Green Day meets Rock Band – a reason to stage dive, right?  47 tracks from Green Day’s career spanning over multiple albums including the breakout Dookie, Nimrod, American Idiot and most recent 21st Century Breakdown.  Like Rock Band’s AC/DC and The Beatles release – this one includes Green Day only songs.  Since Green Day Rock Band is an expansion to the Rock Band universe – it’s only fair to split the review up into ‘new game’ and ‘add-on’.

Green Day Rock Band as a ‘new game’ offers next-gen level graphics, authentic mocap recreations of each member of the band (Billie, Mike and Tre) from three different venues, three vocal harmonies, an improved interface and a diverse selection of songs from their catalog to play from.  If you’ve played through The Beatles Rock Band then this game’s interface will feel familiar – there’s also band photos and video clips from their live performances which can be unlocked.

On the flip side – Green Day Rock Band is basically running the same mechanics developed on the original Rock Band from Harmonix in 2007.  Guitar, bass and drum gameplay is basically the same with only vocal harmonies getting an upgrade.  Competitors Guitar Hero added new instrument mechanics to their games with the two drum pedals, party gameplay mode and variations on playing notes but Rock Band remains more of ‘the same’.

Bottom line – Green Day has amazingly fun and catchy songs to play and this game comes polished and ready to go – however it still feels like a glorified DLC and any major changes will be in the form of  Rock Band 3.  Green Day Rock Band from MTV Games is available now on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii.