It was inevitable: The phenomenally popular rhythm game Rock Band has jammed into the phenomenally popular iPhone. Indeed, the mobile version shows loyalty to the console title, delivering elegant graphics, flashy animations and, of course, a store to purchase more tunes. But the iPhone game is loyal to a fault, because the Rock Band experience just doesn’t translate very well onto the handset’s touchscreen interface. Plus, it’s too expensive.

Rock Band for iPhone retains the interface in which colorful “notes” scroll down a screen, requiring you to match them once they reach the bottom. In the iPhone version, you tap the respective color for a note to play it — same gameplay for each of the four instruments: lead guitar, bass guitar, drums and microphone. You heard right: even for the microphone you’re tapping notes to sing; you don’t actually get to sing into the iPhone’s microphone (which seems like a missed opportunity).

The gameplay sounds easy, but those skinny, rectangular bars representing the notes are pretty difficult to see on the iPhone’s screen as opposed to a large television. It’ll take some time — lots of missed notes and failed “performances” — getting used to the game, and bottom line, it just isn’t that fun. (Disclosure: I speak from the perspective of a Rock Band enthusiast who plays expert mode on all the instruments for the PlayStation 3 game.)