGO-fied guitars to special wall signs for the rock den to plants and sofas to decorate the TV-viewing area. The initially tiny selection of different LEGO heads, bodies and hair with which to customise your band and entourage also broadens with each completed venue.
Despite all this new stuff, LEGO Rock Band is still Rock Band 2 in every significant way. To the extent that this is just a reskin, though, it's a lovely one. It's bright, slapstick and unselfconsciously funny. The scrolling notes now have little LEGO studs on them. The energetic stage shows are full of humour and personality. The presentation is a universal success, managing to retain both Rock Band's passionate rock 'n' roll sexiness and the LEGO games' innocent charm - you want to hug the tiny performers rather than throw pants at them, but this is supposed to be family-friendly after all.
Guest appearances from LEGO Blur, Queen, Bowie and Iggy Pop are absolutely brilliant, though their songs cannot be played as part of a setlist because they insist on their own custom venues. You can't use them for any songs other than their own, either, or recruit LEGO Bryan May and LEGO Damon Albarn to your LEGO rock supergroup. Presumably everyone's trying their utmost to avoid another Kurt-Cobain-singing-Bring-the Noize-on-Youtube scandal, the boring so-and-sos.
The tracklist itself has as much stuff for parents as it does for kids. It's an unusual selection - Elton John next to KoRn, KT Tunstall a few strums away from Bryan Adams, P!nk, Ghostbusters and Vampire Weekend in the same setlist - but undeniably varied. You can import the tracks into Rock Band 2 for 800 Microsoft Points (£6.80 / about two London pints), but it doesn't work the other way around. You can, however, play download tracks from the store or play ones you've already bought as long as they pass a family-friendly filter. God only knows what the criteria for 'family-friendly' are, though - a quick poke around the DLC store didn't really enlighten me, as Iron Maiden and Tenacious D are still there and I couldn't figure out what, if anything, was gone.
The tracklist is up to scratch, then, and can reasonably be called 'rock' in all but a few cases, but it's rather short by modern standards at 45 songs. In the end, this is LEGO Rock Band's only real problem; it feels like half a game. I love the presentation, but aside from the kid-friendly gameplay tweaks, LEGO Rock Band doesn't offer much as a standalone release and is more of a quirky track pack than anything else. There's no online play whatsoever, too, and no extra challenges outside of Story mode's tour.
It's difficult to be cutting about a game this energetic and adorable, but LEGO Rock Band is ultimately as pointless as it is lovable. It strips out a few of Rock Band 2's features and half the setlist and still charges you the same money. It's a more accessible, less fully-featured and cutely presented version of a great game, but once you factor in the track transfer fee, it's a £40 track-pack with some LEGO cut-scenes. For younger kids, though, it's brilliant, and the tracklist and visuals will probably make you smile almost as much as them, even if the price-tag makes you wince.