When it comes to making more LEGO games, Rock Band isn’t really the first thing that would spring to mind when it comes to picking a franchise to blockify. First up, basing games on something that doesn’t exist as a toy but on something not related to LEGO in any way whatsoever is not something I’d expect to see. Second of all, Rock Band already has some sort of resonance with kiddlywinks that LEGO doesn’t really need to amplify: we’ve all seen at least one video of some seven year old utterly nailing a song in a music game with his back turned.

The thing is, once you get your hands on LEGO Rock Band, it starts to make a little bit of sense.

Rather than go down the frankly bullsh*t route of releasing a game that’s exactly the same as another game with sparklier menus and some new songs (coughcough, Band Hero), LEGO Rock Band has been designed as a unique title from the ground up. It’s a testament to EA’s somewhat redefined business model of recent years that the only Rock Band titles to hit our shelves have had a reason to exist other than because the developers wanted to throw some new songs in. Rock Band 2 gave us a heap of new features, Beatles Rock Band frankly couldn’t exist within another title and LEGO Rock Band continues this trend as something unique and worth buying as a game alone, rather than merely releasing the soundtrack as some downloadable content.

Anyway, here’s LEGO Rock Band: a Rock Band title that happens to feature LEGO minifigures as the rock stars rather than caricatured versions of yourself and your buddies. They rock out on little Rock Band-style guitars (down to the coloured fret buttons and strum bars – a pretty slick move to connect what you’re doing on your own controller to what’s happening on screen) and little LEGO-constructed drum kits, and they rock so hard that they can literally bring a house down brick-by-brick.

Aside from that, you’re playing a through-and-through typical game of Rock Band, and naturally there’s nothing to fault. You hit the notes, build up a multiplier and Overdrive, and unleash all score-pwning hell as a band with your guitar, bass, drums or mic. Faces melt, you rock out, end of song, repeat.

Look at his tiny Stratocaster! That's not a euphemism!

What makes LEGO Rock Band unique is that it’s a little more (guuuuh) family-tailored than your other music games. This means no hard-rocking metal, no swearwords and absolutely no references to any of the devil’s vices. Instead you’ve got the likes of Good Charlotte, Pink, KT Tunstall and some other clean-cut Billboard-approved chart-toppers headlining the game’s setlist of 40-odd songs. That said, don’t roll your eyes – there’s some Spinal Tap, Jimi Hendrix and Foo Fighters in there too for the more mature among us.

Between the clean-cut and the classics there even lie some fantastic gems you might not expect to work in a Rock Band title but do: Ghostbusters, We Will Rock You and The Final Countdown. They’re all awesome fun to play with some buddies or even with family if everyone’s bored of Buzz! And Lips. While some choices are a little questionable (Kung Fu Fighting’s guitar piece is the single most annoying thing in the world and makes me question if Harmonix and Traveller’s Tales are a bunch of sadists) it’s a mostly bearable setlist and is guaranteed to have something everyone will know.

Continuing the trend of being a game for everyone to play, LEGO Rock Band’s gameplay has been tweaked to make allowances for those of us who aren’t keen on picking up our plastic Stratocasters too often. You can disable the drum kick-pedal, and there’s a new “Super Easy” difficulty for all instruments if you’re tone deaf or simply lack any coherent motor function whatsoever. Or if you’re five.

What’s more, No Fail mode of Rock Band 2 has been pushed out in favour of an in-game recovery dynamic, which replaces outright failure with a sacrifice of some of your points – after a few seconds breather, you’re back in the song. As a bonus, if you manage to hit enough notes as you make your comeback, you can regain all the points you gave up to keep yourself in the song. It’s a great way of keeping everyone playing involved without too much discouragement, and it avoids any tears before bedtime.

Playing through LEGO Rock Band’s Story mode is business as usual for those familiar with the other titles: move from location to location performing gigs, hiring staff for fan and LEGO stud (pfff, like LEGO people would use dollars) bonuses and buying up new minifigures with which to customise your existing band. Some setlists will choose random songs (curiously being called, gulp, Double Dips) or let you make your own setlist up from any songs available. So far, so very much business-as-usual.

At a few key points in the game you’re issued with Rock Power Challenges, which impose conditions like disabling Overdrive while still demanding an utterly mind-blowing performance. They’re set in pretty cool scenarios from ghost-busting to Ghostbusters and bringing down a building to The Hives’ Tick Tick Boom.

As well as these challenges you’re given the chance to appear as some utterly adorable LEGO-ified versions of real world rockstars from Queen (featuring a Brian May with hair approved by Brian May) to David Bowie and, curiously, Iggy Pop. While I’m not a big fan of celebrity appearances in music games – need we remind you of Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5? – there’s an amusing novelty appeal to seeing a tiny topless LEGO Iggy belting out The Passenger. Doesn’t add anything at all, but it’s goddamn squeeee. For want of a manlier term.

We will, we will, block you.

To keep things fresh, you can play any of your existing Rock Band DLC in LEGO Rock Band provided it doesn’t feature any bad words or references to naughty things or isn’t, as far as I can muster, too scary-sounding. Although how Killswitch Engage passed through the filter, I’m not sure.

Those of you who already own a ton of Rock Band titles (well, the three that exist – pay attention, Guitar Hero) are probably wondering if it’s worth buying LEGO Rock Band for the songs alone. To be honest, I’m not sure I could justify the purchase if you were looking for the songs, even if you can export them to your other games for a $10 one-time charge. While there’s a few nuggets in there, I don’t feel the soundtrack is the main selling point of the game; rather, it’s just one part of the appeal.

In the same way that I would much rather play LEGO Star Wars than The Force Unleashed for a quick burst of fun (bad example but you get what I mean) LEGO Rock Band exists purely so you can have a ton of laughs and kick back more than you normally would when playing a music game. The songs are feelgood, they’re ones people will recognise and can sing along to, and the whole thing is set in a ridiculously vibrant Technicolor universe where the LEGO figures never stop smiling, or flailing about on their teeny-tiny Fenders, or moonwalking around as they belt out Walking on Sunshine.

There has not been one session in LEGO Rock Band where I haven’t cracked a smile, or had a little giggle at a neat little touch you could only imagine in LEGO form, or gawked at a song selection I hadn’t expected to see in a Rock Band title. If you’re seeking a mind-blowing soundtrack alone, go elsewhere. For outright fun factor and sheer cheeriness wrapped up in a package that’s accessible to everyone, look no further. If you have the instruments and the people to play with, it’s utterly essential.