The latest film with enough money and cinematic clout to own a small country is out and we all know what that means. It’s time for another adventure through the block filled world of Lego. It’s been a successful formula for the most part, although with a few missteps, to have familiar gameplay and objectives with the latest license wrapped around it. I’ve been playing and loving Lego games since the first Lego Star Wars.
On top of that the original Jurassic Park was a significant part of my cinematic education growing up. Giant prehistoric creatures and ground breaking CG are always a winning combination. Despite the fact the series got worse with every new release the original will always have it’s place in my memory as a childhood classic. So Lego Jurassic World seems like a winning combo.
Luckily for anyone that was a fan of the original films, LJW is as expansive as any other Lego title and covers every Jurassic Park film there is. When arriving at the island you can simply select which way to go; one way leads to the older films and the other to the new Jurassic World. Although it can be a bit of a pig at times to navigate your way through levels everything is on offer.
There’s something quite magical about driving the iconic red and grey 4 wheel drive through the first formidable gates of Jurassic Park. Soon you are confronted with the usual friendly Lego puzzles. In fact your very first challenge is a staple of the Lego games involving finding something to smash and then building something useful from the debris. Or more specifically smash everything that looks destructible so you can find which item you were supposed to smash, then build something from the debris. So on you go finding characters, both dinosaurs and people, and solving puzzles.
To anyone who hasn’t played a Lego game yet, and I can’t imagine there’s many left, there will be some fun solving the simple yet occasionally satisfying problems. For everyone else it’s the same old game again but with dinosaurs instead of whatever character set was in the latest Lego game you’ve played.
But the gameplay still has that classic Lego fun factor. It’s impossible to play LJW without having at least a little fun and probably a few laughs – even if you feel slightly guilty about finding something funny. It amazes me every time how Lego games can make me genuinely laugh. Controlling the dinosaurs isn’t quite as fun as hoped but without them running around as normal people with little in the way of abilities may have been dull. They look good and often work fine but can occasionally feel clunky and awkward, especially when rotating. Regardless I didn’t really enjoy playing as the dinosaurs and found it out of place to have a triceratops for a team member but that’s just me.
That being said there is an obvious move away from the block busting combat (huh, geddit?) that was so prominent in previous titles. There is a much higher focus on the simple puzzles and switching between the different characters to achieve your goals. It’s not like switching from Hulk to Iron Man to Spider Man but hunters can follow hidden trails, zoologists can dive head first into dung and so on. Abilities are noticeably more subtle but that really should be the case given that most of the cast of Jurassic Park are reasonably normal people.
Visually the familiar shiny plastic bricks, inexplicably malleable characters and realistic backgrounds are still present. The appearance of Lego is definitely improving as time goes on but there’s nothing much new to look at so there isn’t much to excite. For some reason there are really strange audio clips from the movie that sound unbelievably hideous. It’s like someone found an MP3 running at the lowest bit rate possible then converted it a bunch of times and shoved it between a Dolby Digital soundtrack. It stands out so much and it’s just awful. I’ve never said this before but even the very worst voice actor impersonating the live actors would have been better. It’s nice to have the clips but the quality really is terrible.
The problem with Lego is simple, it’s the same game every single time. There are always a few new features to get excited about but usually not for long. Essentially whichever game has your favourite license will be your favourite. And I like the Lego games. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them in the past and even enjoyed this one. But there comes a point when playing the same game has to start feeling stale. Until something changes in the gameplay or we see some new features I can’t help but feel I’m reviewing the same game each time.
Lego just refuses to improve and change. Even though the formula is strong and has created some really fun games it’s becoming old and boring. I had the same enthusiasm to get stuck in and begin another Lego game but it quickly faded after I’d done the same thing I’ve been doing for 10 years now. It’s the first time Lego’s charm, humour and clean fun have started to seem like they’re not enough to hold my interest. The Lego game formula is good but not invulnerable. Eventually it has to change and for me that time is long overdue.
