Lego Rock Band

System: DS
Developer: Backbone Entertainment
Publisher: Warner Bros Interactive
Genre: Rhythm
Players: 1-4

In recent years, there have been some interesting ways that developers have created unique rhythm games that provide refreshing experiences on handheld consoles, in comparison to the plastic instrument dominated rhythm games on consoles. You have games like Nintendo’s import-only Daigasso Band Brothers series that have loads of songs and the ability to play them in multiple ways, Activision’s Guitar Hero On Tour series which aims to replicate the home Guitar Hero experience as best as you can on the DS, and then you have games like Lego Rock Band, which while is not the greatest handheld rhythm game ever, is certainly a very interesting attempt at one.

For starters, Lego Rock Band doesn’t play like a traditional Rock Band game. The reason being is that it’s a port of the previously PSP-exclusive Rock Band Unplugged, which in turn was practically a remake of Harmonix’s early PS2 games Amplitude and Frequency. Instead of only playing through one note chart, you play all four charts – lead/bass guitar, drums and vocals. And the further interesting thing is, you’re never really exclusively playing one chart, but always swapping between the four.

The way that the game works is that you start by playing one chart, playing it until you hit a purple brick (attained by hitting notes consecutively), which changes all the notes to clear notes, meaning that if you miss them, you won’t lose anything, and is also the cue to change to another instrument to repeat the process. As you keep hitting the purple bricks, your multiplier keeps increasing, and you’ll constantly need to swapping charts to ensure that you keep your multiplier going, for if one chart hasn’t been topped up with a purple brick in a while, then you’ll lose the multiplier completely, and have to start over again. Hitting notes is as simple as hitting the Up, Left, X and A Buttons, though it does feel a little weird at times. Hitting the L & R buttons swaps between tracks, though you’ll need to toggle an option to ‘wrap’ the tracks, which may or may not make it easier to play the tracks.

Learning when to correctly switch charts and mastering the timing to ensure you don’t swap at a point where you need to be hitting notes forms a lot of the challenge within the game, and proves to be really addicting. If anything, the only thing that doesn’t work game wise are the forced guitar solos. For instance, you could be playing the bass line, and with little to no warning, you'll be shunted off to the guitar line to play through a solo. It’s kinda awkward, and doesn’t really need to be there.


The main mode in the game, the Tour mode, is surprisingly compelling – with a lot of content and events on offer. If you’re familiar with the World Tour mode from the home Rock Band games, it’s basically that. It kicks off with a humorous cutscene depicting the creation of the band, following one of the characters watching a performance by Queen on his TV – which makes sense. After all, 80’s era Freddie Mercury and his moustache are enough on their own to inspire people to do awesome things. From here, you perform in a wide variety of locations (such as a construction yard, a pirate ship, a haunted house etc.), earn studs to purchase items and new methods of travel to newer locations, fans to help with the unlocking of new locations and stars to help unlock more events to play.

There’s more than just actually performing in gigs and what not. Occasionally, you’ll unlock a special area where you need to do something of note, such as battling a gigantic Octopus, fighting off aliens or getting rid of ghosts haunting someone. In these areas, you’ll be playing through just the one chart, which features excerpts from the four charts. So you’d start off playing the guitar chart, then after playing a few notes, it swaps to the vocals chart, then to the bass chart, then back to the guitar chart, and so on. It’s not the greatest feature in the world, but it does well to set itself apart from other rhythm games.

If anything, the only thing that lets the game down is the limited song list. There are only 25 songs in the game, with most of the fitting in with the ‘family friendly’ vibe that the most recent Lego games pride themselves on (and edited to ensure that). And for the most part, there are a few surprises (such as the Ghostbusters theme). The problem is that you’re going to end up playing through pretty much all of the songs before you finish off the Tour Mode, and it’s extremely easy to get burnt out on it real quick when you realize you have to play through Blur’s “Song 2” or Tom Petty’s “Free Falling” yet again. Both are good songs, but you shouldn’t have to keep playing them repeatedly in such short succession.


Visually, the game is quite decent. Then again, with the expected simplicity of the character models, you can’t really expect the greatest looking character models in any video game. Everything looks clear and while there is a bit of roughness in the graphics, you’ll be focusing more on the note charts than anything else. The cutscenes added into the game also do look quite nice, and are plentiful, which is nice.

Aurally, the game is impressive. The audio quality of each of the tracks is pretty impressive for what the DS hardware can do, and only get better when listening to it via headphones. The only real complaint that some of the song edits are a little disappointing – not in terms of removing lines or cussing or whatever, but in terms of length. For instance, David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” ends shortly after the guitar solo, while Europe’s “The Final Countdown” ends before the guitar solo kicks in. I guess it’s more for length and audio quality than anything else, but it’s still kinda disappointing.


Score: 7.5/10 - Good Buy

Overall, Lego Rock Band is a surprisingly fun attempt at creating a unique rhythm game. If anything, it’s worth it just to own a version of the PSP’s Rock Band Unplugged, but with a Lego aesthetic and no way to add to the game’s collection of songs. The song list is pretty decent, though the limited amount of songs is disappointing, and the tour mode is quite fun. If you’ve got no access to a PSP, it’s certainly worth trying the game out, it’s quite fun, despite its shortcomings.

Review by Jamie Galea (DarthHomer)