Flawlessly embodies the spirit of The Hobbit films Massive open world to explore So much to see and do Only covers content from the first two movies Overwhelming amount of characters and skills Crafting can be frustrating How long has it been since we last played with our digital building blocks? Three games based off the popular Lego playsets in six months is a multicolored plastic brick overload, especially since each game in the series feels all too similar to the last. And yet, it’s amazing what a simple change of scenery can do to make something feel brand new again, as Lego The Hobbit is just as fun and full of charm as we’ve come to expect from Warner Bros' long-running series.If you’ve played any of the previous Lego video games, you’ll recognize the formula instantly. Over the course of the six-to-eight-hour-long narrative, you’ll run through 16 missions that follow the plot of the two Hobbit films. Taking control of the plucky hobbit Bilbo and a band of dwarves, you’ll demolish scores of Lego objects and rebuild them out of the debris, switch characters to solve puzzles, and find tons of hidden secrets along the way.
It’s actually pretty impressive how closely Lego The Hobbit follows its source material, even if most of the nuanced character development is lost in the Lego franchise's signature tongue-in-cheek fashion.In fact, Lego The Hobbit is one of the most narratively complete licensed games TT Games has made. If, that is, you don’t take into account the ending. Because the third film in The Hobbit series hasn’t been released yet, Lego The Hobbit only covers those first two films, leaving players who finish the game with a highly unsatisfying cliffhanger. Future DLC will rectify that by adding the final film’s events to the game, but it’s still disappointing to reach what is essentially the 2/3rds mark in this story and have it just cut to credits.Other than a new crafting mechanic and a small handful of new abilities, Lego The Hobbit is almost identical to previous entries in the series. That’s not to say that the game doesn’t offer a ton of stuff to do. In between story missions, you’ll explore the massive world of Middle-earth, with your travels taking you from the humble village of Hobbiton, through the elven mountain town Rivendell, into the murky forests of Dol Guldur and beyond.
There are countless sidequests peppered throughout your voyage, and the various citizens of Middle-earth have requests that reward you with Mithril bricks for crafting or those elusive cheat-enabling red bricks. These quests range from interesting (solving riddles and platforming challenges) to dull (fetch quests or escort missions), but there’s a decent enough mix of the two to keep things from getting boring. Even after completing the main story, I was only 30 percent finished with all that Lego The Hobbit has to offer.That being said, there might even be a little too much going on. Bilbo didn’t go on this adventure alone--along with Gandalf, there are 13 dwarves that make up the company that sets off in search of the Arkenstone. During your adventure, you’ll be switching between over a dozen different characters, each with unique abilities--and all of these are required at certain points in the game to progress. I found myself frequently wondering who had the flail so I could cross a gap, or who had the shovel so I could dig up some soil;
with so many characters available, this becomes overwhelming. And though Lego The Hobbit does list who does what on the character select screen, it can be difficult to parse at a quick glance due to the sheer amount of information.The crafting system piles on top of the massive amount of characters and abilities as well. While interesting, it can also be very frustrating to deal with at times. As you break every single Lego-built object that isn’t nailed down, you’ll often find bits of wood, rope, gems, bread, or other items along with the typical Lego stud currency. Collecting these is important, as you’ll often stumble upon quests or roadblocks that require a specific number of crafting materials to progress. It’s fun when you finally get enough pieces to craft some really interesting weapons, tools, and Middle-earth-themed structures, but unless you’re breaking everything in sight on a constant basis, you’ll likely be just shy of the items needed to continue.Despite its faults, there’s a reason that these Lego games are still fun despite so frequently getting new entries.
And even though the narrative here only covers the first two films, make no mistake--Lego The Hobbit is jam-packed with as many secrets, as much content, and as much plastic bricky-goodness as you would expect.It may be incomplete, narratively speaking, but Lego The Hobbit is just as content-packed as any other game in the series, and is a great experience for Lego and Middle-earth diehards alike.This game was reviewed on PS4.PlayStation 4 Just Outsold Xbox One for the Fourth Month in a RowSony's PlayStation 4 has once more tipped the scales -- by how much we're not certain, since we don't have official figures -- to assume the number one sales spot in the U.S., says retail tracker NPD. This makes April the PS4's fourth dominant month in a row.The Xbox One placed second, with 115,000 units sold, according to Microsoft, which notes the One has outsold the original Xbox 360 by 76 percent for both of those systems' first six months in market.Indeed, NPD says that to date, sales of PS4 and Xbox One hardware are more than double the sum total of PS3 and Xbox 360 hardware sales in their respective first six months.
That, for all the misleading doomsaying about Microsoft's less-well-selling new console, is at least a preliminary indication of a far more robust appetite for next-gen set-tops than anyone expected, and positive news for gaming from a purely economic standpoint. And while I don't read as much into year-on-year increases (or decreases), it's worth noting that April 2014's spending on hardware, new physical software (doesn't include digital) and accessories was up by 17 percent over April 2013's. All in all, a good month for the games industry viewed monolithically.Here's NPD's list of bestselling physical software, with the caveat that SKUs are combined for multi-platform games, and it doesn't include digital sales.1. Titanfall (360, Xbox One, PC)2. Call of Duty: Ghosts (360, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Wii U, PC)3. NBA 2K14 (360, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, PC)4. LEGO The Hobbit (360, PS3, Xbox One, PS4, 3DS, Wii U, PS Vita)6. The LEGO Movie Videogame (360, 3DS, PS3, Wii U, Xbox One, PS4, PS Vita)7. LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (360, PS3, DS, 3DS, PS4, Wii U, Xbox One, PS Vita, PC)8.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (PS4, 360, PS3, Wii U, 3DS)9. Grand Theft Auto V (360, PS3)10. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (360, PS4, PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, PC)NPD adds that Yoshi's New Island (3DS), Infamous: Second Son (PS4), MLB 14: The Show (PS3), Kinect Sports Rivals (Xbox One) and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfares (360) rank in the top 10 if you list software without SKU combinations.While the Wii U doesn't seem to be registering here, NPD says its software sales were up year-on-year by over 80 percent. And while Microsoft's selling fewer Xbox Ones than Sony is PS4s, it's still leading in software sales across the Xbox platform, according to Microsoft, selling 2.6 million units (I assume that's across physical and digital, but Microsoft doesn't specify). Of that, the Xbox One accounted for 447,000 and the Xbox 360 2.2 million, "totaling 53 percent of the total software market share," again, according to Microsoft. Microsoft adds that the Xbox 360 is still the dominant seventh-gen console, selling 71,000 units in April.Let's shift gears and consider a few contextual points.
As noted last month, the numbers don't mean precisely what they seem to (though sales numbers rarely do). But the picture this month is a trifle clearer than last. Gamasutra reminds us, for instance, that on Microsoft's recent earnings call, CFO Amy Hood admitted Xbox One console supply was outpacing consumer demand. And here's Gamasutra's take: "This is a situation that did not appear to exist during the early days of the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, which reputedly saw slower, supply-constrained beginnings."That said, it remains a truism, however bored some are of hearing it at this point, that Sony's PlayStation 4 is available in far more countries than Microsoft's Xbox One (72 versus 13 at last count). That's not an attempt to excuse the unit sales disparity, which is substantial and important in its own right, but it is an attempt to factor in the broader reality. Yes, potential buyer demographics veer and lurch wildly from country to country for more or less obvious reasons (population differences chief among them), and it's certainly not the case that all the countries Microsoft isn't in automatically account for all of that 2 million (or more) sales gulf.
But it's also baldfaced nonsense to suggest Sony and Microsoft are competing on precisely equal terms. I doubt anyone disagrees the PS4's outperforming by wide margins, but the points aren't mutually exclusive.In any event, as Gamasutra further notes, Microsoft clearly seems to be having problems maintaining next-gen momentum: 115,000 units sold in April is a significant downturn from 311,000 units sold in March. Respawn's Titanfall was supposed to energize the console, and it did to an extent in March, but not enough to give Microsoft the edge it's been looking for over Sony: the lion's share of Titanfall sales in April were for Xbox 360.That edge may have instead arrived this week, however, with a $100 price drop and Microsoft's excision of its motion-sensing Kinect camera from a new $399 SKU that'll consist of the Xbox One alone (you can still buy the Xbox One with Kinect for $500, but it seems likely the bulk of Microsoft's June hardware sales and future ones besides -- the new SKU goes live on June 9 -- are going to be Kinect-less).