This week on The Issue, Courtney and I have a talk about her review of LEGO Dimensions.
The main thing we liked about LEGO Dimensions is that it encourages you to interact more with the physical toys while you’re playing. Games like Skylanders SuperChargers and Disney Infinity have you take toys off the NFC reader when the figures “die” in game, by running out of health. Or you would swap one figure out with another to switch the character you’re playing.
In SuperChargers, this takes on a new dimension because you’re adding props like vehicles.
But in LEGO Dimensions, you interact with the Toy Pad throughout the game. First, you need to build the Portal that takes your LEGO figures from our world to the virtual world. As you go through the game, you add pieces to the Portal. Courtney says it becomes a symbol of how far you’ve progressed.
At one point, she had to take pieces of the Portal and use it to assemble a robot friend. Interactions like this are awesome, and they remind us why we like LEGOs in the first place.
Moving the figures around the Toy Pad is also a huge component of the game. You can solve puzzles by moving characters to different spots on the Toy Pad.
On the other hand, if you’ve already invested in the Disney Infinity or Skylanders games, LEGO Dimensions might be too little, too late. At $99.99 it isn’t a cheap game by any means. Disney Infinity and Skylanders have spent the last few years releasing sequel upon sequel, but the games aren’t necessarily connected by plot. Each introduces new adventures for new characters.
Courtney says LEGO Dimensions will definitely have a sequel, but it remains to be seen what form that sequel will take. Releasing a $99 game every year doesn’t seem like a feasible business model. On the other hand, LEGO Dimensions could succeed by releasing continual Level Packs and expansions to its many, many Adventure Worlds.
Each Adventure World is based on a popular franchise, like Jurassic Park or Lord of the Rings, for example. Notably, there’s no Harry Potter world yet, even though WB Games does have that license! We could see Harry Potter coming to LEGO Dimensions sometime in the future.
Does LEGO Dimensions have enough going for it to make up for its late arrival, and high price tag? Let us know in the comments below.
