Fusion Tour lacks game

Video games and loud music -- it’s a no-brainer marketing combo. Too bad the sounds inside the showroom at the Nintendo Fusion Tour, which took over the Wiltern LG on Thursday, failed to live up to the excitement generated by the video-game company’s bleeping consoles smattered throughout the lobby.

Motion City Soundtrack and the Starting Line proved to be two of the tighter and more potent players in the lineup, even if their material was on the bland side. Both bands have the goods and remain one catchy tune away from mainstream success.

The headliner, Fall Out Boy, which generated the biggest gust of enthusiasm, has enjoyed an underground following for more than four years, but the Chicago group’s latest album, “From Under the Cork Tree,” with its infectious hit “Sugar, We’re Going Down,” has helped it progress into the world of radio and MTV.

The band whipped out the single early into its blaring, fast-paced set, but without the studio gloss that makes the melody and vocal shine on record, it fell flat. The rest of FOB’s offerings were equally muddled and tedious.

But the structure of the band’s set -- it was split into two acts, the first featuring new material with the band in schoolboy uniforms, the second treating fans to older stuff, with members in more casual attire -- offered some respite.

Still, as is typical at these types of shows, the kids in the crowd couldn’t have cared less about musical originality or even sound quality. Fall Out’s adolescent-minded, humor-infused love anthems obviously connect with young emo-punk fans no matter what. It’s just going to take something more to keep them in everybody else’s graces.