Ahhhhh Lego games, I do love thy. Over the past few years childhood has been rekindled through when playing Lego games, like a flashback to the earlier years of playing Lego Racers. (Which was amazing!) But it seems these days that if you make a film and its vaguely popular, family friendly fun it’ll be a Lego game in the coming months. So I approached The Hobbit game with much trepidation, enjoying the film but not knowing how they’ll pass it over, what followed surprised me.
As you can tell by the title of the game LEGO: The Hobbit is based around the first Hobbit film (of which there are three) and the second as well (Desolation of Smaug). As with all Lego games it makes use of the excellent humour of the developers and Lego: The Hobbit is no different with humour following throughout gameplay and cut scenes. I can’t say it’s the best ever for humour but it certainly some of the better attempts!
All the regular features return in this latest instalment with mini-kits, red and white bricks as well as letter collectables, to build a greater bigger object, and the possibility to collect as many studs as possible for the master burglar’s status. All pretty simple stuff to you Lego fans! In terms of the missions, the developers make good use of the wide variety of characters with different abilities from lighting up dark areas with his staff (Guess who that is) too being able to pull heavy objects down to advance.
All this comes together nicely as you play through you’re gently reminded of the story within the films. Cut scenes are filled with the Audio of the film rather than individual casting which is clearly obvious but it works rather than just playing it over the top, almost fluid. The characters create a funny atmosphere as always which follows a particular yet warmly welcomed style that Lego fans will be used to!
Fans of the series can look forward to plenty to do, the game sets out its campaign quite well considering it’s got to condense almost 6 hours of film into one game, which when you look at it is a real achievement. Sometimes it can feel a little disjointed but the game seems to flow well, picking up key areas where necessary, as well as integrating a free player role where you can collect studs (Basically money for those who haven’t played a Lego game before) from an expansive world (For Lego games).
Add to this the unlockable items of 92 characters and the replay ability through collecting the goodies within the levels give the player a chance to go back and experience the game again and again. Alongside the main mission line of the two films you also non related small missions to do, relatively simple on the face of it. From collecting to building just generally gives you the chance to earn more studs whilst doing something different from smashing things to pieces.
It won’t be any surprise that the system mechanics work well and are the same as ever! Lego: The Hobbit also makes use of some nifty challenges in game to make it less repetitive, one of those is attempts to build your own objects needed to advance. So you will have to collect the resources before being able to actually create the object.
The overall feeling is that a lot of effort has gone into The Hobbit Lego series that this is sometimes forced upon you, the cut scenes do a job of tying the game together but some of the elements don’t truly mix, but those gamers with a sense of adventure and curiosity will enjoy the additional features added which gives this a game a fresh take of majority of the others within a franchise which produces LEGO games like they’re going out of fashion. I’ll leave you to decide whether that’s good or bad!
Some of the characters are abit of a let-down, as people will know from watching the films each of the dwarfs involved has a reality distinctive personality and role within the group, but only a select few are utilised. The rest are involved in some the subtle slapstick humour that we’ve come to know and love, but you can get this sense of overall wonder at why they were really put their apart from to be accurate to the film, an opportunity wasted for me.
Graphically you can see a real step forward with certain aspects including action scenes benefiting the most from the improved graphics, and this is probably the best looking game that Lego have produced, but that’s to be expected next gen consoles and all that. It adds to an experience which is overall great fun.
And at the end of the day that is what the Lego games are all about, fun. Whether that be the gameplay, hilarious characters or just the thrill of the adventure within the game, living the story in a unique way that only the Lego developers and TT games can seem to capture. Fans of the Lego franchise will have already bought the game and to those that are doubting its credentials, I was one of you, but I’m not now, Lego The hobbit provided hours of entertainment and a challenge not too far away to complete and not too close to be boring.
