![]() That's not a new complaint for the series, but this game left me with little else to think about. There's appeal in exploring the film's colorful locales and commanding such diverse heroes, but having to constantly swap between four or five different characters at a time to complete simple tasks becomes mind numbing quickly. Good for kids, sure, but without a strong entertainment franchise to keep older players hooked, it doesn’t provide quite the same all-ages fun this series is known for. Solutions for opening up a new area of a level or taking down a certain enemy couldn't be more obvious – a cracked panel means Emmet's drill must be used, or a sparkly wall section inevitably leads Wyldstyle or another female character to climb it – and if the visual cue isn't obvious enough, you're often told exactly what to do. It's thankfully less repetitive with a local split-screen pal in tow (there's no online co-op here), but the action still devolves into drudgery too frequently. However, while it's more interesting to play as Batman or Green Lantern than a generic minifigure, the characters' abilities are most commonly used simply for clearing mundane chains of laborious roadblocks to forward progress. Luckily, the stellar character roster casts a wide net, with the original characters from the movie flanked by exciting unlockable allies like Gandalf, Wonder Woman, and Superman. TT Games' smash, bash, and solve LEGO game formula is very much intact in The LEGO Movie Videogame, though like all reliable game formats it’s no longer terribly fresh or exhilarating. Considering how the film rails against complacency, it's a bit ironic how content the game is to follow the same familiar instructions. Like the construction site: sure, it follows the arc of the film, but that doesn't mean I need to spend 30 minutes performing virtual plastic manual labor simply to further the prescribed plot. Film clips interspersed between missions entertain, but a fair bit of the heart and humor from the film were left on the cutting room floor in editing, so it doesn't quite have the punch of the source material. While the game maintains a generally amusing tone and includes some enjoyable peaks – such as commanding Uni-Kitty's startling alternate form, or bashing through levels as a massive, Transformers-esque robot pirate – trying to turn a succinct, 90-minute film into a seven-hour game campaign means it inevitably drags in spots. Where the strong recent LEGO Marvel and DC games had decades of comics and scads of heroes and villains to work with, The LEGO Movie Videogame has but a single movie script – albeit a pretty excellent one. This one is just retreading the same material, and there’s not much of it to draw from. ![]() However, it ends up showing that one of the strengths of other LEGO games is the charm that comes from recreating a non-LEGO scene in amusing ways. Main character Emmet's transformation from dopey, upbeat everyman to the fabled carrier of the Piece of Resistance seems like an ideal premise for a game campaign, what with its colorful and distinctive settings (like the adorable, neon-tinged Cloud Cuckoo Land), great cast (including Batman himself), and constant array of gags and jokes. ![]() Essentially, it's one lengthy, interactive spoiler, so don't play it before seeing the movie. ![]() Unlike many recent film-to-game adaptations that deviated from the source material to shake things up, The LEGO Movie Videogame unwisely decides to reenact the film's plot from start to finish.
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