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Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (PS5): COMPLETED!

Posted on 08/04/2022 Written by deKay

It’s been a long time since a Lego game came out. This one is (yet another) Star Wars themed one, which re-treads a lot of ground from previous Lego Star Wars games due to the fact they’re based on the same films. They are, however, all new levels, and the most recent two films have never been developed into a Lego game either, so that’s OK. It’s also a “new engine”, “rewritten from the ground up” or something, so you can say goodbye to all the bugs that recurred in every old Lego game!

Except of course, they still exist. Aside from the random crashes and frozen loading screens (yes, loading screens on a PS5), many of the popular past bugs return here. There’s the “you need to speak to someone but they won’t let you” bug! The “go here to collect an item but it’s not there when you get there, just a marker and an empty space” bug! The “collect ten things only you do but one of them doesn’t register so you can’t get them all” bug! Those, and ALL NEW bugs! Like the “when player two presses a certain button, player one brings up the change character option” bug! And the “if one player starts a side mission while the other player is doing certain things, that second player can’t use any of the buttons on the controller any more” bug!

Even after a number of patches, these bugs remain. In fact, I’m sure the game crashes more frequently now than it did the day before launch when we started playing it.

Thankfully, it’s worth the hassle. Because it’s amazing.

It’s funny, it’s huge, it’s got all your favourite characters from Star Wars like Helmet Man and Red Face Hornhead and Baby Shrek and Blue Lady. It has puzzles and shooting galleries and space battles and lasers. It has snow and sand and water planets. It has Blade Runnery worlds and creatures to ride. It has all the Star Wars stories about the good guy going bad and the bad guy going good and the good guy hiding away and the other bad guy turning good just in time to save the galaxy.

You’d be right in thinking I care not for Star Wars as a theme. Which doesn’t matter when it’s enjoyable to just smash everything and laugh at the funnies.

The only real difference to the older games is that the camera angle is now an over-the-shoulder one, more like modern third-person action games. What you actually do is mostly unchanged – collect things, smash things, operate things, get All the Bricks (which are now blue and see-through instead of gold, and there are almost 1200 of them instead of a few hundred) – and I actually didn’t realise we’d been playing from a different angle until we were a few hours in.

I say we because like most other Lego games, I can’t play them on my own. My daughter, who literally knows nothing about Star Wars that didn’t come from a game, insisted she played too so it has been a co-op affair for the entire time. It certainly helps when getting things done more quickly, but one side effect of a split screen combined with the new camera does mean that some events – like those where you have to fly through spheres – are almost impossible as you can’t see them due to the limited viewport.

The actual story, all nine films combined, is actually pretty short (for a Lego title). Each one only has a couple of levels with some short filler sections between, and we’d completed that in about 8 hours. However, the traditional brick mop-up is immense. Hundreds of events, tasks and missions. Wookies and Porgs and Gonks to find all over the galaxy. Fetch quests, capital ship battles, and asteroids to destroy. Finding every hidden character. It may have been only 8 hours to reach the credits, but we’ve spent over 50 hours on it in total so far and are only 36% complete!

So, it has faults, like all Lego games, but is excellent, like all Lego games.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: completed, Diary, lego, ps5, star wars

Lego Builder’s Journey (iOS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 21/12/2019 Written by deKay

What a lovely little game this turned out to be. It’s these tiny little Lego dioramas each with a little puzzle in – get you little lego boy to the other side of the screen, or make machinery do something, or build a thing in a certain way.

It isn’t difficult, although one of the puzzles introduced a new gimmick which I completely missed so it stumped me for a while, but it’s clever and looks incredible and if you have Apple Arcade already (as against all odds, I do) then it’s free and a wonderful thing I strongly suggest you play.

This screen involves building a path for your skateboard.

The post Lego Builder’s Journey (iOS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: apple arcade, completed, iOS, lego, Post

The Lego Movie 2 Videogame (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on 08/08/2019 Written by deKay

Yes, it’s another Lego game. Which means that it’s the same as all the other Lego games, right? Well, no actually. In several important ways.

Of course, the basic gameplay is mostly unchanged. You go around a level, solve little puzzles and generally smash everything you come across, but this game (and it’s possible the Lego Incredibles and Lego DC Super Villains do the same – I’ve yet to play them) is more open world and far less linear than previous Lego titles. Rather than levels, as such, you have a number of planets. Each has a pretty large unrestricted area to explore, with a number of “missions” in each – find items, do fetch quests, kill X number of baddies, and so on.

Instead of gold bricks, there are now purple sparkly bricks to collect. On each world you need a number of these to progress to the next, and they can be obtained from missions as well as found hidden – and not so hidden – around the map. Red bricks are gone, replaced with special items you can collect that do similar things to the red bricks (2x multiplier, shield, “super” weapons, etc.) but you can’t use them all at the same time.

Also new to the series is the ability to build things. You’d think, being Lego, that would have been there all along – but in fact previously you could only build pre-determined items in pre-determined places. Here, once you have the blueprint, you can build what you want pretty much anywhere. Most things are small and provide specific functions – a generator, a water sprinkler, a trampoline, various vehicles – but there are huge structures that are of use on one almost-empty world that you need to populate.

Perhaps the biggest change, however, is you don’t need different characters to do certain tasks. Before, you’d need a character with a gun to shoot targets, or a character with super-strength to break certain objects. Part of the game would be unlocking all these characters, but in The Lego Movie 2 Videogame, it seems every character can do everything – one you’ve unlocked the skills through the story anyway. It streamlines things but loses a bit of what makes a Lego game a Lego game, I think.

Speaking of the story, it vaguely follows the plot of the film although almost as a sort of side story, spending lots of time on bits that barely got screen time, or entire sections I don’t remember from the film at all. Maybe it was based on an early draft of the screenplay, or perhaps they added bits to flesh it out? It’s also not as funny as either the film or other Lego games. There are no jokes, no silliness, and a lack of random pigs, sausages and toilets. And I’m serious in that this takes a lot away from the game, especially since the source material is supposed to be funny. You could forgive Lego Jurassic World or something not having jokes (but it did), but you can’t here.

Finally, it’s short. Very short. Way back when, the likes of Lego Star Wars III or Lego Marvel Super Heroes would take 30+ hours just to finish the story (albeit with a good 30 more to 100% it). More recently, 10-12 hours (with about 10-12 more) seemed to be the length. This game, however, I completed in co-op in under 5 hours. That’s really, really short for a Lego game. Almost one sitting, in fact. Yes, we’re only 40% complete, but even then that implies 12-13 hours total for 100%. Perhaps the open-world nature of it, when played in two player so both are achieving different goals at the same time, might be some of the reason.

All that said, it still plays really well. I like some of the new stuff, I don’t really like the changes to how characters work or the lack of humour, but it’s still a good game. Just not one of the better Lego games. Also: it’s “video game” not “videogame”, TT Games/Lego/Warner/whoever.

The post The Lego Movie 2 Videogame (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: completed, lego, Post, switch

Lego Dimensions: The Lego Batman Movie (PS4): COMPLETED!

Posted on 22/02/2019 Written by deKay

This is the first of the “needs Lego Dimensions but is actually a complete adventure in itself” Story Packs we’ve played (we as in, my daughter and I). We’ve the Ghostbusters and Fantastic Beasts ones lined up too, but decided on this one initially.

There’s very little to write about Lego games. If you know one you know nearly all of them. As a Lego Dimensions expansion, you can use all the characters from other series (Midway Gamer Guy being incredibly useful) as you play. The plot is mostly that of the Lego Batman film, with some divergence. In particular, there’s a whole section set in the Phantom Zone with gravity changes and warps. There’s also a new use for the portal – a “Phase” power which lets you summon sections of up to three different worlds, which you can only access if your character standing on the associated part of the portal.

We enjoyed it. It’s shorter than a normal Lego game, but much longer than a level pack.

The post Lego Dimensions: The Lego Batman Movie (PS4): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: completed, lego, Post, PS4

Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

Posted on 15/07/2018 Written by deKay

And yet another Lego game beaten. This one was pretty good fun, focussing mainly on Spider-Man, Thor, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy and a lot of less well known heroes (and foes). The plot is stupid and has Kang taking various different Marvel locations, universes and time zones and creating Chronopolis by smashing them all together.

What that means is there’s a lot of variety in the levels, with some really geeky references to the comics. Other than that, there’s the whole of Chronopolis to wander round just as you could Manhattan in the original game, with a daunting number of gold bricks to find.

Not sure what else there is to say. There’s little new in the game, but that has never mattered before. The graphics have that same odd light sourcing that Lego Ninjago The Movie also did making some levels very dark and others look a bit strange, but it’s not as bad here as it was there. I wonder if it’s only the way the engine runs on the Switch? Or that I’m only playing in 720p? Who knows.

Anyway, done.

The post Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 (Switch): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary Tagged With: completed, lego, marvel super heroes, Post, switch

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