Lego Rock Band Updated Hands-On

While 2009 will come and go without seeing the release of a proper Rock Band sequel, it has been far from a barren year for the music game franchise. Harmonix released Rock Band Unplugged for the PSP this past June, then followed up that act with The Beatles: Rock Band early last month. And though the year is drawing to a close, we've still got another Rock Band game coming our way in the form of Lego Rock Band, the product of a partnership between Harmonix and Traveller's Tales (whom you may recognize as the developer behind the bizarrely charming Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones games). After getting our first taste of Lego Rock Band while patrolling the show floor of this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, we recently had a chance to take a more in-depth look at this decidedly family-friendly take on the rhythm franchise.

Traveller's Tales is a developer synonymous with the Lego brand, having made a name for itself taking established franchises and transforming them into the blocky minifigures we all know and love. Much of the company's success can be attributed to a knack for understated humor and the ability to preserve the essence of those franchises in a cute, accessible format. So it may not come as much of a surprise that Lego Rock Band is a game intended to reach out to a more casual audience--whether it be younger or older than the typical consumer--while simultaneously adding a few more laughs to the Rock Band formula. On the surface, you'll find a game wrapped in the Lego look and feel, complete with minifigure musicians onstage clutching their instruments with half-circle hands, as well as note highways that use blocks instead of the usual gems. But beyond that appearance exist a number of other notable differences between this and previous Rock Band games.

The obvious starting point is the 40-song-plus tracklist, which spans a wide gulf between classic songs and modern top-40 hits. On the one end you'll find artists like Queen, Tom Petty, and the Jackson 5, while at the other end are bands big with today's younger crowd, such as Good Charlotte, Pink, and Sum 41. The one unifying theme is that the songs all feature lyrics that jibe with the game's projected E10 rating. That's something that extends to downloadable content as well, since Lego Rock Band will support all existing and future Rock Band DLC, but does so with the use of a "family filter" that keeps you from being able to play some of the saltier numbers (think the entirety of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Blood Sugar Sex Magik").

One of the novel features in terms of this song list is that the game takes some of the more drawn-out tracks and trims them down to shorter versions so that grandma doesn't have to worry about her arms cramping up after a six-minute guitar bridge or standing idle with a microphone in her hands while the song fades out for two minutes. And though it's not exactly a new feature, you'll also be able to take the entire tracklist and export it to Rock Band 2 for a nominal fee just as you were able to do with the original Rock Band.

Besides offering songs with more mainstream appeal, Lego Rock Band offers a few new ways to play them as well. While the level of challenge you'll find on the easy through hard difficulty levels is no different from other Rock Band games, there's a new difficulty level called super easy. This difficulty level only requires you to get the correct rhythm and doesn't care whatsoever if you're hitting the right note. On guitar that means only hitting the strum bar and never having to press the fret buttons, while on drums it means making sure you hit any drum pad when the note comes your way instead of hitting the green or red one specifically. There's also a cheat you can activate in the menu that lets you play advanced-difficulty drums without having to use the kick pedal, a feature partly inspired by disabled fans who are perfectly capable of wailing on the pads but unable to use their feet.

It's also worth noting that it's impossible to fail out of a song in Lego Rock Band. There is a consequence to doing poorly, though--at least in the tour mode. Since you'll earn Lego studs as currency (which you can use to unlock new Lego-themed gear, clothing, and characters), it's possible to lose all the studs you earned over the course of that song if you crash and burn. But all that happens is that the note highway cuts out for a moment, and then you can jump back into it with the chance to keep those studs if you pull off the first 20 or so consecutive notes. It's basically a system to make things less punishing for new players, while still offering an incentive to maintain a quality performance.

While all the songs are available from the start in Quick Play, the story mode is where you'll want to go to see just how much Traveller's Tales has put its mark on the franchise. You'll create a band of Lego rockers and take them on a world tour, with the main difference being how the story itself unfolds. There are certain songs you'll play called Rock Power Challenges that tell a story within the venue. One of these we saw had the band playing on a pirate ship out at sea while a jealous octopus--who wants to be part of the band and feels left out--summons the help of a giant octopus buddy of his, who then starts attacking the band. If you pass the song, you'll defeat the octopus, but if you lose, he'll destroy the boat and send you into the briny sea. And because all the songs during these challenges keep with the overall theme, the one played here was Sum 41's "In Too Deep."

It's that attention to detail that makes Lego Rock Band look like it could be a worthy addition to the Rock Band family. We'll have the final word when the game is released on November 10.