I have a confession to make. I don't care about Jurassic Park. Dinosaurs just don't do it for me, and while I recognize Spielberg's original as a modern classic, none of the massive box office haul for the latest installment, Jurassic World, came from my wallet. But Lego Jurassic World ($59.99) isn't for me. It's for kids looking to act out their destructive dinosaur dreams in a family-friendly video game on everything from their Nintendo 3DS to the Xbox One, the console I used for testing. On that level the game succeeds, even if it relies too much on the repetitive Lego game formula. LEGO City Undercover (Nintendo Wii U) Lego Dimensions (for PlayStation 4) Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham (for PC) LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (PC) Lego Jurassic Park for Xbox One spans all four films in the series. Initially, you can only choose between the first Jurassic Park and the recent Jurassic World, but after completing the first movie you'll also get to play through The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III.
Like other modern Lego games, Lego Jurassic Park combines actual dialogue from the films with scenes reconstructed in bricks and infused with extra physical comedy. If you want to see/hear a Lego Jeff Goldblum laugh/snarl like a cat, this game has your back. But even this new blocky makeover can't cover up the difference in quality between the movies. Jurassic Park III's talking dinosaur daydream is dumb in any art style. No matter which film you decide to play through, Lego Jurassic World offers plenty of co-operative environmental puzzles to solve across the 20 levels. Play with a friend or a computer-controlled helper and take advantage of each character's special moves to progress. Most puzzles involve an obstacle only one player can pass before opening up the path for the other player. Some characters have stealth cloaks for sneaking by dinosaurs, some can track trails like in Lego City Undercover, some carry guns and stun batons, and some have no problem diving into dinosaur dung to dig up the bricks needed to build a new vital object.
Solutions tend to be pretty straightforward; you just need to mind your surroundings. The variety of abilities keeps the relatively short campaign somewhat feeling fresh, even though many skills repeat across characters. View All 6 Photos in Gallery When it comes to the dinosaurs themselves, Lego Jurassic World doesn't disappoint. Many levels have you briefly playing as these fearsome thunder lizards. Raptors can trace smells and grab onto bars with their teeth. Larger beasts like the stegosaurus can smash through rocks and devastate enemy camps, and the new Indominus Rex delivers brutal smackdowns on rivals in quick time event battles much like God of War. Lego is all about building, and dinosaur destruction provides plenty of reasons to rebuild. Ignoring Chris Pratt's warnings against genetic experimentation, you can also whip up your own dinosaurs using amber fragments you collect throughout the game. I made a Christmas-colored T-Rex with triceratops horns and pixelated scales.
But these custom creatures are only for gawking at, and the lab where you create them is inexplicably difficult to find in the Jurassic World level hub. One of the secret weapons of the Lego game franchise is that it's much easier to forgive stiff animations and low-poly graphics if the world itself is made out of toy blocks. That said, Lego Jurassic World features some visually impressive moments. It's still weird that only parts of the environments are made of Lego while the rest are just generic landscapes. Out of all the Lego games, only The Lego Movie Videogame, with its entire world made of blocks, diverges from this. But that aesthetic choice does make key items stand out and leads to wonderfully surreal moments like Lego flowers blossoming out of otherwise ordinary dirt. Lego Jurassic World also features lots of exciting, interactive, cinematic set pieces that capture the feeling of the films. Chases are thrilling, stealth sequences are tense, explosions are numerous, and dinosaur brawls are as epic as toys can be.
Highlights include climbing up the dangling jeep in the rain, a Jurassic Park scene, and surviving an onslaught of pteranodons as they descend on the theme park in Jurassic World. I experienced some occasionally game-breaking visual glitches, like missing geometry and characters falling through the world, but overall I was surprised by how pleasing the presentation was. The numerous instances of the Jurassic Park theme song add to the majesty. Unfortunately, not much else about Lego Jurassic World was surprising. I've only played a handful of Lego games over the years and even I found the gameplay instantly, overly familiar. The Jurassic Park-specific elements are cool and well-done, but they're mostly just a spice sprinkled on the same kinds of simple puzzles, floaty platforming, and tedious, inconsequential combat TT Games has been cranking out for a decade. If I were a parent I would buy Lego games for my kids. I wouldn't buy them every Lego game, because even children would eventually get sick of the games' repetition, but I would buy them the Lego games that adapt the franchises they enjoy.
That's what I appreciate about this series. They're good licensed children's games, a minor miracle in this age of low-quality marketing cash grabs. So if a Jurassic Park movie has left you and/or your child hungry for more dinosaur action, Lego Jurassic World is the just the ticket. (click linked text below to jump to related section of the review) The Video: Sizing Up the Picture The Audio: Rating the Sound Digital PS4 version reviewed. The 'LEGO Harry Potter Collection' bundles two previously released video games, namely 'Harry Potter: Years 1-4' (2010) and 'Harry Potter: Years 5-7' (2011) that were released on all major platforms of the time (a promised PlayStation 2 port was canned, however). The re-release for the PS4 promises updated graphics and other minor alterations. So in 2016, will a first time player find the games to be excellent wizarding wonders, or mere muggle musings? The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take First things first: this is yet another LEGO game.
Gameplay-wise, they are terribly similar. If you hated the previous entries in the franchise with the passion of a fiery fantastic beast whose whereabouts are familiar to you, please don't expect this game to be different. This is strictly for LEGO game fans, and die-hard Potterheads who want every piece of merchandise for their collection. Yours truly thoroughly enjoyed 'The LEGO Movie Videogame', 'LEGO City Stories Undercover' and 'Lego Jurassic World', but I haven't played any of the other titles in the long-running series. At the time of writing, I am not yet fed up with them. In fact, I would give an arm and a leg for a full 'LEGO Back to the Future' or 'LEGO The Goonies' game. Yes, I know both franchises have been released or announced for 'LEGO Dimensions', but I have not yet acquired that wallet-crippling game. Directly comparing 'LEGO Harry Potter Collection' to any other TT LEGO game reveals no huge surprises or groundbreaking innovations. The standard LEGO videogame rules and tropes apply: collect studs for extra collectibles, destroy the scenery, rebuild the scenery, interact with and switch between other characters, play co-op with a significant other or a friend, unlock a whole lot of goodies, replay levels for added interactivity, laugh at the visual jokes or cringe at the sometimes questionable attempt at comedy, etc.
It's more of the same. At the start-up of this remastered PS4 collection, a splash screen appears giving me the choice between 'LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4' and 'LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7'. Apparent, obviously true by simple observation, and evident. Or so I thought. Turns out 'Years 5-7' is locked until I have played a few 'Years 1-4' levels. Hm. Color me confused. If this is supposed to offer me both games in one handy collection, how and why is it I can't select the second game from the get-go? Say I had bought both games separately, I would have had said choice. What if I'm a Harry Potter fan that only likes years 5-7, and I have no intention of ever playing years 1-4? Weird, TT Games, very weird. After clearing just 5% of 'Years 1-4', 'Years 5-7' did become available for play. What's going on here? The games offer a slew of random funny moments that beg to be discovered. Fluffy, the dog with three heads, can be distracted by a huge inflatable rubber duck that one can use while bathing.
Subsequently, a harp plays 'Rock-A-Bye Baby' and Fluffy dozes off. A meta-example of humor sees characters walking around with LEGO keychains, which means LEGO characters are aware of their minifigure status and collectability. Think about that for a second. An unrelated occurrence that delighted me, was the appearance of a LEGO wheelchair. Quite surprising, because LEGO (the brand) has only just released its first disabled character in set 60134 earlier this year. TT Games were effectively ahead of their time. There are loads of spells, characters, and alternative costumes to unlock. True to LEGO game form, there is not enough time in a day to truly finish the game. Be prepared to spend upwards of 100+ hours to see everything, turn every brick, catch every stud and fly every broom. At times, solving a minor puzzle rewards you with a small cut scene. Reviving hearts and studs will appear, but these can disappear by the time the short cut scene comes to an end. There's a pumpkin that can be used as a bouncing ball with the most excruciating sound, and when jumped off, said sound gets looped infinitely (or, until pressing pause and returning to the game).
Small design niggles, though, and not nearly enough to put the game down. Having never played the 2010/2011 versions of the games, I can't tell you the differences in this revamp. I did some research, and apparently, there's no added value. In fact, some old glitches were never repaired, and new ones were added. I never encountered game-breaking bugs, luckily. The 'LEGO Harry Potter Collection' is funny, well-made, innocent and rewarding. It's about time TT Games shook up its formula and delivered a true gamechanger of a game, but it'll do for now. Solid fun for those who missed the games the first time around. Just like all LEGO games, the graphics and visual effects in 'LEGO Harry Potter Collection' are pixel-perfect plastic renderings. Which means the game constantly reminds you you're playing with virtual LEGO bricks, without the associated injuries (I can't wait for the inevitable LEGO virtual reality game where the pain of stepping on a brick will be recreated in perfect foot-lambasting pain).
This isn't a game that embraces the raw processing power of the PlayStation 4. It's never presented as a demo game to showcase the system, and it was never intended to be one. I'm betting the PS3 can pull this one off in its stand-by modus. In 'LEGO Jurassic World', the voices were ripped straight from the movies, and it made the whole experience extra awesome. In 'LEGO Harry Potter Collection', however, characters speak in grunts, shouts and whispers. Simlish, but not quite. I know this is true to the original games, but ever since 'Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes', LEGO games have featured full voice acting. Is it too much to ask a remastered collection to address this? As it stands, the specifics of this mute 'LEGO Harry Potter Collection' are unclear, but it soon grows tiresome. Sound effects are spot-on, though, and the orchestral soundtrack is just as epic as the movie counterpart, if a tad repetitive. Better buy a razor, because you will have a beard that can rival Dumbledore's by the time you have finally attained a perfect 100% rating.