Lego Rock Band: Under-appreciated Gem?

INTRODUCTION
I've been playing plastic-guitar games since the original Guitar Hero came out for PS2, and have tried all of them except for RB: Green Day (one of these days, though). The descriptions for Lego Rock Band made it out to be a slightly different experience from RB1, which is apparently the era in which it was developed during. Was it worth the $10 at Gamestop? Read on.


THE FEEL
Not even completely through the teaser cinematic, it's obvious that this is meant to fit in with the other contemporary Lego games: a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the source material, that happens to be family-friendly. I couldn't help but notice that some of the pre-made characters are Lego versions of the RB standbys like the Duke of Gravity. Much like in RB3, cinematics are used to tell the story of your band's rise to superstardom. While demolishing a building, ghost hunting, and fighting off a sea monster, among other Challenges, I caught myself cracking up (and maybe even squeeing at one point) at the genuinely funny videos. And that's coming from someone jaded enough to not flinch at anything he encounters on /b/.


MECHANICS
If you've played any RB games, the gameplay is exactly the same. One small difference is that when you fail, you can work your own way back in without relying on a bandmate's star power. Since the game is meant to be accessible to younger players, the difficulty ratings for songs seems to be a bit more generous, and I believe there are a couple more ratings to better show differences in difficulty. My hard drive has exported tracks for RB1, 2, and a lot of downloaded songs; the game detected the RB1 and downloaded tracks, filtering out any that are apparently deemed inappropriate. It was nice having a decent number of songs to choose from, since the tracklist for Lego Rock Band is rather "meh" for me.

A nifty addition that the builder in me enjoyed is that you have a home-base that you navigate around rather than static menus for campaign stuff. Your band can be seen just hanging out, and the characters you hire such as your manager and roadies will occasionally wander through. As you progress through the campaign you will unlock decorative items to buy and position around your home, although there is not as much variety as in a game like The Sims. Along with your band members, the roadies and members of you entourage can be customized as well.


GRAPHICS, SOUND & CONTROLS
Exactly what you'd expect from the RB series. The visuals during the ghost-hunting challenge was the funniest (intentional) thing I've seen in a video game for as long as I can remember.


CONCLUSION
Will I be getting rid of Rock Band 3? Heck no. As a one-time experience, however, I'm loving Lego Rock Band. And for achievement-hunters, there's nothing too hard (except for the Endless Setlist). My usual RB buddies didn't really care for small issues such as long-ish load times, but that may be because we're quite used to the more-refined systems in RB3. For $10-20, you could do worse. A lot worse. *cough(GH Rocks the '80s)cough*