Lego Rock Band Review

Lego Rock Band - 2 out of 4 Stars

It's a shame when two big franchises come together, only to produce a product that fails to reach the height of either individual property.

At its core, Lego Rock Band performs as a solid Rock Band product. All the fundamentals are there, and aside from the art direction, the game is essentially a large Rock Band 2 track pack. However, there are a few new additions to the familiar gameplay.

Most notably, as you progress through Career mode, your band is given a series of special Rock Power Challenges along the way. During these events, you do not get the benefit of your "overdrive" meter. Performing well arbitrarily lets you meet some sort of goal, such as defeating a giant octopus, or demolishing a building. But the effort put into programming these spectacles are all but wasted, as you are concentrating too much on the stream of notes watch the action directly. It's like games that hide big flashy CGI sequences behind Quick-Time Events. Seeing things in your peripheral vision doesn't cut it.
The game designers tried to fix this in co-op mode, by having only some band members play at a time during these challenges, while others are given a break… to watch the action I guess? But this feels quite awkward, especially if you're singing. And you'll probably be too busy watching for your cue to rejoin to actually enjoy the scene on display.

Also new to the gameplay, is the chance to save yourself from failing out of a song. If you miss too many notes, instead of stopping the song, you get a "stud recovery" chance which allows you to re-enter the game if you are able to play a small section with a high enough accuracy. It's a nice feature, that might encourage newer players not to give up on the game.

Lego Rock Band also introduces cutscenes to career mode. Guitar Hero games have had brief cartoony scenes, but LRB actually uses your created characters (customizable band members and road crew) in scenes about goofing around or living the Rock Star life. Some of these are really enjoyable, but made me wish they were instead in a proper Rock Band game with more realistic and expressive characters (which finally happened in Rock Band 3, though to a lesser extent).

Which brings me to what I find as the biggest fault of the game: the limitation of the Lego characters. Especially early on, the options for character creation are terribly light. It seems designed for you to want to have weird abominations as your rock avatars. You can't even change color of clothes or skin tone to match properly. You're often stuck with using pre-created characters because it's a bother to find a good torso that matches the skin color of your chosen head.
The allure of the Lego games, for the most part, is seeing famous people and characters in Lego form. Other than a few rock star recreations, that doesn't happen here. You're not even given enough pieces to build yourself with any accuracy. You can simply rearrange a small number of features from unlocked character models.
And the physical limitation of the Lego movements sap the enjoyment out of watching them perform. While it can be charming to see their pivoting dance moves, it grows old quick. And there is never a point in the game where you have direct control over them, unlike in the other Lego games where you can just enjoy playing with their animations.

Another negative aspect of this game is the hinderance of its E10 rating. Any song you've downloaded from the Rock Band Music Store that carries a more mature rating will not show up in Lego Rock Band's song selection. I can appreciate the developers wanting to keep this game as kid-friendly as possible, but I would have preferred that they found a way to use the console's parental controls to restrict the track list of underage players rather than deny everyone access to their songs.

Overall, it is a decent, but limiting game with a big soundtrack. It's best used simply as a track pack for other Rock Band games.

Recommended for: Rock Band enthusiasts wanting to extend their track library.

Gaming Efficiency

A week early, but on Monday I decided to make a New Year's Resolution to better my gaming habits.

I am terrible at finishing video games.

It's not necessarily because I lose interest in the game, or don't like them enough to play through them. Often, it's the opposite. I become really involved in a fun video game and play it endlessly for days. But I'm getting so much enjoyment out of it, I feel like I don't want to have the fun come to an end. Thus, I stop playing that game and save it for later while I play a less desirable game. And by the time I get back to the first game, I've forgotten how to play and no longer retain the knowledge of all the intricacies of the fighting system that I had slowly learned through the easier levels. Or it has an open-world design and I just totally forgot where I've been and still need to go. This often causes me to start from the beginning again, repeating the cycle.

Perhaps if I didn't play the crappy games, I'd put more effort into the good ones. But then I wouldn't appreciate quality as much. Plus, I'm drawn to creative aspects of game more than an overall polished chunk of standardness. I really appreciate little features of a smaller game, and the obvious ambition that it presents, even if it doesn't live up to its potential. Still, whatever the reason, I play a boatload of games.

From now on, I am going to make more of an effort to finish these games that I've invested so much time and money in. To track my progress, I am relying on the Xbox 360's achievement system.

The Xbox is my console of choice anyway, it is where I easily spend 90% of my gaming time. I only buy exclusives for the PS3. As for the Wii... well, I know I played it at least three times in 2010.

As of December 27, 2010, I have played 353 "games" on my Xbox 360. Four of those are just apps such as the Rock Band Music Store which have no achievements tied to them. I went through the list and counted 91 games that I have beaten (Though the definition of "beaten" is a bit fuzzy on some games, such as puzzle titles like Bejeweled 2). I've only beat about 1/4 of the games I've played. Not a good percentage.

Also not ranking in at a good percentage is my achievement point total. 70,560 out of a possible 305,165. About 23%. Rather pathetic numbers.

I vow to improve these numbers over the next year.

My goal is to have 150 completed Xbox 360 games by the end of next year. That's a little more than one a week. Should be doable, right? Having to make an effort to play video games doesn't sound like a bad task. I've already got one out of the way for this week. I completed the Story Mode for Lego Rock Band right after counting up my totals. I own more than enough games that I've already started to complete my goal of 150 games. I even own enough games that I haven't even started that could be used to reach my goal. But it's not efficient enough to leave so many games barely played. Which brings in the next part of the Resolution: gamerscore.

My overall goal is to eventually have an achievement point total of at least 50% of all points possible for my played games. At this point, that would require more than doubling all the points that I have earned since I got my Xbox several years ago. That would also exclude playing new games until I hit that magic percentage. The latter won't happen. The lofty 50% goal is not really feasible for me to accomplish in a year, so baby steps...

My goal is to raise my overall achievement point total to 35% by January 1, 2012. That is still a hefty sum of points I shall need to acquire. Not counting new games, I'll need to increase my current gamerscore by 50%!

To add another layer of "work" to my list, I am also going to write reviews for every game I beat, regardless of how old they are. If I can get into a smooth routine, I should be able to restart my video game webcomic sometime in the new year as well. But for now, I've got plenty of things to focus on. My review of Lego Rock Band will soon follow.

Return to the Old?

11 months since my last attempt to blog, eh? The days are obviously passing at an accelerated pace and there appears to be little I can do about that.

The question before me now is whether I should start anew with my blog, or continue about with this one. I have no desire to erase old entries, as I have nothing against what I have said before, whether or not I still agree with my previous thoughts.

But with a new site I could pretend my lapse in activity never happened, thus have no anxiety about the gaps in my log staring me down with every visit. You might think having a reminder of poor updating skills would be a call-to-action against repeating such laziness in the future, but such things always instead spread like the plague despite best intentions.

Then again, this blog isn't publicized so it is about as private as a public blog can be. It could be quite some time before anyone stumbles upon it. There is ample opportunity to bury the past in a wealth of new material before that happens.

We shall see, won't we?

The New Experience

So the New Xbox Experience, or NXE, has arrived... and I have to say I'm not exactly overwhelmed by it.

I wasn't expecting much out of it, so I can't really say I'm underwhelmed by it. I'm just not really whelmed at all.

The biggest feature is the avatars. First of all, why do these things not have names? Maybe I'll call them "Personal Avatars for the New Xbox Experience" or PANXEs (pansies). I guess that's my name for them since Microsoft didn't seem to bother naming them. How did they pass up a chance to trademark a new word? Someone's getting fired when Bill Gates eventually learns of this.

My biggest gripe with the Panxes is the limited options. No rearranging of features, no custom color options, and everybody stands in the exact same just-got-off-a-horse pose.

Microsoft, please let the Panxes have a chance to stand out; in the very least, take a page from Rock Band and let us select an "attitude."

I'm not sure letting a British company design the virtual likeness of American gamers was the best choice to begin with, but my experience has been that not a great deal of the gaming population is cutesy and adorably shy. We need some over-the-top moods to choose from, something not unheard of in this land of internet. Let me be nervous, angry, cheery, tipsy, confused, dopey, achy, or even rude.

Apart from that, the clothes could use much more of a selection. As my friend Ric inquired as he was dressing his Panxe, "Where are the grown up pants?" Not every gamer is a minor; we could use a lot more adult options. And that goes for the look of the panxes as well. Not only does everybody stand the same way, they all look the same age. Apparently they're preparing us for a euthanasia society.

And how about some layering options? Maybe I have seven moles on my face, why can't I speckle on more than one? Why can't I wear my xbox t-shirt over my long sleeve shirt? It is cold outside you know. But perhaps the long sleeve shirt would been fine... if I could change the color and add a logo!

Customization technology has been around quite a while, I don't know why they choose to ignore most of it. Perhaps Microsoft should have kept their Panxes to themselves until they were ready to give us an entire sandwich as opposed to just crumbs.

Return of the Thing

Weird thing about creating art as a continuous project... it can so easily be derailed.

Our house was robbed a few months back. They took my computer and my video game consoles, among other things. It's difficult to produce a comic strip about video games when you can't play games, nor can I digitize my artwork. Plus, all of the strips would have ended bitterly, either with violent bludgeoning of villains or sad depression of heroes. That doesn't exactly fit the mold of what my comic is about.

But, weeks have passed. Paranoia and resentment for the world have died down. Computing and gaming set-ups have been re-established. Scores of games await to be played. I just lack the motivation.

I still need to overcome the frustration of a steeper drive to creation. Over 500 hours of games saves are gone, so those games I never got around to finishing... yup, I'll have to trudge through the same levels once again. My scanner is not compatible with my new computer, so until I can afford a new one I will be dealing with an all-in-one printer-scanner with far less quality. And I am soooooo far behind on my comic I may just scrap old story plans and pick up where I would should have been today.

This blog post stands as a reminder to myself, a commitment to get back to work on something I love to do. I'll try not to delete it and pretend it didn't happen.

Save the Sluggy!

Sometimes I forget that this blog is about Games AND Comics. I usually have more to say about video games I'm playing than comics I'm reading. I don't really care to debate the gimmickiness of killing Batman. It'd be repetitive to continuously post about how Joe Quesada's running Marvel into the creative crapper. Should I make a weekly feature about how I should stop buying the massively disappointing Countdown series (and yet never do)?

I guess it wouldn't hurt to make some effort to discuss things. It will keep me writing...

So, I've figured out where Sluggy Freelance often goes wrong.

Sluggy has long been one of my favorite webcomics. It's been around for more than a decade, and I've been reading it for most of that time.

Sluggy is known for it's gigantic storylines, usually woven with threads from various previous story arcs. Occasionally, artist Pete Abrams will make a storyline that leads to fan outcry over its tediousness or loss of focus. While I'm more into the silent majority of quietly reading my free entertainment (though Unmoving Oceans made me zone out more than once), I do see the problems with some of the stories. And the problems are always the same.

The major characters become isolated from each other.

Unmoving Oceans, The Torg Potter Saga, Muffin the Vampire Baker (to name a few)... all these focused on one of the comic's main(ish) characters, and a bunch of glorified extras. Even if it is my favorite character in the strip, I still want them to see them interact with the other main characters. Because I like the main characters: that's why I read the strip.

It's basically the same problem with the Ferengi Episodes on Star Trek Deep Space Nine (anyone remember that show?). Star Trek is aways about culturally different people interacting. It's not interesting to see Quark go back to his homeworld, because he's aware of all the rules and culture. Even if he isn't as ruthless as the rest of his society, he still understands them and tries to fall in line. It would have made interesting viewing to send someone else... a Klingon, a human... with Quark when he visited home. Let's see a benevolent Federation doctor clash with the Ferengi's greedy health care system. But they never did. So those episodes were always unremarkable.

In Sluggy Freelance, it's the same way. If Pete's going to warp somebody away, they really need to go in pairs. And the more interesting the pairing, the better. How about Gwynn and Alyee? Let's see the two of them dimension hopping together.

I'd say the occasional solo-mission is acceptable, if it collides with the main cast later. Sluggy Freelance's history is rich with twisting old storylines into new directions.

Let's look at the current storyline: Torg Potter and the Giblets With Fiber. This is the fourth Harry Potter parody, with Torg being hijacked into their universe each time. Four times and he's always gone alone, with the exception of Kiki the Ferret tagging along in the previous chapter, but not really contributing much.

Why do we never see Riff trying to find Torg to rescue him? Does anyone ever notice he's gone? When he's (often) trapped in another dimension, his story is usually intercut with some rescue attempts back home. During the Torg Potter episodes... nada.

I personally really enjoy the Torg Potters. I'm a fan of Harry Potter, and think the parodies are great fun. But the way they continue to be written are in conflict with the core of Sluggy Freelance and should probably be changed up. Torg is comfortable in his place by now, so it is time to unhinge things. How about next time, instead of Torg, Zoe gets shanghaied by accident? Then there could be a rescue sequence (though not necessarily a successful one) with the rest of the cast.

I just hope there are things like this that can be done to keep The Sluggy train on the track for another decade.


I think that's enough blogging for now. I'm actually feeling a bit lightheaded. I just got back from Game Xchange on West Street, so obviously I'm high. I had to leave my purchase on the back porch to air out, so as not to stink up the house. Now I'm going to find something to eat.

The Red Light Spectacle, Part 2: The Conclusion?

As anti-climatic as it may seem, I received my Xbox 360 today.

Less than an hour after my last post, the UPS delivery guy rang the bell and pounded on the door (at the same time, too... is that protocol?). I signed for it and that was that.

It was not my original unit, but an identical replacement. Too bad, I was hoping for a version with a HDMI port.

I hooked it up... discovering the rechargeable batteries in my controllers had died while they laid in wait. I had to dig out the original AA battery cartridge and sync the controller to the new console. Then I had to reinput all my wireless internet connection information.

And then...

That was is it. It worked.

I was prepared for a big hassle with my downloadable content not working on the new system... but it did. My Puzzle Fighter theme was intact. Looking over my Arcade games, they seemed right. I plugged in Rock Band and tried one of the downloaded songs and it still worked (although I only got four stars, so maybe something was amiss...).

What else is there to do but shrug and start the stopwatch on the life of this new console? I never thought everything working would be so disappointing.