When it was announced that Guitar Hero 5 would import both Guitar Hero: World Tour and Guitar Hero: Smash Hits tracks, I was thrilled!

Unfortunately, the actual reality is considerably less impressive, since the so-called “import” only brings across a fraction of the overall tracks from each game:

Each import is $3.50, and requires the unique owner code printed on the back cover of each game manual. It’s not a bad deal, but it is kind of a disappointment if you were expecting something akin to the Rock Band 1 song import process — where all but three tracks imported (Enter Sandman, Paranoid, and Run to the Hills) for $5. I get the impression that the marketing department at Activision added a “must import songs like our competitor!” checkbox to the competitive feature array, and implemented it half-heartedly, just enough to get away with ticking that box.

Shame on you, Activision. To be fair, there have been rumblings of more songs “coming soon”. I sincerely hope they follow through on their promise and allow us to import most tracks on Smash Hits and World Tour. I understand song licensing can be wonky and complicated, and I respect that, but … less than half? That’s just phoning in it, almost borderline disrespect for the audience.

In brighter news, it was informally announced (though I believe the source is credible) that Lego Rock Band will allow importing of its on-disc songs into Rock Band 2!

The list, which comes from a highly-placed source close to Harmonix, features a number of interesting bits of news about the near future of the Rock Band franchise, including confirmation that the songs from the upcoming kid-oriented game Lego Rock Band will be exportable to your hard drive, if you want to play them in your main Rock Band set list instead of having to swap the disc. (Our source says a small fee will likely be attached to this feature, as was the case when exporting the songs from the original Rock Band.)

While Activision primarily releases music on game discs, many of which are incompatible with one another, Harmonix has only released discs and downloads with songs that can be saved on a user’s hard drive and played in one big set list in Rock Band or Rock Band 2. (Beatles Rock Band is the only exception.)

This is excellent news, and given Harmonix’ excellent (cough) track record with song imports from RB1 and all the Rock Band Track Packs, I think it’s safe to assume almost all Lego Rock Band tracks will come across. The full track list for Lego Rock Band hasn’t been revealed, but the tracks we do know so far are great ones:

• A-Punk – Vampire Weekend
• Accidentally in Love – Counting Crows
• Aliens Exist – Blink 182
• Breakout – Foo Fighters
• Crocodile Rock – Elton John
• Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic – The Police
• Free Fallin – Tom Petty
• Ghostbusters – Ray Parker Jr.
• Girls and Boys – Good Charlotte
• I Want You Back – Jackson 5
• In Too Deep – Sum 41
• Kung Fu Fighting – Carl Douglas
• Let’s Dance – David Bowie
• Monster – The Automatic
• The Passenger – Iggy Pop
• Ride a White Swan – T.Rex
• Ruby – Kaiser Chiefs
• So What – Pink
• Song 2 – Blur
• The Final Countdown – Europe
• Tick Tick Boom – The Hives
• We Are The Champions – Queen
• We Will Rock You – Queen
• You Give Love a Bad Name – Bon Jovi

As a completionist and a fan of the genre (Rock Revolution excluded), I was always going to buy Lego Rock Band. But now that the song importing into Rock Band 2 is confirmed, I’d say Lego Rock Band has officially become a must-buy game. You read it here first!

Lego Rock Band is due out in early November, so get those pre-orders in now!