Home / Gaming / Action / Action Adventure / LEGO Series Browse LEGO Series Downloads LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 LEGO Indiana Jones 2 LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone WarsThis is the first LEGO title to hit the Vita based on the legendary Star Wars franchise, but those of you that have been gaming for a while will remember that Star Wars is the licensed franchise that started it all. A lot has changed since those early days, and many games of various quality – especially on the Vita – have been and gone, and so as we finally get a Star Wars title on the Vita, it’s with a huge sigh of relief that we also get the best Vita LEGO title yet. Unless you’ve been exiled on either Dagobah or some random, Irish faraway island that only R2-D2 and BB-8 know the location to then you’ve probably seen the latest installment of the Star Wars saga, The Force Awakens. Personally, I thought it was a great film and is my third favourite of the seven – The Empire Strikes Back and A New Hope are ahead for me.
The game’s plot mirrors that of the film rather closely and sees you playing out many of the stand out parts over the course of nine main chapters. I’m assuming that you’ll have seen the film by now but just in case I’ll avoid major spoilers. The gist of the story is about locating Luke Skywalker, who has done a runner when the galaxy needs him most. The dark forces from thirty years ago are resurfacing and it’s left to the heroes – old and new – to do their part whilst Luke chills, hidden safely away from the re-emergent Sith. The gameplay will be familiar to those that have sampled LEGO titles before; your missions will involve solving many puzzles and breaking/building LEGO parts to assist your progress, but this time TT Fusion have added a few new mechanics to enjoy. Firstly, you’ll now have a choice of multiple builds to construct in the puzzles. Another is a cover-based shooter scenario which appears a few times across the game and brings a welcome change of pace to the standard missions.
Typically, most of your gameplay will be from a third person viewpoint, with the camera available to pan around (when it wants to work). You’ll also get to play in many flight based missions, taking on X-Wing and Tie Fighter missions – and even flying the mighty Millennium Falcon. As you progress through each mission you’ll collect LEGO studs which serve as the game’s currency for unlocking characters and red bricks. As you might expect, there are many different characters to play as, all with many differing abilities. To fully complete the game you’ll have to play through it twice, once in the campaign and again in free play; a mode where you can use any of these characters. Exploring every nook and cranny and unlocking every single thing – including the five mission specific challenges – will take you longer than many of the recent LEGO titles and using the unique abilities can be fun, as is popping some of the more thoughtful trophies. The additions to the gameplay and the well thought out level design leads to a very enjoyable experience throughout the game – this is easily the most fun I’ve had with a LEGO game on the Vita.
Whilst I enjoyed LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, I was disappointed with its take on the two Avengers films with regards to the game’s length, so I was quite concerned that a game based from only one film could end up with even less content to play with. Thankfully, the team at TT Fusion have delivered here and you are presented with not only twenty-eight levels directly following the film’s narrative, but a whole host of extra missions and content to keep you playing afterwards. If you’ve played a licensed LEGO title before then you’ll know what to expect from the visuals, and the game does a fair job of replicating the Star Wars universe in its unique, colourful, and humorous way. This is all backed up with trademark tunes, chirps and effects – not to mention dialogue – in the audio department. When put together, this is a package which looks and feels worthy of the brand name. TT Fusion have certainly nailed the presentation. That’s not to say that everything is perfect though, and despite the high standard of presentation with the game, the camera can be a little annoying at times.
It’s also disappointing to note that after the aforementioned LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, which had an open world hub for the first time on handheld, a lack of a fully open world environment seems a step backwards. That said, in its place we have a few, smaller open world environments to set up each level – so it’s not completely bad. One constant nagging issue with these handheld ports has always been the lack of parity with the bigger console versions and once again we don’t have a complete 1:1 conversion, and once again we have some additional scenes which are (poorly) animated as opposed to the higher standard scenes lifted from the more complete version, but we are definitely getting closer in terms of content and quality. More attention, care, and effort is being applied to this series than before and that can only lead to good things. LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the most fun I’ve had with a LEGO title on the Vita, and it more than does justice to the film it is based on.
Tremendous fun, new mechanics, and with a fair bit to keep you playing for a little while – and at a more budget price, the force is definitely strong with this one.March 1st, 2017 | LEGO Super Heroes, Marvel Comics, News Latest (and probably last) Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 Trailer Is it May yet?February 28th, 2017 | LEGO Ideas Announces Next Set Women of NASA It’s Women of NASA by Maia Weinstock. Congratulations to you, Maia. Voltron is still being considered, which is very surprising to me, but I’m hoping against all odds it becomes a reality. Most of the others were too unrealistic in their scope to ever be considered. I mean seriously, they’ve stated what won’t make it and most of the models that were rejected are the exact definitions of what would be considered an auto-disqualification. The announcement covers the review period from May to September of 2016. via LEGO Ideas blogLEGO Super Heroes, Marvel Comics, Sales News Doctor Strange Retiring Soon, Last Day For Tears and Disco Batman
The Target-exclusive Doctor Strange set, 76060 Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, has been marked as “Retiring Soon” over at LEGO Shop@Home. It is currently on back order status, and I am assuming once their back order shipment sells out, that is it. You can also pick it up at Target stores if that floats your boat. The other two Super Hero exclusives, Walmart’s 76056 Batman: Rescue from Ra’s al Ghul and Toys’R’Us’ 76067 Tanker Truck Takedown are still available and have not yet been marked in the same manner. And remember, kids, you can still get the polybag promotional set of Tears of Batman and Disco Batman if you order today, February 28th 2017, before 11:59pm EST. You’ll need to order at $75 worth of merch to get it automatically added to your cart. You’ll also get free standard shipping. You can pick up the three Star Wars store exclusives easily and get free shipping and free Batman figs all in one go: 75173 Luke’s Landspeeder $19.99 75174 Desert Skiff Escape $29.99
75175 A-Wing Starfighter $39.99LEGO Super Heroes, Marvel Comics, Reviews Review: 76076 Captain America Jet Pursuit To say that I’m a fan of Ms. Marvel is a bit of an understatement. It might seem a bit strange to think that a teenage muslim girl that’s taking up the mantle of a character that was far too often known more for her costume than for all of the cool stories (seriously, Ms. Marvel / Captain Marvel was always a cool character, but since the name change, has just gotten more cool). Kamala Khan is just this wonderful mix of awkwardness, hitting her from all sides: her Muslim heritage and family contrasting with the fact that she is thoroughly American, her deep nerdiness contrasting with wanting to fit in, the whole Peter Parker-esque teenage struggles, and trying to be a new super hero dealing with standing shoulder to shoulder with her idols. Her series took some of the things that Marvel has always excelled at in its comics… first done by the mix of Peter Parker and later by the real human struggles of people like Tony Stark.
She got hit with the Terrigen Cloud (she’s an Inhuman) after sneaking out to go to a party, only to be made fun of by the cool kids. She didn’t know how to control her powers (she’s a polymorph, meaning she can bend around, increase size, and heals a lot… she can even assume other forms, like when she appeared as the original Ms. Marvel in her classic costume). A few issues later, she’s searching for her bad guy in the sewers, and comes across Wolverine for a team up, and she nerds out in a way that I think we can all relate to, because we’d all do the exact same thing in her shoes. This isn’t really a review of her comics, it’s just that reviewing 76076 Captain America Jet Pursuit means that I’m going to have to focus on a set that can only be described using words like “mediocre” and “disappointing” and “wrong.” Starting at the very premise of the set… Captain America flying a jet. The Captain has been many things in his long life, but pilot is not among them.
Sure, he was sitting at the controls of plane thing in First Avenger, but his role in that was to crash it (the vehicles were mostly auto-pilot). He was an Army captain, for crying out loud. The villain is probably someone most people have never heard of; I actually had heard the name, but he looks nothing at all like what you get here. In short, this $19.99, 160 piece set is all about Kamala… and I seriously hope my first impressions are wrong.February 19th, 2017 | LEGO Star Wars, Sales News March Sets Now Available Through LEGO Shop@Home LEGO Shop@Home and Brand Retail stores are now carrying most if not all of the March assortment. I listed Star Wars, Marvel Super Heroes and Brickheadz. The Brickheadz are also available but limited to VIP members. Once you sign into your account you should be able to add to your bag. I didn’t list any Speed Champions because I wasn’t sure if they were new for March 1 or if they were available since January 1. And remember, if you order by February 28th, you can still get the promotional Disco Batman and Tears of Batman two-figure promotional polybag set as ANY LEGO purchase over $75 qualifies;
it’s not tied to just The LEGO Batman Movie sets. 75160 U-Wing Microfighter $9.99 75161 TIE Striker Microfighter $9.99 75162 Y-Wing Microfighter $9.99 75163 Krennic’s Imperial Shuttle Microfighter $9.99 75164 Rebel Trooper Battle Pack $14.99 75165 Imperial Trooper Battle Pack $14.99 75168 Yoda’s Jedi Starfighter $24.99 75169 Duel on Naboo $24.99 75170 The Phantom $29.99 75171 Battle on Scarif $49.99 75172 Y-Wing Starfighter $59.99 75523 Scarif Stormtrooper $24.99 75524 Chirrut Îmwe $24.99 75525 Baze Malbus $24.99 76076 Captain America Jet Pursuit $19.99 76078 Hulk vs. Red Hulk $59.99 76079 Ravager Attack $19.99 76080 Ayesha’s Revenge $29.99 76081 The Milano vs. The Abilisk $49.99 41588 The Joker $9.99 41590 Iron Man $9.99 41591 Black Widow $9.99 41592 The Hulk $9.99 Toy Fair 2017 Final Thoughts Now that this year’s Toy Fair is done and some time has passed, I thought I’d give a brief impression of my thoughts for what LEGO has to offer the rest of the year.
February 18th, 2017 | LEGO Marvel Super Heroes Videos These are the last couple of videos and they are for Marvel Super Heroes. Ms. Marvel is the one thing I am most excited for out of this theme and, like Nick, will buy at least two copies to make a regular version and arms extendo version. I have a whole video for just her, seen above, but you should see the neat GOTG sets too, seen below, and a bonus video showcasing the new minifigure firing mechanism.LEGO Star Wars, NewsLEGO Star Wars Sets Videos Here are a few more videos. To be honest the Star Wars line feels a little lacking. It could be because there are four current properties to draw from as well as the Original and Prequel Trilogies as well. That and the focus seems to be promoting the hell out of The LEGO Batman Movie and The LEGO Ninjago Movie. Ah well, at least I got my Quadjumper! Above is 75172 Y Wing Starfighter, the rest of the Star Wars sets are below the fold.News, The LEGO Batman MovieVideos of the LEGO Movie Batman sets in Action
These videos wrap up the coverage of LEGO stuff coming out of New York Toy Fair 2017, but wow, looking at the play features for 70917 The Ultimate Batmobile, and this set went from pretty awesome to shut up and take my money for me. That little moment where Robin just pops into the back, behind Batman? That’s a stroke of genius right there. Above is the 70917 The Ultimate Batmobile set, and you can check out the rest of the videos after the click. All of these sets will be available starting June 1, 2017. [Toy Fair 2017] 75167 Bounty Hunter Speeder Bike Battle Pack Sorry about the blurriness on this one… I missed it before the event was done, and didn’t have a chance to get a message back to Ace. It’s obviously an early prototype (odd for a set that comes out in June), but there’s an important thing to note here. We are finally getting a 4LOM figure, which means that after 18 years, it’s now official that Zuckuss is the bounty hunter that LEGO hates the most.