Lego gets its own movie, but is the game tie-in any good?
The Lego series of games have been going for 9 years now and we’ve had 16 games out of that space of time, some might consider it saturation while others see it as a nice balance. Finally, a movie about the popular toys has been released and is demolishing the opposition at the box office. But with Lego Marvel Super Heroes only having come out last November, have the team at TT Games stretched themselves a little thin on this tie-in?
In terms of scale, The Lego Movie Videogame is a lot smaller than the past few titles like Lego LOTR and Lego Marvel; it has 15 levels and a very small open world, which is split up into different areas like Bricksburg, The Wild West and Cloud Cuckooland. The number of collectables is smaller as well and apart from adding new elements like a dancing mini-game and matching up Lego models with its missing parts, there isn’t anything that really makes it stand out, that is except for its humour.
The story focuses on a character called Emmet who is tasked with stopping Lord Business from using a device called the Kragle to destroy the world. The cutscenes are done differently from past Lego titles and is more cinematic, while making the characters and world look more like real Lego than just a videogame. It’s a nice style that suits the medium well; it matches the comedy of the game rather well with hilarious dialogue and great performances and appearances from the likes of Batman, Gandalf and Superman to name a few.
As with past Lego games, once you complete a level you can replay it in Free Play to find the rest of the collectables, this is no different and while the characters have some nice new abilities to unlock new areas and to find the items, the searching doesn’t take that long and the levels themselves aren’t particularly memorable. With Lego: The Hobbit coming out in under 2 months, it definitely feels like TT Games have tried to make too many games at once and it shows with the shorter experience you get here.
Visually, the game looks the part. Like I said, the cutscenes look great and authentic to Lego. The levels themselves are colourful but the design is definitely average, the character models look great and the animation is top notch, but the load times on the PS3 version are a little on the long side…which is a shame. Voice-acting on the other hand is brilliant with some great one-liners and memorable dialogue and the soundtrack isn’t too bad either.
The Verdict
The Lego Movie Videogame isn’t the best Lego game out there; personally that’s a tie between Lego LOTR and Lego Marvel Super Heroes at the moment. It’s a shorter and shallower experience, but having said that it still retains the classic Lego humour you’ve come to expect over the past 9 years and while the formula hasn’t changed much, it’s still a decent one that compels us to gather every collectable and unlock every character, this game is no different and why if you’re a fan, you should treat yourself to.
