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Love them or hate them, Green Day is one of the few bands of the 90’s who remain as successful today as their original breakout. Re-imagining themselves from the punk rock trio that released hits like Welcome to Paradise and Basket Case to the modern, thematically charged artists behind narrative albums like American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown Green Day has catered to a current audience across 2 decades. Now with more people experiencing their music through games, Green Day are once more adapting for the masses with the release of Green Day: Rock Band.

It seems ridiculous to state, but the obvious must be said; if you absolutely hate Green Day this game is not for you, if you absolutely love Green Day this is a must-play. With that out of the way it’s safe to assume that a majority of people interested in the game will fall somewhere on the dividing line between the two extremes. It’s a unique problem that Green Day: Rock Band faces that The Beatles: Rock Band never encountered; unlike The Beatles not everyone automatically loves Green Day.

To make matters worse, Green Day’s already got a rather fractured audience with a majority of fans pledging allegiance to either their earlier or later works. Harmonix made the wise choice to include Green Day’s 3 best albums in their entirety while only selecting the best of their lesser albums rather than throwing every song the band’s ever made at players. Combine that with 3 separate campaign segments (all available to play from the start) that highlight the band’s major formative periods and you’ve got a structure that gives players access to the content they want without losing the reward of progress.

Whether you’re an old fan, a new fan or someone who just has a passing interest in the band’s hits, the set lists are structured in a fashion that gets you to the Green Day songs you love instantly. Because of this the game is much less a history lesson on the band and more of an exploration of what Green Day is all about. There are no artistic vignette interludes and the track list is only faintly chronological, but for a band who’s still considered current it’s probably for the best. Green Day: Rock Band doesn’t waste time telling the story of Billie, Mike and Tré but through the true-to-life animations and stage dressings you feel the band just as much.

Unlockable photos are accessed by completing and 5-starring songs as expected, while videos are earned through completing new challenge setlists. Unlike previous band-specific games the additional content is mostly live performances, which really adds value to the disc and enhances the Green Day experience. There are a fair share of interviews to be accessed as well, but it’s obvious Harmonix felt it was important to give the player a sense of what Green Day is like on stage.

Green Day: Rock Band is surprisingly the first band-specific game to deliver an entire album. In fact, if you include the 6 DLC songs available online or in the special Green Day: Rock Band Plus edition there are a total of 3 full albums to be had. Dookie, American Idiot, and (DLC provided) 21st Century Breakdown appear in their entirety and work rather well considering the latter two are intended to be played as a narrative whole and Dookie is laden with most of the band’s most popular tracks. It’s a credit to the band’s songwriting ability that marathon play sessions don’t dip too often and feel like a cohesive whole.

The overall presentation does suffer from some heightened expectations after The Beatles: Rock Band’s phenomenal dreamscape sequences. With only 3 stages to play on and only minor virtual pyrotechnics to differentiate tracks visually one could question why Harmonix didn’t just release a giant Green Day track pack for existing Rock Band games. Thankfully the game does enable you to export all the songs to your hard drive and play them in Rock Band 1 and 2, as well as Lego: Rock Band for a change of scenery. There is a small export fee for those with the standard edition, but the price is well worth it for the ability to add almost 50 songs to your library.

It’s unclear whether it’s because of the aforementioned kid-friendly Lego expansion or to haggle the game down to it’s T for Teen rating, but all of the game’s curse words have been cut. It’s not a big deal for a majority of the band’s later repertoire, but it absolutely takes a lot of the bite out of the earlier music. Billie’s rage-out-of-boredom vibe in Longview just doesn’t feel as genuine when he can’t say ‘fuck’ and ’shit’.

Green Day: Rock Band is the baby bear to Harmonix’ Goldilocks tale. It fits nicely between the locked-down but immaculately produced content of The Beatles: Rock Band and the bare bones but accessible AC/DC Live: Rock Band track pack. There’s a level of polish and exploration to the experience that puts it head and shoulders above a plain old DLC release, but doesn’t get caught up in trying to be it’s own thing. There’s still a reason Harmonix puts Green Day ahead of Rock Band in the title, but in this more than any previous release the two entities live in greater harmony. If you have a passing interest in Green Day or just want some new songs to play for your existing games Green Day: Rock Band is well worth a look, the only people who won’t find value are those who take issue with the music.

Green Day: Rock Band was released on June 8 2010 for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii.