Very quick, before going on as this is before the joke of the title, while late, in the spirit of Talk like a Pirate Day, there is a version of this review in Pirate that you can see here:
http://mediaholicreviews.blogspot.com/2016/09/lego-dimensions-who-be-th-bad-guy-in.html
No seriously, who? There is someone trying to reconstruct
the multiverses and rebuild them in his own image, but we break a lot of things
in these games, the golden rule is "If it’s made of LEGO, it can be
destroyed" after all. Though then again, this is the opposite extreme to
the LEGO movie, which was all about following instructions to the letter and
killing imagination...
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| "Totally not getting this when it comes out, what would ever give you that idea..." |
So anyway, LEGO Dimensions, TT Games' Toys to life game,
combining the pop culture multiverse into one thing they can all relate to, LEGO.
With Year 2 starting next week, which the only reason this isn't coming out
next week is because that's the Pokémon Gen IV spot, I figured it might be time
to try my hand at reviewing this game before all the year 2 sets start coming
out. One thing to note, as I said in the toys to life review, this is a pricy
investment, one of the most expensive games I've reviewed, in terms of recommended
retail price. You also don't need every set... just a large chunk of them
including most of the more expensive sets if you're going for 100% completion.
If not, then all you need is the starter pack.
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| "You call that a weapon?" |
I did gloss over the plot before, but for more detail, Lord
Vortech, who has set up base on a planet known as Foundation Prime, has begun
hunting "Foundation elements", iconic items from the wave one
franchises. Three of these include The Ring, Kryptonite, and Metalbeard's
"chest of booty". In doing this, he also kidnaps Frodo, Robin and
Metalbeard, and this naturally pisses off Gandalf, Batman and Wyldstyle. The three
of them arrive in a dimension at first hidden from Vortech, and using a portal
that when powered up, gives the heroes special powers for puzzles, set off to
stop Vortech, after restoring said portal, by traveling to the multiverses to
retrieve the elements before he does. In order (because again, these are the
year 1 sets, minus one IP that I know of), they are: The Wizard of Oz, The
Simpsons, LEGO Ninjargo, Doctor Who, DC, Back to the Future, Portal (NOT PORTAL
2, Portal is the IP, Portal 2 is a game!), Lord of the Rings, Ghostbusters,
Midway Arcade, Scooby Doo and the LEGO Movie. The only sets not to get a level
at all are the LEGO Chima sets.
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| Something tells me this team wouldn't really work in other contexts... |
As you progress through the game, the worlds start to become
more and more fractured. At first its tamed, with only major villains entering
other worlds (due to Vortech enlisting them to help the search), but as the
game goes on, enemies from all the franchises mash together. For example, The
Joker in the robot from LEGO Batman 2 destroying Mr Burns' office after trying
to stop Lord Business from getting a Uranium fuel rod, Sauron controlling an
army of Riddler bots while Two face rides on a weaponized elephant, GLaDOS
having a conversation with Hal9000, and then later trying to get the 12th
doctor to reinstall one of the cores that Batman and Gandalf use as leverage.
General Zod trying to make Ghostbusters New York into new Krypton, using the
T.A.R.D.I.S in the Simpsons levels (I'll explain later) to go to either the
Flintstones' house or the Jetsons'. One of their promotional videos was a
vehicle battle between The Doctor, Doc Brown and Dr Venkman in the T.A.R.D.I.S,
Delorian, and Ecto-1 respectively as they all tried to be the first to get
through a cross intersection, do you think the devs didn't miss the opportunity
to mash the franchises together? In the Portal main level alone I had to summon
the trees from Lord of the Rings (honestly don't remember the name, I've only
seen the first one and that was a few years ago), the Time Travel Train, The
Simpsons Movie wrecking ball gag, a giant coin. Not meaning to sound biased in
any way, taking out the fact that I love the Portal games and their writing,
but even then some of the best writing has to do with the Portal sections.
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| You can call us for this, but not Casper |
If I can praise Dimensions for anything, it’s that the dev
team know how to keep to themes and characters. Everyone, that I can recognize
at least, is still in character, though at times exaggerated. But one flaw is
in the asset reuse. Not for the levels themselves, but in the voice clips from
big movie franchises, when they couldn't get the cast to record new lines. It
is most blatant, for me at least, in the Ghostbusters levels, the level pack
one being based on Ghostbusters 1, and the main game level being inspired by
Ghostbusters 2. The characters who don't get a minifig, but can be played in
the game thanks to the character abilities, like Venkman being able to switch
between the whole team and The Doctor randomly changing between the 12 doctors,
are guilty of this too, but its at its worst in the levels. The Simpsons levels
also have the scent of low budget, as the only characters who can talk are
Homer and Krusty. Bart, who is a mini fig, is completely mute, and the level
from Homer's pack, being a retell of Season 8's El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro
Jomer does loose some of the effect, as Marge is also mute too. I have no
issues with minifigs being mute in the games, all the games pre Batman 2 were
mute, but in this context, it just feels off. I'd honestly have preferred
reusing sound clips over nothing at all.
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| Dam it Old Man Jenkins! |
One big issue I have with the game comes down to the
adventure worlds. Now I'll admit this is mostly due to this being the first
LEGO game I've had a decent amount of time put into it that has these kinds of
hub worlds. But to me, they're padding, bad padding. In each of them, you need
to get a set amount of studs to get the "Rule Breaker", like in the
levels. Along with that, there are gold bricks to be used for upgrading
vehicles, restoration missions that use studs, and a Red Brick to find. Simple
enough right? Well, the big issue is with the stud requirements. While probably
due to the T-L style of game, a lot of the more useful red bricks aren't in
Year 1. Ones I used a lot like x4, 6, 8, and 10 stud multipliers, Invincibility
and Stud Magnet aren't in the game. Granted, Invincibility is there for some
characters, and you can upgrade vehicles to have Stud Magnet, but it would be
nice for the characters to have it, and it would make the Adventure Worlds flow
faster. The only logic I can see for not having them is that to get to the
Adventure Worlds, you need a character from that IP, but for the level packs at
least it would make sense as they also block a level from being played unless
you have that character. I'd rather those then one that changes the music to
Doctor Who music, one for 8-bit music, ect. For this review, I've been playing the PS3 version, and this has been one of the most unstable LEGO games I've played (using 1.10), and the theory is that it is the red bricks that are doing it, so that can go into another flaw, as I've had the game infinite load and freeze on me when using things like the Minikit detector.
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| Send in the Cybermen... I'm not a Doctor Who fan, that's the best I've got... |
One other issue I have that goes back to pacing is level
size. Some levels feel bloated, with one that come to mind being the
Ghostbusters Level pack (I haven't actually finished Back to the Future 1's
level). It is a condensed version of the movie, but going between buildings in
a basically identical hub map is boring, and the massive stud count requirement
doesn't help. Some people do like it, it comes down to personal taste. Music and
visuals do go back to the theming comment I said before, as each level does
look, feel and sound different, in keeping with the different franchises. Some things
don't really work, like Level pack Staypuff, not the mini fig, but that's more
the fact that its made of LEGO, to me it wouldn't look that good in real life,
so I'm not going to pan the game for it. Basically, the flaws come down to the
Adventure maps, and as I said in the T-L post and at the start of the review,
price. For Australia, this isn't worth $170 for the starter pack, and the other
packs could go for a price drop too, as getting normal LEGO is far, far, far
more cost effective, even here. For US, as a lot of traffic for this site comes
from the US and that's the only country I know the prices for. I'd rather be
paying your prices, and even then the Starter pack's still a bit of a steep
price. For now, I'll leave you with that, as I have one final Dimensions post,
mainly as filler for Sunday, and next week, as I said before, Pokémon Generation
IV: Diamond, Pearl and Platinum.
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