Our Wii rental for this month is Lego Rock Band, a fun entry in the never-ending parade of Guitar Hero and Rock Band clones.   This one had enough humor and cool songs to differentiate it from many of those games, but in the end, it’s still pretty derivative.

The story mode was pretty cool.   I liked that there were challenges that were related to the specific songs we were playing.   (For example, in the haunted house, we had to get rid of a bunch of ghosts by playing, what else, “Ghostbusters.”)   In the three days that we had the game, I got about halfway through the story, so I didn’t get to buy a jet or go into space. The challenges and rewards were spaced very nicely to keep me coming back to get the next cool thing, whether that’s a new vehicle or new place to play or new song.

I can play the guitar all day long, but Sarah got tired of that quickly.   She did enjoy singing along with my playing, something she hasn’t been able to do on our Guitar Hero III.   Some of the songs are a little odd for singing though — you hear them on the radio and they’re cool, but you don’t really think about the lyrics.   When it comes time for you to actually sing these words, you’re thinking to yourself, “What a weird song!”

I think this is a rent rather than a buy, since my brother already owns it (and a million others like it).   If we ever get a hankering for plastic-guitar fun that isn’t satisfied by GH3, we can go play Rock Band with him.

My final score for Lego Rock Band: 7/10