By far the youngest band to receive their own Rock Band or Guitar Hero iteration, Green Day’s well-defined career arcs and strong artistic aesthetic nevertheless make them a perfect fit for a focused, self-contained rhythm experience. And Green Day: Rock Band does a mostly great job of exploring that ripe territory.

The game largely resembles the single-artist template established with last fall’s The Beatles: Rock Band — albeit with a harder-edged visual approach — complete with stylized, well-animated artist avatars and three-part vocal harmonies on select tracks. Nearly everything else about the experience is tried-and-true Rock Band goodness, but what really distinguishes Green Day’s game from the Fab Four’s entry is a fresh approach to soundtrack creation.

Rather than simply picking and choosing singles from the artist’s back catalog, Green Day: Rock Band includes two complete albums from the band: 1994’s major-label breakout Dookie and 2004 smash comeback hit American Idiot. Also featured is most of last year’s 21st Century Breakdown — the missing songs exist as current Rock Band DLC — and select hits from the band’s other post-Dookie albums.

By spotlighting these tent-pole releases, Harmonix (with the help of Demiurge Studios) is able to highlight the band at very different but equally important points in their career. Whereas the early pop-punk numbers showcase youthful angst and exuberance, Green Day’s later work veers toward rock-opera territory, with heavily produced tracks full of recurring narrative themes. Regardless of era, most of these songs are a blast to rip through alone on your plastic instrument of choice or with three pals, but we can’t help but feel a little ripped off by the overall package.

With just 44 playable tracks (some spanning multiple songs), Green Day: Rock Band’s career mode can be toppled in about three hours, and not leaving the door open for additional downloadable albums and tracks seems like both bad business and an affront to fans. Moreover, the game includes just three venues to play in, and it doesn’t have the awesome Dreamscape stages or stylish career videos that shored up Beatles: Rock Band’s thin setlist. We like the ability to export tracks to Rock Band and unlock video clips, but those are just icing — we need more cake to support it.

Green Day: Rock Band is strong enough to be a no-brainer for ardent fans, but other music-game junkies may find this $60 pill very hard to swallow, especially with Rock Band 3 lingering on the horizon.

For Xbox 360

+ Iconic albums anchor the raucous punk-pop soundtrack.

+ Established Rock Band gameplay is still a blast, especially with pals

- Only three venues with no Dreamscapes or career-spanning video transitions.

? Why not release the band's other albums as downloadable content?

7.5