Written by Crystal Greenwood
I was fortunate to be shown firsthand demos of LEGO Worlds, LEGO Dimensions, and LEGO CITY Undercover on the PS4. If you’ve never encountered a LEGO video game before, these are action-adventure (RPG feel) where you have to figure out puzzles, collect tons of coins and nuts, and, of course, build certain objects to help advance in the story. Each of these games have their signature LEGO interpretation of characters we know and love like Harry Potter, Princess Leia and Spider-man to name a few.
First was Dimensions with The Goonies pack. I feel if any parent my age was able to see how they translated The Goonies into a live, playable gaming experience, you would have goosebumps like I did. Three words sums up what I felt, Chunk’s Truffle Shuffle! The huge attention to detail from the developers shine through with this title, bringing to life something that they would absolutely love to see as a playable medium. Also, with the LEGO Toy Pad, the Sloth, One-Eyed Willy Pirate Ship and the Skeleton Organ minifigs, The Goonies was literally brought to life with impressive interactive gameplay. It doesn’t stop there. If you have other minfigs like Batman, Robin etc, you can still use them in any Dimensions game out there. It was crazy seeing the Batmobile put into The Goonies world while trying to find treasure! Sky’s the limit!
Next was LEGO CITY Undecover. Along with the theme of ’80s style, LEGO CITY Undercover felt definitely like the cliched, cheesy cop flicks back in the day. The cinematic scenes were very nostalgic from the news reporter to the guy-who-has-heard-of-the-lead-character-before-and-idolizes-way-too-much cliche, classic! When we finally got to the gameplay, driving around was great because even though there are linear missions, there are still opportunities to drive around and explore. The great feature is there’s no need for a map because there will always be a trail of coins and nuts leading back to the next advancement of the story. The gameplay was very fluid, engaging and fun. Just a pleasure to demo.
Then, the best was saved for last, LEGO Worlds. My words would probably not do this game enough justice. Even though I was catered to a completely unlocked experience, I was floored with the real-time rendering and how quick someone can seamlessly create whatever they wanted, seemingly out of thin air. In LEGO Worlds, your character is dropped off into a vast of hills and plains. It’s up to you to figure out how to survive and landscape to your liking. There is a mission, but mostly, there’s so much free range in creativity that it might just be forgotten after a while. Just seeing how the duplication gun would scan an object and then reproduce at will without any kind of glitching or buffering whatsoever was absolutely brilliant. Creating castles with lava moats that even takes life from your character was truly amazing as well. The physics were off-the-wall fun, making this title very easy to lose hours and hours on end and not feel a thing.
I walked away from seeing these demos wanting to run to the store and picking them up for myself, especially to play with my 5 year old and have a family night. I highly recommend these titles to gamers of all ranges from occasional to avid because there’s a tutorial in the beginning with each title. This a very important element, helping whomever to just pick up a game stick and start right away. And, with that, Happy Gaming!
