Lego Dimensions is a toys-to-life type of video game developed by Traveller’s Tales and published by Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment. Toys-to-life are a type of video game where you get real world toys/action figures that have NFC tags inside. The toys can be placed onto a USB pad and then those characters will appear in the video game virtual world. Skylanders or Disney Infinity are others in this genre. Lego Dimensions is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii U. The Lego characters are able to be used on any system, the PlayStation and WII portal can be used on either system but Xbox is proprietary and doesn’t transfer between systems. Of course the game needs to match the system also.
Lego Dimensions shares many similarities of game play to the previous Lego games that you might have played. You travel through various Movie and TV worlds – destroying items to collect coins, attacking bad guys and building items to solve puzzles. Sometimes you need a unique character to solve a puzzle or get into a specific section. What sets Lego Dimensions apart is you actually have physical Lego characters and devices that match the ones on the screen in front of you – hence toys-to-life. Your Lego characters swap in and out of the game world when you place them on the USB pad. There are lots of specific character abilities things like Dive, Flying, or Portal Gun and if you don’t have the character that will unlock it, you won’t be able to do that part of the game, usually a very small thing like a bonus item.
For example Gandalf from Lord of the Rings series has a magic ability which is shown in game as blue sparkles. Activating this ability will allow you to pass a certain puzzles that require that Blue Magic ability. Batman on the other hand has an orange plug Grapple ability where he throws his bat boomerang. Wyldstyle has the Masterbuilder category which shows up as pink circles. Once activated you actually need to physically move Wyldstyle on the USB pad to the center, right and left sides when they light up. It’s a good time to note several sequences in the game will require you to move the characters like this on the game portal. It is not a set it up on the other side of the room and forget about it type of game. The starter pack also includes the Batmobile vehicle which is a quick little Lego build – and then it can be used in game like the characters.
The Lego Dimensions starter pack is required to access the Lego Dimensions World. I will be going over the Xbox One version in this review. The start pack contains an Xbox game disk, 3 bags of lego and a platform, It will include the characters – Starter Batman, Gandalf from Lord of the Rings and WildStyle from the Lego Movie. The games main story campaign included is 14 levels long. The game required a 27 GB download to start, which is pretty common with Xbox games these days, but always worthwhile to note it may take a but to download before you can jump into playing. Then you start the game up followed by some cool into movie sequences. The story shows us our main 3 characters heroes and many of their friends in their worlds – Batman Universe, Middle Earth and Lego Movie Land – as well as an introduction to an interesting looking new villain.
Building the Lego Set
One of the coolest parts of the Lego Dimension series is the fact you get to actually BUILD a full Lego scene that attaches to the toy pad. The bags of Lego are marked so you know what is what. At a certain point in the story you will be shown the building guide on screen. One also comes as a paper book in the box. I have never personally built a Lego set piece by piece before and wasn’t sure how difficult this would be, but I have to say it is pretty straight forward and amazingly fun. It even included stickers to add extra pop to the creation.
I’ve visited The Wizard of Oz and The Simpsons in the first 2 level. It’s actually pretty awesome to be mixing all of my favorite characters in various shows and playing with them as one. The starter pack is a great value even if you don’t plan on purchasing anything else.Lego games are notoriously great for people who are new to video games or don’t generally play them. It’s basic puzzle solving with funny, and interesting familiar story lines. The whole point of a Lego game is to progress through the levels following along the story and collect coins and special items/gold bricks/mini kits. This story will generally match the movie franchise so you are basically living the movie.
Adventure worlds open up a free exploring world from the franchise of each character you have. For example Gandalf will give you access to Lord of the Rings world. Any of the characters you own can be used in any adventure world. The adventure world is a free-roam area that has more small quests, races and collection of coins – all in the theme of the franchise you are exploring.
Battle Arenas offer competitive game play for up to four local players. There are four unique gameplay modes: Capture the Flag, Objective, Base Bash, and Tick, Tag, Boom! and many different battle arenas you can play in. Adventure Time, Harry Potter, Sonic the Hedgehog, The A-team, Ghostbusters, Mission:Impossible, Fantastic Beasts, Gremlins and ET all currently have Battle Arenas.
Capture the Flag Capture – the opposing team’s flag to earn points. Bring opposing team’s flags back to base and score a bonus. Don’t forget to protect your own base and flag.
Base Bash – Bash the weapon into your enemy’s base to knock them out of the game.
Objective – Complete mission objectives to earn points.
Tick, Tag, Boom – Tag the bomb to your opponents and don’t be riding it when it explodes.
Adventure Worlds and Battle Arenas add more fun multi or single player expereinces to an existing game. I really enjoyed playing these modes with friends or against the computer teams. Make sure you check them out.
Additional World, Characters and Stories to Explore
You can also purchase additional level packs and side missions as well as characters and vehicles or weapons. The vehicles and weapons can be upgraded and allow you to access some of those additional puzzle colored abilities that the original characters may not be able to access. You can swap these characters and vehicles in and out of any level and any world. It makes for some interesting fun combinations.
There are currently over 20 different properties consisting of characters from The A-Team, Adventure Time, Back to the Future, DC Comics, Doctor Who, Ghostbusters the original, Ghostbuster 2016, Gremlins, Harry Potter, Jurassic World, Lord of the Rings, Midway Arcade, Mission: Impossible, Portal 2, Scooby-Doo, The Simpsons, Sonic the Hedgehog, Wizard of Oz, and Fantastic Beasts. Powerpuff Girls, Knight Rider, Beetlejuice, Goonies, Teen Titans Go have sets that will be coming shortly. As you can see that’s a lot of different universes coming together as one. Some of these properties are definitely targeting an older audience so this game is defiantly not just for kids. This certainly is a great game for adults to sit down with their kids or two adult players to sit down on their couch and have fun playing a fun game for a few hours.
There are Four types of Packs you can purchase in the Lego Dimensions Franchise. Story Pack, Team Pack, Level Pack, and Fun Pack.
Story packs
A story pack includes 6 additional levels you can add into your game playing experience. Usually an “entire movie”. They also will include one or two characters, a vehicle or gadget, and a new Lego toy that you build on the toy pad. These are the most expensive as they are basically an entire new game – or equivalent to a new Lego Dimensions game. Some examples of Story packs are Ghostbusters, Fantastic Beats and Where to Find them, and Lego Batman Movie.
Level packs
Level packs include a character and two gadgets or vehicles as well as a unique level that matches the universe. The level pack is a single level that is based around the character and vehicle/gadgets you get in the pack. There will be more gold bricks and minikits in the Level pack. Some examples of level packs are Mission: Impossible, Portal 2, The Simpsons and Conic the Hedgehog.
Fun Packs and Team Packs
Fun packs contain one character and one gadget or vehicle. Some Examples of Fun Packs are Gollum, Wicked Witch, or Unikitty. Team packs are similar to Fun Packs but they contain two characters and two vehicles or gadgets. Some Examples of Team Packs are Jurassic World, Scooby-Doo or Harry Potter.
New worlds and characters are always being added and lots of fun episodes will be in store for many future presents can be given for anyone who has this set at home.
Lego Dimensions is a Collectables Game
After you purchase the initial starter pack, as you play through the levels it quickly becomes apparent that in order to access many of the hidden minikit areas or extra side areas, you will need to purchase additional Lego packs. In fact playing through the entire starter pack with just the 3 included characters and 1 vehicle will only unlock 5.76% completion of the game. Don’t let that number fool you though, There are countless hours of game play in just the base game alone You will 100% be able to complete the story but you wont be able to fully get 100% on the collectibles like Red Bricks, Minikits, Gold Bricks. In previous versions of Lego games, you played through the entire game once – collecting a lot of coins and accessed as many areas as you could. You were then able to purchase additional characters to play with the in game coins collected. Those character were then on a second play through able to go through many of the previously locked abilities areas. That options is not a part of Lego Dimensions. What they offer is the ability to rent a character at the location of one of the unique abilities. The price for this goes up quickly, and each time that ability character needs to be rented the price goes up. The best way if you want an ability you will need to purchase the character and pack that includes it. Although it is clear why Lego did this, I want to stress than 100% completion is NOT recording to have a really awesome fun game time. So try to focus on having fun and enjoying the mix of characters and abilities while exploring worlds you love.
If you happen to fall into the 100% completion camp though…I did some investigating for you….
Lego Dimensions Tracker
Shown in the screenshot above, This Reddit thread list the absolute BEST Lego Dimensions tracker out there. Make sure you follow the initial instructions carefully as you will need to do a few steps to get the scripts to run properly on the spreed sheet. You can input the packs you currently have or want to get and see how close you can get to 100% completion. It will also tell you which achievements you can unlock with the characters and packs you have. Lego dimensions is definitely an ongoing game for a collector, as well as video game fan, as it will take many different sets and characters to unlock the game to 100% completion. This tracker also includes a very handy tool to get the price of sets at amazon or local stores in USA, Canada, UK and more. This tracker is really helpful in narrowing down which sets you should purchase to help achieve that goal. On the “Content Tracker” tab it will even give you personal suggestions to which pack you should be purchasing next to get the most bang for your buck. If you haven’t already done so I recommend having a look at it.
The entire series purchased at full price will cost you over $1000 but that would give you access to over 42 main game levels, 29 adventure worlds and 53 packs of characters. Of course, as mentioned if you don’t care about 100% completion then focus on purchasing packs that you enjoy the characters from and will like and enjoy playing with.
Final Thoughts On Lego Dimension Review
Lego Dimensions is a seriously fun franchise deal that is great for kids, but certainly not just for kids. The possibilities are endless for expansion so focus on the characters and games that you enjoy playing with. The starter game is a fun experience just on it’s own without purchasing any additional sets or packages – but if you like the game putting the next set you like on a wish list will allow you to have all your future Christmas and birthday presents already picked out.
I was provided a copy of this game and the various sets shown to review. Thoughts as always are totally my own.
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