image: lukiegames.com
LEGO games have never been seen as games that were meant for “serious gamers”. They have always been fun little games based on known properties that tell the story in a cute manner and takes some liberties in it’s game play and storytelling. Although they have over-saturated the market recently, LEGO games are still a huge blast to play through.
My first LEGO game was the one that has started the trend of licensed games: LEGO Star Wars. This game blew my mind as a kid, as I was able to play as basically every character from the prequel trilogy and explore fun Star Wars environments like pod racing on Tatooine as well as Naboo. I could collect studs from the game and buy characters that are fun to play with like Darth Maul and General Grevious and I could collect mini-kits to build miniature starships. I got LEGO Star Wars 2: the Original Trilogy later and that game blew everything out of the water that the first game had to offer. Now you could make your own Jedi/Sith and play through some of the best scenes in the trilogy. I could be any starship I wanted to blow up the Death Star and I could sneak into TIE fighter territory and snag cool secrets.
After the Star Wars games became huge successes, more properties fell into LEGO games like Indiana Jones, Batman, and Pirates of the Caribbean. I played some of them like Indiana Jones and Batman, and all of which I enjoyed. Of course there are some I like more than others, but all of the games were solid experiences. Every game is meant for kids to pick up and play without a lot of knowledge regarding controls, but keep older gamers coming back for the abundance of collectibles hidden in every level. My brother loved the first LEGO Batman so much that he went out and got a guide book and was able to 100% complete the game. He spent hours buying every villain and going to every hidden area to collect as many mini-kits as he could.
Not too long ago I played through both LEGO Harry Potter games on the PS3 and loved to plow through every level that I could finding all sorts of things I had never seen before and reliving memories of all eight movies. I got every character, explored Hogwarts like crazy and played through every level 400 times each to get any and every collectible that I could find.
Recently, I have not picked up many LEGO games due to the fact that many of them are repetitive or properties I do not have that much interest in. I love the LEGO movie, but I couldn’t care less about the game. The Incredibles are cool, but not $60 cool. The Jurassic Park franchise is great but not easily translated to games. There hasn’t been much to entice me into getting another one. Both Harry Potter games were ported to the Switch but it didn’t really look like they were remastered in any way. I have played through LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but it was far too short or intricate for me to really have any strong feeling to get more LEGO games after that.
If there was one game that could get me back on the LEGO train, it’s LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga that will be released next year. From what I can tell, this game will be different in formula from every other LEGO Star Wars game as it will have an open world hub that spans across the nine movies in the main saga. The original games are great but I think the developers know that the formula can become very repetitive. Also, the Complete Saga is on Steam, so the original formula is readily available to play. LEGO games really need to freshen up it’s game, and I think with the new direction that they are going with in one of the most adventurous franchises of all time, it could pay off.
