61 Frames Per Second

Lego... Rock Band?

Posted by Bob Mackey

April Fools' Day was nearly a week ago, so we've all had quite a few days to let our guards down and start accepting everything at face value again. I was lucky enough to not fall for some elaborately-crafted hoax this year, which is why it's hard for me to take a recent 1UP news story without the requisite grain of salt. But, given the calendar date, it seems that Lego Rock Band, a new installment in Harmonix's smash-hit music series, may actually be in the works.

The only evidence we have at this point is an older version of Harmonix's GDC presentation slides accidentally posted to the Internet, which seemingly confirm the game's existence. According to 1UP,

[T]his slide was among a batch that was sent for "speech approval" by Harmonix senior designer Dan Teasdale for his GDC presentation, "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap: Design Lessons Learned From Rock Band," but never shown. According to [Harmonix senior designer Dan] Teasdale's blog, they resurfaced when Think Services posted the earlier versions by mistake.

They seem to confirm the existence of Lego Rock Band, which was apparently set to be unveiled last Friday at GDC, but never materialized. If it's indeed real, it will evidently be arriving later this year between Rock Band: Unplugged and The Beatles Rock Band.

So, what exactly does Lego have to do with Rock Band? To be fair, the interlocking blocks are just as relevant to Star Wars and Indiana Jones. As ridiculous as the pairing of Lego and Rock Band may initially seem, this is a great chance for Harmonix to bring out a kid-branded version of their hit game for the younger set. While the songs available on Rock Band don't get much saltier than your average afternoon FM broadcast, I'm sure there are lots of parents out there who'd rather have their kids playing along with songs that are a little less suggestive. And for the rest of us, this means Harmonix can dump a whole lot of tween-friendly music onto a disc, thereby freeing us from having something like The Naked Brothers Band take up valuable space in Harmonix's weekly releases. Everybody wins.

As of now, Lego Rock Band has not been confirmed by Harmonix, but some kind of announcement seems very likely to happen soon.

Related Links:

Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy--The Beatles: Rock Band Priced and Dated
Rock Band: My Anti-Music
Whatcha Playing: A Little Singin’, a Little Dancin’

+ DIGG

+ DEL.ICIO.US

+ REDDIT

Posted Apr 07 2009, 12:00 PM

Filed under: rock band, harmonix, bob mackey, rock band 2, music games, gdc 2009, lego

Comments

Roto13 said:

And yet Rock Band diehards criticize Guitar Hero for having games like Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.

April 7, 2009 12:23 PM

Bob Mackey said:

To be honest, I'd rather have a single-disc release featuring a band I don't like (AC-DC, Aerosmith) instead of having these songs clog up the weekly release lists.

April 7, 2009 1:07 PM

AlexB said:

Maybe it's a codename for something non-Lego related? I doubt it but it's something a friend of mine thought up. But I think he's just in denial about a possibly stupid Rock Band Lego game.

April 7, 2009 3:55 PM

About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

If unsatisfied, please return unused portion for partial refund.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.