Lego Star Wars; The Complete Saga: Sometimes Less is More

Allow me a bit of a self-indulgent review. Recently, just for fun, I've felt like going back to some Lego Games. While I know this is ironic because every Lego Game I've reviewed, I've been highly critical of, they made up a good chunk of my childhood/ early teenage years in gaming. As someone who grew up with the Prequel movies going into cinemas for the first time, a child of two Star Wars fans and was also into both Lego and gaming, it should come as no surprise to learn that Lego Star Wars games were in my gaming library as a kid. I had Lego Star Wars 1 (based around the then-new prequels) and Lego Star Wars 2 (based around the original trilogy) for the Playstation 2. But, when I got a Wii, I got today's review subject, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (a directors cut of the two games that put them together with some extra content). Though my memory is hazy, I want to say that these were some of the first games I played to completion, and the main reason why I try to complete Lego Games to this day (I say try because Dimensions and Marvel 2 said, "Haha, no!" thanks to game-breaking bugs and corrupted save files). I loved these games as a kid, but do they still (or at least, the Complete Saga as I don't have Lego Star Wars 1 and Lego Star Wars 2 anymore) hold up now? 

The story for the game is pretty self-explanatory. The six movies released as of 2007, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, retold in a comedic style casting mostly mute Lego Minifigure representations of all the characters. The only voices in this game, aside from the occasional voice clips from Battle Droids, is grunts, so the critical story moments are primarily done with visual comedy. Vader tells Luke he is his father? Done with a polaroid picture of Anakin and a pregnant Padme. Hyperdrive broken in the Royal Naboo Starship? The collection of bricks that make it up explode with Obi-Wan giving a look of "I dunno how to fix this". What bits of the story they can't describe in cutscenes get told with Star Wars title scrolls at the start of each level. It all works surprisingly well. Even if you aren't a Star Wars fan or have seen the movies, you get a good grasp of what's going on, even if the exact specifics on why is unclear. Back when the first game was new, while I'm pretty sure I had seen Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones on DVD, I hadn't seen Revenge of the Sith. It's why I can say with a level of confidence that it's easy to know what's going on so long as you're paying attention in the cutscenes.

 

The jokes in the cutscenes are pretty amusing, with a good handful of tricks getting a good chuckle out of me, but the gameplay's central comedy comes from the gameplay itself. Like with all the TT Games developed Lego Games released after Lego Star Wars, Complete Saga is an (I don't want to say Action-Adventure because of how broad and generic the term has become now) mix of 3D platforming collect-a-thon with beat 'em up combat and pretty simple puzzle-solving themed around interacting with Lego objects in the world. If it's made of Lego, you can interact with it, be it breaking it, building it, riding it, triggering switches, the usual basic puzzle solving checklist. It's nothing groundbreaking, and when compared to other similar games of its time, it can be rather mundane. However, what helps it stand out alongside other PS2/Gamecube/Xbox Action-Adventure games is the strong theming to the source material and the comedic nature of the game leading to funny moments throughout the game. One thing that did get a laugh out of me was the disco rooms, especially the one on Kamino in Attack of the Clones. Even moments like finding the Mos Eisley Cinema in A New Hope helped give the relatively simple gameplay some much-needed charm and making it memorable. 

 

When not running around as minifigures, you're in control of iconic Star Wars vehicles with servicable control. Lego games and vehicles have a mixed history. If you were to ask me what I'd prefer for the execution, I would say these vehicles over the newer games and their insistence on over-world races, all because of one word, control. At no point throughout my time controlling the vehicles did I feel like I wasn't in control of it. While some things like the Proton bombs are tedious, it is nothing compared to the frustration I had when trying to control a vehicle in games like Lego Marvel 2 and Lego DC Supervillains. I had more fun controlling vehicles like Anakin's Pod Racer and the Hoth Snowspeeders than I had in any race mini-game in DC Villains because one felt like a balanced challenge that was playtested thoroughly. In contrast, the other felt like the developers went, "Oh shit, we need to have a reason to get in these vehicles don't we?". 

Fun fact, I actually have this set. Only reason I skipped the remake was the cost. Lego Star Wars toys are expensive...

 

There is also a hub world to explore. Still, unlike the recent Lego games where the hub world is an open world with lots of things to do, the Mos Eisley Cantina is designed more like the Comet Observatory from Super Mario Galaxy or Station Square from Sonic Adventure. It's small; practicality focused, more of a time-waster, place to mess around rather than something to explore in great detail. While I prefer this due to the nature of the games, there's no correct answer for which style is objectively better, as the more extensive hub world can help make the game feel more prominent than it is. However, my bias might be down to the fact that I feel like levels in more modern Lego games are shorter and smaller when compared to levels in games like The Complete Saga. 

 

The soundtrack for the game is ripped right out of the movies, which is great for Star Wars fans, though one minor nitpick of mine is that the dynamic soundtrack does get annoying when it keeps changing from "quiet and peaceful" to "you're being attacked" just because you got a bit to close to some distant Battle Droids. Visually though, this game has and hasn't aged well. While the designs for the Lego objects, such as the destroyable small builds, the vehicles, and the minifigures, look alright, even nostalgic at times due to how the models were based around actual Lego sets at the time, the background textures and the resolution do look quite bad by today's standards. I played the Playstation 3 version of the game for this review, and even just comparing this game to Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars, let alone recent games on last-gen hardware, shows how far the Lego games have come in terms of visual presentation. It's hard to deny that it looks dated now, and while that's not inherently a problem, I know that there are people out there who struggle to play older games due to lower visual quality.

 

I remember a comment regarding one of my Lego Game reviews; I forget which one; I think it might have been Lego Marvel 2. It brought up the fact that the Lego Games are meant for kids, so looking at them from an adult's perspective is meaningless, redundant, stupid even (I'm paraphrasing based on memory here). I'm afraid I have to disagree with this statement, for the same reason that Pokemon isn't purely a kids game, or the fact that the recent Lego Movies (I say recent, but the first Lego Movie is seven years old) aren't kids movies. They're for the whole family. Lego is, at its core, a family toy as people of all ages can play with it, create things with it. There's a whole TV show based on Adults building stuff out of Lego that has versions for 11 different countries; I don't think you can find many people who'd argue, "It's just for kids." So why are the Lego Games getting treated as "just for kids"? I recently just finished completing Lego DC Supervillains, one of the most recent Lego Game at the time of writing. Yes, it had more things to do in it, more places to explore, more characters to play as, more vehicles to control, but I was only having fun for a small section of it. The levels felt short, and hub world exploration felt cumbersome and tedious; many of the missions felt like mindless busywork. Elements of the control actively angered me at times, primarily when switching characters in free play mode due to the Selfie Button, but especially in racing missions where I actively wanted to rip my hair out because of how awkward the vehicles were to control. Is Complete Saga better? Arguably no, there are things about it that frustrated me, such as changing the player-controlled character in story mode, basic and repetitive combat, the surprisingly small window to collect studs and hearts, along with collision and clipping issues of said studs and hearts. I could also see people having a hard time getting back into it due to the lack of quality of life improvements to puzzles between 2007 and 2018. But when comparing the amount of time I was having fun in Star Wars compared to the amount of time I was having fun in DC Villains, Star Wars wins by a lot because it feels more refined.

 

With The Skywalker Saga coming out sometime this year (supposedly), I can't say for sure yet if it's worth going out of your way to play The Complete Saga. The primary reason is it being for older consoles, and finding copies of games for those consoles is getting harder and harder to find due to them no longer being inconvenient shops. It is available on Steam; however, I do not recommend playing it with keyboard controls. Though it does still hold up well, the game itself is interesting to look at it and see how far the Lego Games have come, how many steps forward they've taken, and how many steps back they've taken. It is a good game; there are reasons why many people put this as the best Lego game TT Games has made, if not the best Lego Game period. This is the main reason I'm so critical of the newer Lego games; newer doesn't always mean better. I hope Skywalker Saga is good, but while my hopes are high, my expectations are low, which is a shame.

The Lego Movie 2; The Second Part: That feeling when you're outclassed by a 7-10 year old...

Going off of the logic of the movie, I swear the younger sister in this movie builds better than most AFOL's.

For all the positives and negatives that can be said about the four Lego Movies, one thing I've found interesting is the embracing of the meta context of the movies. From the first Lego movie being a reminder to kids and adult fans of Lego that Lego is still a toy, meant to be built up, played with, and then broken up to be rebuilt into something new, the Lego Batman movie making a mockery of the Live Action Batman movies and how depressing DC has gotten lately, the Ninjargo movie... being a Lego version of one of those cheesy, over the top kung fu movies including a giant monster (I'll admit the Ninjargo one is the one I've seen the least of the four), and now the direct sequel to Lego Movie being... a critique on making everything dark and edgy, and a stab at toxic masculinity in the form of showing how siblings don't get along due to how mean an older brother can be using the disguise of the younger sister distorting and brainwashing everything to be more girly... and ironically enough, my younger sister probably hasn't seen this movie, and will likely never see this review because all she knows about my sites is that they exist... anyway...

DCember; The Lego Batman Movie: Ow, the edge

No seriously, stepping on the edges of Lego bricks hurt

Welcome to DCember, the DC equivalent of MAYvel. Because everyone else is doing christmas marathons, so I thought I'd be that hipster edge lord that goes against the norm. And what's more edgy then DC's track record of quality movies? I regret nothing in that, but probably will at some point, depending on what happens first. Anyway, unlike MAYvel, not everything will be dedicated to DC. The main reason being because there are often end of year games that I try to rush reviews of, such as Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee which should be coming out within a week or two, but the large majority of content on this site is going to be dedicated to DC. Starting off with The Lego Batman Movie, a somewhat direct sequel to The Lego Movie, starting that movie's interpretation of Batman and trust me, this movie will love to remind you that you are watching a Batman movie.

Would have been nice if you learned your lesson last time and didn't make Australian's wait 2-3 months like you did The Lego Movie, but you didn't. If you don't like Pirates, stop giving them justifications for existance!

DCember Prologue; Lego DC Supervillains:Well, at least I'm not smelling corporate bias?

It is no secret that I hated Lego Marvel Superheroes 2. I personally found it a slog to go through, the DLC was broken, the over world wasn’t fun to travel through, the levels got shorter as I went through, and even at the 100% mark, I never really felt satisfied with the experience. I got so mad at the experience that I was genuinely considering not getting another one, and became extremely cynical towards DC Super villains. Against my better judgement, I picked up DC Super villains thinking that, at the very least, it would be a good review for this week, seeing as most of, if not all of next month’s content is going to be focused on DC. Was I wrong to be so overly cautious? In a word: No. It’s times like this when I’m glad I don’t do number scores or submit reviews to Metacritic and the like, because I’d probably piss someone off at WB for this, not that it matters, I don’t get review copies, and any ad space they may get here is through Google, not me.

Operation M.A.Y.V.E.L Phase 1 (Maybe? Kinda?); Lego Marvel Superheroes 2: TT, we need to talk

I have a love-hate relationship with the Lego games. Two of my favorite games when growing up was Lego Star Wars Complete Saga, and Lego Batman 1, and motion sickness inducing camera aside, I do enjoy BIONICLE Heroes (though that's for another time). While simplistic, the games are still entertaining. However, things did change during the last generation of consoles. While it is a case by case situation, some of the changes made to the game since Lego Batman 2 turned me off of the games, and when I did try them again with Lego Dimensions, the flaws of the engine started to become really apparent to me. I got this game a few weeks ago as, encase it wasn't obvious, I've been on a marvel binge, and the game was heavily discounted. So I figured why not, and I'd even get the DLC because the two together was still cheaper than the normal retail price... See if you can guess where I'm going with this based on the title alone.

LEGO Ideas Set number 21309: NASA Apollo Saturn V

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." John F. Kennedy, Rice Stadium, September 12 1962.

How I'd "fix": Lego Dimensions

Well, fixed is being used loosely here.

With talk on Dimensions ceasing production, and counter talk saying that it isn't, I'd like to go back to it to talk about things I'd like to see done if they do go for a "Dimensions 2". This is not meant to be me saying I could do the job better, far from it. These are more ideas that, if I was a part of the development team for whatever reason, what I would suggest.

1. Drop the Toys to Life model
   
   This is a no brainer, due to me personally thinking its the main thing holding Dimensions back. I know it sounds weird but hear me out. One thing that the team cannot do, or at least try not to do, is sell power. Most of the power ups you can get from the packs are cosmetic upgrades that do fit the worlds they come from, but have little practical use. There are some that are useful, like a stud magnet, cheaper upgrades, ect. But for everyone of those, there's two more that are "replace music with *x*", "give all vehicles *y*" "wear dino hats". Every Lego game has upgrades like that, but they are balanced out with things like extra stud multipliers, invincibility, and others that have more use to them, help with the pacing of the game, something that Dimensions can't really do because the way to get red bricks are bared off unless you have characters that can get to the Adventure worlds they're from. On top of that, there are characters which are required to get collectables that you could be waiting months to get. Raven's one I know about in Year 2 as you can't complete the Adventure Time level without her, Gamer Kid had 50 arcade games you could only start getting late into Year 1, and unless you have Supergirl, you're not completing the Sonic Level. Just to name a few. None of these would be a problem in a normal Lego Game, as then the only thing blocking off your progression is the amount of studs you had, whereas the way its going with Dimensions as it is, if you needed a character, you're probably paying $25-$80 (that's based on brick and mortar stores in Australian dollars for the record), which on top of the $180 for the starter pack, will not help get customers, especially when the audience you target relies of their parents to buy it for them.
2. Give us a reason to use these vehicles
   
   To those who haven't played Dimensions. around 90-95% of the vehicles and vehicle upgrades... are completely useless and really only exist to make an attempt to justify the price tag of the sets (which they suck at for the record). With the exception of some specific vehicles for the occasional secret area and puzzle, you have no reason to use the vehicles. Boats and submarines are only used in adventure words, which is negated by characters who can swim, which you'd probably find out before you got a submarine. Planes are really only used for lifting specific items onto switches, as there are characters who can fly on their own and fly faster, and cars, while the most useful, still aren't often used unless you want to move faster, in which case you're probably flying. Gadgets are the ones that get the most use along with special vehicles, things like the Ghost trap, Arcade machine, TARDIS, DeLorian, ect, but like the cars, are the most situational. Combined with all the vehicles sharing the same stats depending on what kind of vehicle they are, and you get the 90-95% useless number (roughly). I'd like to see vehicles get more use, levels built around using them, give me reasons for having these. I admit the Lego games have had a lot of issues with useless vehicles, but in other games they did have reasons for you to use them, levels that had you play as them, or puzzles that required a vehicle to be built and used to move on. Rather then "Use a vehicle of your choice to use this dash panel you could fly over" "Use one to lift this box" "Use one to charge up this machine".
3. Real Lego sets based on the game
   
   What do I mean by that? Well, I'd like to see sets based on the idea, even if its just a series of collectable minifigs. Most people who buy the sets, buy them for the characters, especially ones like the Twelfth Doctor, Chell, Sonic, Mr T, and other characters who haven't been minifigs before. There is a market for these characters as minifigs, and if they were turned into sets based on their franchises or from the game itself, that would be even better. Doing this and taking away the Toys to Life aspect would cut the games cost in half, so that the people who want the game can get the game, those who want the sets can get the sets, and those who want both can throw their money away now. Everyone wins!
4. Keep the Portal
   
   I know that might sound crazy, seeing as before I did say to drop Toys to Life. But I will admit that the Portal is a interesting mechanic, and has led to some interesting puzzles. It could even be something like a phone app that connects to the game which would let you do the puzzles, control characters to go to specific areas to do some sort of Rube Goldberg like puzzle, or even take something from Lego Star Wars 3 and have a way to control units of soldiers on a battlefield. You could even connect it to the physical sets, like they do with the Nexo Knights sets, and have a way to scan codes to unlock things like costumes (not characters, not power). There is an idea here for controlling parts of the game with something other then a standard controller that I'd love to see more games take use of, we have the technology for this, and its a safe bet everyone who'd get the game would have access to a phone or tablet.
5. Better navigation in adventure worlds
   
   I hate navigating the adventure worlds, I really do. It's slow, easy to get lost, especially in the year 2 worlds, and the tools you have for navigating it just makes it a chore. There are ways it could be fixed. Things like the radar showing some signs of world geography rather then a blank circle with icons giving a rough idea where things are, the ghost studs from previous Lego games (if you choose) to point to the closest collectable to where you are, a way to bring up some sort of map of the world. Games have been designing ways of navigating open worlds since the 80's, we have a good idea on how to be a gentle guide if the player wants, and there are far better ways then "Look at all the arrows clogging up your HUD, there they are, go find them".
6. Less of the old, more of the new
   
   I'm going to probably shoot down a lot of older readers nostalgia here with this. But Dimensions needed more characters that kids of this day and age would know better. There are some that are timeless, like the DC superheroes, and a lot of the Lego IP's in the game helped a lot. But, most children, and I say most intentionally so please don't spam me with "but my kid does", are not going to care about things like The Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Rings (though that ones more debatable), Back to the Future, Portal 2, the original Ghostbusters, Doctor Who, Mission Impossible, The A-Team, Gremlins, E.T, Knight Rider, The Goonies and Beetlejuice. Like it or not, those are aimed at older players, the parents and older siblings. Before anyone says it, no, there is nothing wrong with them being in the game, see before about the minifigs. What I will say was that there needed to be more IP's in the game that targeted children with things they're growing up with, the IP's you can find on TV and in movies right now. Because those would have been what kids would have begged their parents to get, because they knew them. Parents would see the sets from their childhoods, maybe getting them too and congratulations, they just got more money.
7. Lego Engine 2.0
   
   The game engine they're using for these games is showing its age. The games are becoming stale, in game visuals look like they haven't improved, and are aging badly. Their cutscenes are looking better then the games they come from, and showing that they're pre rendered and not done in game. Its time for an upgrade. We have more power then ever in consoles and PC's, yet the games still look like my old PS2 could run them. I'm not saying they need to look rediculous. But lighting and shading could be improved, more detail to the minifigs to make them look more like actual Lego. Basically, take the Lego movie and Lego Batman movie, give the minifigs more articulation points, and that should be what they look like now, but they don't. Heck I'd settle for Lego Worlds in terms of where we should be at visually. It can be done people. I'm even willing to trade off compatibility with the last generation of hardware to do it, even if it means I wouldn't be able to play them yet. It is something that needs to happen.
   
8. Time to go Digital
   
   Before you read on, note that I'm very much on the camp of local multiplayer. But even I admit that, if we can, we should have both. And this also came from a Facebook group I'm a part of related to Dimensions, so thank you to that person for the idea.  Dimensions does have online multiplayer in terms of the Battle Arenas, but at this point, its probably time for some online co-op multiplayer. Just can we please still have local? I know you want to only have one WB but please can we have both?

 I have been working on an updated version of  a character roster, building on what Year 1 and 2 have done, its still some time away as before I publish it, I'd like to give powers to the characters and maybe, if I can get the time to dig into Stud.IO, make mock ups of what they could look like based on currently existing pieces. It's taking longer then I expected, due to brainstorming ideas, and the site content schedule going from weekly to daily. Hopefully I can get it soon though as its something I really want to get out, I'm not really happy with how the first one turned out as it was rushed, its was mostly still my personal work notes. See you on Wednesday for the opening impressions on Ducktales.

PSA: Lego Scooby Doo, and Journals

The main point of this is related to Journals, but as a quick side thing. A review of Lego Scooby Doo: Haunted Hollywood. Its Scooby Doo done in the Lego Direct to DVD style by the Warner Bros Animation group. Facial animations are a tad subpar, shaggy has a thing for leaving his mouth open weird, VA's very good, but that's about it. Everything else, look at general trends with the last three movies. I'm going to try and get out a small review over the weekend to make up for this, but as you'll see soon, there is a reason why this is being dropped... other then the lack of meat on it to review.

To the meat of this post, an idea Marissa had fairly recently, the Mediaholics Journals. Short and to the point, we both struggle with recording gameplay. We don't have capture cards to cover console games, our handhelds aren't modded to capture handheld games, and our computers are too underpowered to comfortably record games on our computers (as a personal one for me, I hate the "stick a camera in front of the TV" capture. It looks unprofessional, easy to mess up, hard to tell what's going on, ect). We do want to do proper LP's, we just can't yet. So, Marissa came up with what we're calling the Mediaholics Journals. A series of posts related to slower, spice of life styled games where one day in game equals one entry, and (some exceptions excluded), seven entries equals one post. At time of writing we are still working on a loose schedule for when these posts will go live, but both Marissa and I have begun working on the games we've agreed to do for this trial run. Marissa is playing Animal Crossing New Leaf, while I play its watered down version, Happy Home Designer (at least its not amiibo festival). The reason we chose those games is because it is easy to get images in them of what we are actually doing in game. This is experimental for us. Others have done similar entries for New Leaf, but to my knowledge nothing has been done for Happy Home Designer (for better or worse), so any feedback is appreciated for it.

 Animal Crossing New Leaf entries will go live, on average, Saturdays at 7am AEDT

Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer will go live on Sundays at 7am AEDT as well.

(note, like all content on the site, that will change once Daylight Savings Ends, and the states here that are on AEDT go back to AEST)

On the plus side, the content opportunities for the site now are bigger then ever, which I hope is a good thing to you reading this. I'll still be doing weekly (when possible) reviews, the youtube channel gets almost daily videos now which appear here a week later, and now the journals where Marrisa and I can indulge in our inner story writers. More relaxed then reviews, just to have a laugh at what we can do with the situations the games decides to throw at us. Hope you all enjoy what's coming up.

Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League – Cosmic Clash: Coin Collecting, the cure for all kinds of collectors

Some might be thinking why I'm not starting with the first Lego Batman movie. Well, the reason is because... its Lego Batman 2, its the game's cutscenes edited into a movie. As to why I'm not doing the other Batman movies and TV specials first... I've been playing a fair bit of Lego Batman 3, and was just in the mood for something with Brainiac as the villain. Now as to why I'm playing Lego Batman 3 and other non Zelda or Horizon games? Future plans for Breath of the Wild, and I don't have a PS4. Onward to the review!

Hero Factory; Rise of the Rookies: Ok its not a movie, but it is on DVD, does that count?

So, we have a four episode "season", actually to be fair I did treat the final four episodes of the G1 Transformers cartoon as a season so I guess that works here too, for the show that replaced Bionicle, and believe me it shows. Welcome to Rise of the Rookies, and from what I can see about the other Hero Factory... actually I can't call the rest of these seasons, they're one or two episodes each.

Lego; The Adventures of Clutch Powers: Expect alot of Lego movie comparisons here

I'm not kidding by that title, as the comparisons are pretty easy to make. Yet, there is a reason why one is a cinematic darling to the masses, and the other is a Direct to DVD special I saw in supermarkets and Target. And trust me, it shows, it really shows.

Opening Impressions: Legends of Chima

Well, to be fair, evolution makes a bit more sense here then it does in other things I know, like the Archie sonic universe, the adult link timeline in Legend of Zelda, some Pokemon evolutions... come to think about it, a lot of the things make you question the theory of evolution. So, three episodes of the show have been put onto LEGO's youtube channel (or at least three are on there and more are being lost to Youtube's dumb autoplay system). So thanks to some curiosity via LEGO Dimensions (Eris is a go to character for me along with Supergirl), lets delve into the first three episodes of LEGO's Legends of Chima.

LEGO Dimensions Year 3 wishlist

So with Year 2 about to start, and people voicing in with what they want to see in a potential Year 3, I thought it might be fun to voice my own opinions on this idea, with what I'd like to see in Year 3. Will most of these happen, I doubt it for several different reasons. This is not meant to be taken as fact, this is just some ideas that, if possible, I'd like to see. This is my notes for this post though, as time constraints due to IRL work, and projects for here have been eating up a lot of my free time. I did want to add MoC pictures from what I can do in a piece of software called LEGO Digital Designer, to be some visual material for the post, but sadly time got the better of me. I do want to build them though, and once I get the time, I'll try my hand at them and upload them for you all to see, along with any ideas you may have. I did try to limit franchises, and I capped possibilities, in terms of age rating to M at the oldest (being the Australian equivalent of a PG-13 in terms of ESRB), as that's what looks to be the rule for the real sets and game. In terms of naming, the structure is type of pack (contents in terms of minifigs and first build)

LEGO Dimensions: Who be th' bad guy in 'tis again?

If ye don't like th' scurvy pirate shout, thar be a version 'o 'tis review in normal English here: http://mediaholicreviews.blogspot.com/2016/09/lego-dimensions-who-is-bad-guy-in-this.html
'tis was also a direct copy paste from 'tis site here: http://postlikeapirate.com/ due to 'tis bein' more 'o a gag, so excuse any weird spellin' from th' tavern. I did give a go' 'n catch all 'o them. Now onto th' review savvy. 

No seriously, who? thar be someone tryin' to reconstruct th' multiverses 'n rebuild them in his own image, but we break a lot 'o thin's in these games, th' golden rule be "If it's made 'o LEGO, it can be destroyed" after all. Though then again, 'tis be th' opposite extreme to th' LEGO movie, which was all 'bout followin' instructions to th' letter 'n killin' imagination...  

"Totally not gettin' 'tis when it comes out, what would ever gift ye that idea..."

LEGO Dimensions: Who is the bad guy in this again?

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...

"Totally not getting this when it comes out, what would ever give you that idea..."

BIONICLE 2016 Uniters: /Toa and only villain coming out here

Yes I am still bitter about that, but lets move on, shall we? To the main sets!

BIONICLE 2016 Creatures: Rahi sounds more badass, just saying

The joys of BIONICLE sets from a reviewer's perspective: Most of them are clones, so I can get through six in one day. Why? Because that's exactly what I'm doing. All I can review are the Summer (for here) sets of this year, can't do the winter wave because they're not being released here, which I am a bit bitter about because they look awesome, and more interesting then the Skull things from last year.

Toys to Life: DLC given physical form

So... these are a thing... Shall we take a look at them? I should note that all I'm reviewing is what I have. I have one Skylander, being Spyro, but he's in bad condition due to being pre-owned, so to review it would be a bad sample size. Going from oldest to newest:

Ignition & Battle of Karda Nui: Race against time. Race for Life

The Kanohi Ignika, the Mask of Life. Most who touch it are eternally cursed in some way, those who are destined to wear it... well... aren't much better off. We have 15 small comics from DC (yeah, how many people here knew that DC did the BIONICLE comics?), so let's not waste time, because the characters don't have a lot of time. Ignition, and the Battle of Karda Nui.

First Impressions: LEGO Dimensions

Toys to games has always been a model I’ve been very cautious of. The idea is simple enough, pay for a special figure that has an RFID chip in its base, place the figure on some sort of reader and play as that character in the game itself, a sort of “Physical DLC” if you would. Currently, there are three franchises that use this model, Skylanders which focuses on Spyro esque creatures, Disney Infinity which is what happens when you combine Garry’s Mod, Disney and Skylanders and finally Nintendo’s amiibo, which are designed to work across multiple game franchises to unlock small things in the individual games like costumes, weapons, sparing partners, ect. Out of the three, I do have to admit, while at times to hard to actually find, the amiibo are the best executed so far. To me, it feels like I’m forced to pay for the characters I may only use once. Skylanders figures are limited to Skylanders, same as Disney Infinity’s are limited to Disney Infinity. While the amiibo are limited to Nintendo consoles, they’re not limited to one or two games (theoretically). I can use my Link amiibo in Super Smash Brothers for 3DS (once the peripheral comes out as I don’t have a new 3DS) and WiiU, Mario Kart 8 and Hyrule Warriors as an example. While I think more variety with the already released amiibo would be nice, it’s better than just limited to one or two games in the case of Disney Infinity. Tt Games wants in on this model as well, and what better franchise then the LEGO Games, hence LEGO Dimensions.