Developed by: Traveller’s Tales
Genre: Action-adventure, Toys to life
Game System: Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Regions Where Available: North America, Australia, Europe, Germany
Price: $99.99
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Riddle me this: What do Batman, The Cowardly Lion, a Dalek, Gandalf, GLADoS, Homer Simpson, and Scooby-Doo all have in common? Give up? The answer is the wind. … Wait, wrong riddle. The real answer is that they all appear in LEGO’s attempt at the popular toys-to-life genre of video games, LEGO Dimensions!
The story of this game begins when Lord Vortech, a being who has the power to create portals to other dimensions, has decided that he wants to be in control of the entire universe. To do this he needs the corner keystones, a collection of magical objects from all across different dimensions, including kryptonite, the One Ring, ruby slippers, a video game coin, among other things. If you noticed some familiar names in there, it’s because these dimensions represent some of LEGO’s own franchises and mostly every single franchise they could afford to license. In his quest to collect these objects, Lord Vortech accidentally kidnaps Robin, Frodo Baggins, and Metalbeard from The LEGO Movie, and it’s up to Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle to go through these dimensions and take down Lord Vortech.
In typical toys-to-life game fashion, you’ll need special LEGO figures to do anything in this game. The portal to the different dimensions is even a physical LEGO set you need to build. Thankfully the starter pack has everything you’ll need to finish the main storyline, but there are tons of expansions that give you more levels and characters that you’ll need to complete the game 100%. They don’t come cheap, either. On top of the starter pack’s one-hundred dollar price tag, my calculations say that everything currently announced for the game will cost you $784.92, not even counting tax and any reason you would pay lower than the suggested retail price. The stuff that’s already announced isn’t even the end of it; LEGO says that they have three years worth of expansions planned. You also have to take the time to assemble all the items and characters you buy, and the instructions appear ingame. All the items and characters can be used in any level, so we could potentially get humorous situations like Marty McFly riding the Tardis in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
The basic abilities that each character gets are jumping, attacking (usually with punches and kicks, though some get projectiles,) and assembling broken LEGO pieces, nothing new for Traveller’s Tales LEGO games. Most characters have a special ability that other characters don’t, like Batman’s batarang that can target and attack multiple things at once (quick side note: Google Docs identifies “batarang” as a real word, apparently) and Chell’s portal gun that can shoot portals at certain walls and floors. These abilities can be used to either progress the game further or find a bonus like more studs (what the currency in this game is called) or the occasional accidental Cyberman attack… these bonuses aren’t always good things.
The puzzles in this game tend to range between really straight-forward or bang-your-head-against-the-wall impossible, with no real middle ground most of the time. The main way that you solve most puzzles is to just smash everything that you can, hoping that you’ll eventually find the right thing to turn into LEGO pieces. The game actually uses the portal an awful lot, setting it apart from other toys-to-life games where the portal basically just puts the characters in the game. The keystones that you collect at the end of each level will get you special abilities that involve the portal and where certain characters and objects are positioned. The ways this game makes use of the portal include giving the characters elemental powers based on their placing on the portal, (is Batman not cool enough for you? How about Batman who can now shoot fire out of his hands?) being able to change the portals color to unlock doors and occasionally shoot Lex Luthor in the back with color beams, and sending the characters through vortexes based on their position on the portal.
One thing that this game and all Traveller’s Tales LEGO games is great at is the writing. The cutscenes and the dialogue that randomly occur in the levels are always able to get a good laugh. The writers knew when to treat the story like “Oh man, this is serious” and when to treat it like “Ha ha ha, this is funny!” If there’s a funny joke that they could make in any given situation, they probably have it in the game, but they can still take themselves seriously.
This game is a great addition to the toys-to-life genre, but there’s definitely room for improvement. The gameplay is fun, but not much has changed from other LEGO games aside from the creative ways the portal was used. Combine that with hilarious writing and a high pricetag, I give this game 6 bricks out of 10.
Genre: Action-adventure, Toys to life
Game System: Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Regions Where Available: North America, Australia, Europe, Germany
Price: $99.99
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Riddle me this: What do Batman, The Cowardly Lion, a Dalek, Gandalf, GLADoS, Homer Simpson, and Scooby-Doo all have in common? Give up? The answer is the wind. … Wait, wrong riddle. The real answer is that they all appear in LEGO’s attempt at the popular toys-to-life genre of video games, LEGO Dimensions!
The story of this game begins when Lord Vortech, a being who has the power to create portals to other dimensions, has decided that he wants to be in control of the entire universe. To do this he needs the corner keystones, a collection of magical objects from all across different dimensions, including kryptonite, the One Ring, ruby slippers, a video game coin, among other things. If you noticed some familiar names in there, it’s because these dimensions represent some of LEGO’s own franchises and mostly every single franchise they could afford to license. In his quest to collect these objects, Lord Vortech accidentally kidnaps Robin, Frodo Baggins, and Metalbeard from The LEGO Movie, and it’s up to Batman, Gandalf, and Wyldstyle to go through these dimensions and take down Lord Vortech.
In typical toys-to-life game fashion, you’ll need special LEGO figures to do anything in this game. The portal to the different dimensions is even a physical LEGO set you need to build. Thankfully the starter pack has everything you’ll need to finish the main storyline, but there are tons of expansions that give you more levels and characters that you’ll need to complete the game 100%. They don’t come cheap, either. On top of the starter pack’s one-hundred dollar price tag, my calculations say that everything currently announced for the game will cost you $784.92, not even counting tax and any reason you would pay lower than the suggested retail price. The stuff that’s already announced isn’t even the end of it; LEGO says that they have three years worth of expansions planned. You also have to take the time to assemble all the items and characters you buy, and the instructions appear ingame. All the items and characters can be used in any level, so we could potentially get humorous situations like Marty McFly riding the Tardis in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
The basic abilities that each character gets are jumping, attacking (usually with punches and kicks, though some get projectiles,) and assembling broken LEGO pieces, nothing new for Traveller’s Tales LEGO games. Most characters have a special ability that other characters don’t, like Batman’s batarang that can target and attack multiple things at once (quick side note: Google Docs identifies “batarang” as a real word, apparently) and Chell’s portal gun that can shoot portals at certain walls and floors. These abilities can be used to either progress the game further or find a bonus like more studs (what the currency in this game is called) or the occasional accidental Cyberman attack… these bonuses aren’t always good things.
The puzzles in this game tend to range between really straight-forward or bang-your-head-against-the-wall impossible, with no real middle ground most of the time. The main way that you solve most puzzles is to just smash everything that you can, hoping that you’ll eventually find the right thing to turn into LEGO pieces. The game actually uses the portal an awful lot, setting it apart from other toys-to-life games where the portal basically just puts the characters in the game. The keystones that you collect at the end of each level will get you special abilities that involve the portal and where certain characters and objects are positioned. The ways this game makes use of the portal include giving the characters elemental powers based on their placing on the portal, (is Batman not cool enough for you? How about Batman who can now shoot fire out of his hands?) being able to change the portals color to unlock doors and occasionally shoot Lex Luthor in the back with color beams, and sending the characters through vortexes based on their position on the portal.
One thing that this game and all Traveller’s Tales LEGO games is great at is the writing. The cutscenes and the dialogue that randomly occur in the levels are always able to get a good laugh. The writers knew when to treat the story like “Oh man, this is serious” and when to treat it like “Ha ha ha, this is funny!” If there’s a funny joke that they could make in any given situation, they probably have it in the game, but they can still take themselves seriously.
This game is a great addition to the toys-to-life genre, but there’s definitely room for improvement. The gameplay is fun, but not much has changed from other LEGO games aside from the creative ways the portal was used. Combine that with hilarious writing and a high pricetag, I give this game 6 bricks out of 10.