Thin list leaves fans wanting

Some would argue that Rock Band's migration from honouring The Beatles to honouring Green Day now is akin to Ken Burns following up his Civil War documentary with a 15-hour look at Wrestlemania.

Green Day: Rock Band
From: Harmonix/MTV Games/EA
For: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 Nintendo Wii

But that, like nearly everything else with regard to music, is entirely subjective.

Still, in case it somehow needs to be said, Green Day: Rock Band isn't for anyone who doesn't appreciate the musical stylings of Green Day enough to play the band's songs ad nauseam.

Just as Beatles: Rock Band featured nothing but The Beatles, this package contains nothing but Green Day songs, and while players can migrate the catalogue into Rock Band 2 (and eventually Rock Band 3) this time, this game itself allows nary a note from any other band.

So if you don't like Green Day, you know what not to do here.

What is a little cloudy is what to do if you do like the band.

In every expected way, GD:RB is as solid as everything that preceded it in the Rock Band line.

It's compatible with all the virtual instruments you already own.

The note charts are terrific on both ends of the difficulty spectrum, making it easy for players of all disciplines to participate.

The band's real-life likenesses transform into in-game caricatures to terrific effect, and the recordings the game uses are top shelf as always.

Developer Harmonix caters for solo players with a healthy career mode but offers just as much to those who want to play together online or in the same room.

Support for three-singer and six-member bands, introduced in Beatles, returns here.

But GD:RB has the same annoying problem Beatles had: Its song count, at 47 deep, is only slightly more than half as large as what a mainline Rock Band" release gets for the same $60.

The thin Beatles roster was accepted as a byproduct of the labyrinthine procedures needed to digitise The Beatles' well-guarded catalogue in the first place, and the game countered it by at least sampling songs from the entirety of the band's career.

GD:RB, by contrast, ignores the first seven years of the band's existence and focuses almost entirely on 1994s Dookie, 2004s American Idiot and 2009s 21st Century Breakdown.

The three albums that released between Dookie and Idiot receive only eight songs' worth of representation, while the band's first two albums may as well not exist.

What you see is what you're getting, so budget accordingly: You'll have to decide if that adds up to $60 well spent until Rock Band 3 touches down later this year.