The Lego Movie 2 Videogame is available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC
Now, I didn’t intend on reviewing this game, it’s a Lego game and it’s not one of the big mainstream titles to have been released over the past 6 months, but after playing the first couple of ‘levels’ I felt I needed to say something.
The Lego Movie 2: The Video Game was developed by TT Fusion and published by Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment and is a tie-in game to the recently released The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part.
I’ve enjoyed almost every Lego game I’ve played, from Lego Star Wars to Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, but the first The Lego Movie game was the first I wasn’t too keen on. Whilst it had decent levels and a good hub world, i didn’t enjoy the movement of the characters or the fact that its cut-scenes were just clips from the movie inserted in, changing the game style completely, however, The Lego Movie 2 videogame is an all new level of bad.
The one good thing I’ll admit is the fact that it doesn’t just insert scenes from the film into the game, it does try to create its own narrative, but that is also its downfall. It seems this game can’t decide whether it wants to be a movie tie-in game of its own unique individual game and, unfortunately, it doesn’t do either.
The movement system in this game is the same as the system from the first Lego Movie game, which i expected, but it seems to have not been improved upon at all. It also takes the common ‘running’ mechanic from previous Lego games, where you slowly move until you’ve been moving long enough for the game to realise you want to be running. There’s no sprint button, and no way to move faster unless using a vehicle.
I also have an issue with the cast for this game and the decisions the developers made concerning voice acting. Whilst some cut-scenes use voices from the movie, others will only featuring grunts and sighs (much like the first Lego games – i.e. Star Wars) but then there will be moments when the characters talk to each other and some of the voice actors don’t even sound like the original movie actors. An example of this is Unikitty, the voice in the game sounds so different to Alison Brie in the movies, that it completely took me out of the experience.
One of the other mechanics in this game which has frustrated me is the fact that you now collect bricks from the items you break. This was first introduced in the Lego City Undercover game, and you would use these bricks to build certain objects that would help you progress through the levels. This is incredibly different to recent Lego games (Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 and Lego DC Super-villains) where you’d break an object and be able to rebuild it to the certain item the game has been built around you needing, therefore removing the issue of having to break almost everything in order to make sure you have the bricks you need. Whilst I recognise that having this mechanic in place is more suitable for the ‘master builder’ theme of the Movies, it feels a bit shoe-horned in and an unnecessary complication.
My final point is the fact that there seems to be no ‘official’ levels. At the moment, all I have played has been one continual level, moving through event to event with no aim of collecting all the studs or mini-kits, something that Lego games are known for, and for me, this takes away a lot of the fun. I don’t know when a level has finished and I have nothing to aim for during that level. Whilst this can be seen as a way to make the game more free-flowing and linear, i really think it detracts from what Lego games have been, collectathons.
I’ll try and push through with the game, and maybe it’ll pay off. But the differences between previous games and the movie itself may be too much. This game is a long-shot away from TT‘s previous Lego entries, Lego Incredibles and Lego DC Super-Villains, and I can only hope that their next project returns to the brilliantly crafted worlds they’re known for creating.
The Lego Movie 2: The Video Game – 2/5