Ten Minute Taste: LEGO Rock Band

6:20 PM on 11.04.2009   |   Nick Chester

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Earlier today, I gave you a taste of Band Hero, and proceeded to bare my soul to the Internet as I tried to convince everyone (and myself) that it's okay to like Maroon 5 songs. How many band games can I play in one day?

The answer, my friends, is at least two -- here we have the first ten minutes of the Harmonix/Warner Bros./MTV Games/Travelers Tales collaboration known as LEGO Rock Band. The game released this week for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Nintendo DS, much to the delight of fans of LEGOs and rock bands across the country.

So what are you waiting for? Watch the video to see what you'd be getting yourself into, and hit the jump for a bullet-point list of notes about the game, because I'm feeling particularly lazy right now. 

• You'll noticed I skipped the game's intro. Why? Because we already posted it last week. It goes on for awhile, and it's pretty great, an interesting homage and take on the intros to both Rock Band 1 and Rock Band 2. 
  
  
• Yes, that's Korn's cover of Cameo's "Word Up!" playing at the title screen. I know, I know... Korn's horrible, dude wears a kilt and is a better porn photographer than a singer. But here's what I'm saying -- Cameo's "Word Up!" is an awesome freakin' song, and if it takes Korn's relatively faithful cover of the track to get it into Rock Band, so be it.  
  
  
• I didn't bother to calibrate my system before playing, so if I miss any notes, that's why. Really. Okay?
  
  
• LEGO Rock Band will also populate its track listing with most of your Rock Band downloadable content, which should be a nice bonus for those who've been dumping money into their other games. (Note: It won't add all of your tracks, only those deemed appropriate for game's "family friendly" image. Sorry, no "Hammer Smashed Face.")  
  
  The above is actually the second play-through after some technical difficulties, and what you don't see is the game finding and loading all of my DLC. I have a lot... and it took what seemed like forever. With that in mind, the first time you boot up the game, you might want to bring a book or a handheld along for the ride. 

• As you can see, setting up a band/character is more or less the same as Rock Band 2. The difference here, of course, is that you can create your own little LEGO brickdude instead of a "human" rocker. Pieces can be mixed and matched, which can create some hilarious results. Because the game's clothing pieces are actually connected to the body, it's possible to have a Caucasian rocker with oddly dark hands. You will be compelled to do this, as was I.
  
  
• After creating a band, the game launches into a pretty cute cut-scene showing some band try-outs with various LEGO figures. At one point, an octopus (a "rocktopus"!?!?) comes in and kicks out the jam on the drums, but gets turned down because there's a "no octopus" sign up on the wall. Who the hell puts a no octopus sign up on their wall?!? I'm calling shenanigans.
  
  
• In order to save some time, I decided to play the "short" version of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'." Yes, some of the game's songs will allow you to choose a shortened version of the track in case you're short on time or have a short attention span. In the case of "Free Fallin'," the track just abruptly fades out as you hit the final note. You know what? I was done with that song anyhow. 

• You know that octopus I mentioned earlier? SPOILER ALERT: He comes back, and he's mad. The game features "Rock Power Challenges," music video-like song instances that have you using the power of rock to do things like demolish a building or rid a haunted house of ghosts. Imagine The Beatles: Rock Band "Dreamscapes," if you will, except the Fab Four fight off an octopus attack. Also, they're LEGOs, and not The Beatles. Because that would be like, totally f*cked if that happened. That's almost as weird as making Gwen Stefani sing a Nelly Furtado song; it's just not natural.

LEGO Rock Band is out right this second for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Nintendo DS and you can buy it with money, not "studs." Because "studs" aren't anything, really. 

On a final note, the name of my LEGO Rock Band band is "Unicorn Brick Foetus," a take on our Rock Band band, "Unicorn Death Foetus" (only with more umlauts). What will yours be?