Who is Batman to you? The violent lawman of the modern comics? The wink-wink star of the 60’s TV show? Tim Burton’s gothic icon, perhaps? The point is this: Travellers’ Tales have never had a subject so open to LEGO interpretation, and with it, playful experimentation. And boy, do they love it. Did you feel that Indy was a tad shackled to his tombs and dusty continents?
You get a rough time of it as a Harry Potter fan, not least if you’re a Harry Potter fan over the age of 12. For most people this involves hiding your literary shame by buying the ‘adult’ versions of the books (no, we’re reading Dostoyevsky’s Konstantin Potter and the Goblet of Dense Russian Prose) or obscuring your replica lightning-bolt scar under a shaggy haircut and a porkpie hat. For those of us who quite fancy running around Hogwarts and blasting Dementors in the face, we’ve had to endure worse: a series of lame, lazy or frustratingly not-quite-there games, all of which failed to make the most of Potter’s wizarding world...
If you have played any of the other LEGO games you already know what to expect with LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7. Set in the LEGOfied wizarding world, the newest iteration never delivers on moving the series beyond what has already been done, but it does provide solid gameplay, plenty of fan service, and the charm the LEGO games have become known for...
Steven Spielberg and Traveller’s Tales are in a similarly tough place, both fine purveyors of last-gen thrills struggling to find relevance in the modern day. Indy 4 showed the director selling out his brand of practical derring-do for a handful of CG monkeys. Tales too try something glitzier, and under the extra weight their creaky design shudders like Harrison Ford’s knees.
How can a game that’s identical to the brilliant LEGO Star Wars in almost every respect not be as good? Simple - the setting. The Star Wars universe is vibrant, colourful and fantastical, while Indy’s real-world ’40s setting is more subdued. This works in the context of the films, but recreated in LEGO it has none of the outlandish flair of Lucas’ galaxy far, far away.
Lego: The Lord of the Rings brings the Lego formula of slapstick humor, exploration, and collectibles to the grandaddy of fantasy universes and, despite some flaws, should appeal to any Tolkien or Lego fan...
Half the fun of the LEGO games is seeing how they’ll render new movie universes. While combining a film series based on a ride with a videogame series based on toys might sound like a recipe for the biggest sellout this side of a Gaga concert, the LEGO series wards off cynicism by the boatful. That is, unless you're hoping for a LEGO game you haven't already played...
When the disparate worlds of LEGOs and rock stars collide, strange and wonderful things can happen. Seeing LEGO versions of an emaciated Iggy Pop, a mustache-emblazoned Freddie Mercury, a pretty boy-era David Bowie, and even the guys from Blur bash out their hits amidst a visual rock-n-roll cacophony of plastic toy bricks and rampant silliness offers far more enjoyment then we might first care to admit.
You can't say LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is lacking in content. It's packed full of playable characters to unlock, stuff to collect, and worlds to wander about on plastic legs with no knees. Across a multi-threaded campaign spanning events from seasons 1-2 of the TV series The Clone Wars, your force of little plastic brick warriors is whisked (typically in groups of 2-4, whom you swap between on the fly) from hack 'n' slash missions to space dogfights and back down to the ground for RTS-style battles with tons of droids and clones squaring off for territory. There's a ridiculous array of different things that players can find and do...
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