Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment – $49.99

Score: 7.5

The music game formula is nothing new. Start out with a plastic instrument and pick a song. Successful completion of a song unlocks more popular but increasingly difficult tunes. For your sequel, include the ability to play as various famous recording artists, both living and dead. Lather, rinse, repeat. Occasionally pick a specific band and focus a game around them (i.e. Beatles Rock Band) or them and the music they inspired (like when we found out that Van Halen somehow relates to Third Eye Blind).

So what separates Lego Rock Band from the rest of the pack? Personality. Anyone who has picked up Lego Star Wars or Lego Batman sees that something special that Lego-izing a popular character or moment can bring to the screen. The unique and quirky humor of seeing a stormtroopers explode in to a pile of brings or watching the Lego Riddler get locked up in jail hold a special place in our hearts because we don’t just love Star Wars and Batman, but we love Lego too. Sorry Megablocks. It’s great to see that this humor carries over to give the Rock Band series not only its first ever “story” mode, but translates in to unique visuals that fit both the Rock Band and Lego licenses well.

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“Build a band and rock the universe.” Quite an ambitious statement. The universe is a pretty big place. But luckily for Lego Rock Band players, they will be getting some help from a musical space-jamming legend as Ziggy Stardust himself, David Bowie joins the Lego Rock Band roster. For the first time, including actual artists as playable characters in the Rock Band franchise, don’t expect David Bowie to have the same reaction that Courtney Love did upon seeing her deceased husband Kurt Cobain singing Bon Jovi in Guitar Hero 5.

Instead, expect to see a Lego-ized version of The Thin White Duke much in the style of Lego Star Wars, Lego Batman and Lego Indiana Jones as he takes the stage with his hit “Let’s Dance” — which can be seen after the jump. Being the first celebrity included in Lego Rock Band to be announced, fans will likely keep their eyes and ears peeled for any other famous rockers making their way in to the game before its November 10th release date on XBox 360 and Playstation 3 or November 17th on Wii.

Check out an exclusive video of Ziggy in Lego Rock Band after the jump.

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Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.

Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows like The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Monsters vs. Aliens, The Guild Seasons 1 & 2, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies and Life on Mars: The Complete Series. There’s also a new DVD box set that made us laugh out loud in its awesomeness: Cagney & Lacey: The Menopause Years. Yes, that’s real.

Check them out.

Movies

Away We Go ~ John Krasinski (DVD and Blu-ray)

The Dark Crystal ~ Jim Henson (Blu-ray)

The Girlfriend Experience ~ Sasha Grey (DVD and Blu-ray)

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Once in a while, a movie comes along that is almost impossible to write about. Moon has been shrouded in mystery in both trailers and other marketing, and it becomes incredibly difficult to review the film without ruining the most important plot points and discoveries made throughout its 96 minutes. With that said, this film does a fantastic job of blurring the line between big budget sci-fi films and actor-driven “indie” films.

To keep things as ambiguous as possible in this review, Moon is about astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), assisted by his computer GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), at the end of his three-year stint on the Moon where he sends back to Earth a resource that accounts for 75% of the all energy. From there, things begin to go a bit haywire.

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