Lego is joining the toys-to-life video game category currently held tightly by Skylanders and Disney Infinity with Lego Dimensions. While Lego is late to the toy-based game party, the game itself and how Lego's beloved building kits integrate with it could make for a unique and compelling take on the concept. It also could be the most expensive. The Lego Dimensions Starter Pack, required to play the game, will retail for $99.99 when it launches for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Wii U this fall. Skylanders Trap Team Starter Pack (for PlayStation 4) Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes (2.0 Edition) Starter Pack (for PlayStation 4) Mortal Kombat X (for PlayStation 4) Bloodborne (for PlayStation 4) Final Fantasy XV (for PlayStation 4) $100 is a standard price for getting started with this type of game, but the sheer number and variety of figures and content could make the game's total price tag add up fast. Fun Packs consisting of an additional character and vehicle/object will be available for $14.99 each.
Team Packs consisting of two additional characters and two vehicles/objects will be available for $24.99 each. Level Packs, which include an additional character, two vehicles/objects, and a complete, mission-filled level in the game, will be available for $29.99 each. Lego will offer at least four Level Packs, four Team Packs, and two dozen Fun Packs alongside the Starter Pack at launch. View All 7 Photos in Gallery Lego Dimensions spans 14 different popular properties, including DC superheroes, The Simpsons, Scooby-Doo, Portal, Back to the Future, and Doctor Who. The idea is similar to The Lego Movie, with characters and worlds from all over fiction running into each other. The Lego Movie, with characters like WildStyle and Benny, is actually one of the properties in the game. The game itself takes you around all sorts of places and has you meeting all sorts of characters, but you'll need the additional figures to use them anywhere in the game. And if you want to have extended fun in the worlds of Doctor Who, Portal, The Simpsons, or Back to the Future, you'll need their respective Level Packs.
The Toys The Lego Dimensions portal is one of the most intricate we've seen in toy-based games. The base is a set of three scanning fields marked by a central circle and two L-shaped sections. Each L has a total of three scanners, so you can put seven Lego Dimensions figures in the game at a time. You can also build a literal portal on the base with the starter kit's included Lego bricks, which makes it look more interesting without getting in the way of placing figures. Each of the three sections glow different colors, which becomes a fundamental mechanic in the game. You can put compatible figures (Lego Minifigures you can remove from their NFC bases to play with) on the portal and the character or vehicle will appear in your game, ready to use. Character figures have their own individual bases, while vehicles have "blank" bases you can write information to in the game. This lets every vehicle have three variations you can build for different tasks, with the option to write the currently built vehicle to the base to use it.
Lego Dimensions assumes you'll rebuild the vehicle each time, and even offers step-by-step instructions for building the new vehicle. It's an unnecessary step, but a fun one for matching what's happening on-screen with what's on the portal. Special PowersThe positions of your figures on the portal don't matter when you're just exploring the landscape. However, they come heavily into play when solving puzzles. Certain puzzles wear block hats that, when a character approaches it, display translucent power bricks. These are portal-based powers, and the ones you select require playing with the portal itself. The Scale power shrinks or enlarges your characters to either get through small holes or knock something high onto the floor, respectively. The Portal power sends your active figure to one of three colored portals that appear in the area; place the figure on the differently colored parts of the portal to make them appear in otherwise inaccessible places. The Element power charges your character with fire, water, or electricity, depending on if you place the figure on the red, blue, or yellow spaces on the portal.
These powers let you melt ice, put out fires, and charge generators. Certain characters, like WildStyle, have their own portal-activated powers. She can sense invisible blocks, but when she's near one you need to place her on another portal zone from her active one to make the block appear. Her search mechanic feels a bit awkward, but the other portal powers added an important sense of physical play and engagement to the game. Lots of Worlds I played a demo that took me through several different sections of the game. It took place within the game's main story, so it focused on the characters included with the starter pack: WildStyle, Batman, and Gandalf. I was given access to many of the upcoming expansion figures to play within the game as well, and they integrated directly into my party when I put them on the portal. At its heart, Lego Dimensions plays just like nearly every other Traveler's Tales Lego game. You take a team of characters through winding levels, building objects (often by holding down a button), fighting enemies, and solving puzzles using a variety of character-specific powers and abilities.
In this case, WildStyle finds hidden blocks, Batman pulls items with his grappling hook and spin targets with his batarang, Gandalf magically lifts and moves certain distant objects, and the Batmobile jumps up ramps or turns into a sonic cannon for destroying certain blocks. Rather than take me through The Lego Movie, Gotham, or Middle-Earth environs, the demo started at Oz's Yellow-Brick Road and wound through Portal's test facility, a haunted mansion from Scooby-Doo, and an abandoned space ship filled with Doctor Who's Cybermen. Additional missions with the characters from each property will be available via expansions, but it seems that the main game will at least take you through these areas, even if you don't have the extra figures to play all of the characters or use all of the vehicles. You only need the core characters for a given level to get through it, but you can get certain bonuses and extras if you have other characters. The Chell figure let me use her portal gun on special white panels in the Portal section of the demo, which let me get an item that was out of reach.
Using the Doctor figure in the Doctor Who section let me free his companion, Clara, from a trap (similar to freeing Stan Lee from various perils in Lego Marvel Super Heroes), which got me another item. The Doctor was particularly fun, because his expansion set comes with TARDIS and K-9 figures, and they combine in the game in amusing ways. K-9 is the Doctor's robot dog, and he serves as a talking vehicle you can ride around on. The TARDIS is the Doctor's time machine, and it's bigger on the inside. If you put any other character in the TARDIS, it slowly lumbers around levels, spinning and floating. If you put the Doctor in the TARDIS, however, you can explore a Lego TARDIS interior, and select which Doctor you want to play, and even which Doctor Who music plays in the TARDIS. The Doctor minifigure is of the Twelfth Doctor played by Peter Capaldi, but every time the Doctor dies in the game he regenerates as another incarnation. When he fell in a pit, he reappeared as the First Doctor, played by William Hartnell.
The TARDIS console let me choose any of the doctors, including the Fourth, Ninth, and War Doctors. As a neat bonus, when I put the Doctor in the DeLorean from Back to the Future (another expansion set vehicle), he quipped about how his time machine didn't need to reach 88 miles per hour. Portal Potential Lego Dimensions might seem like more of the same Traveler's Tales Lego games, and it certainly sticks close to the formula. However, it also could be the most elaborate collectible toy-based video game yet, with much more action surrounding the figures you can collect besides simply putting them on a scanner. The portal and all of the ways it can integrate into gameplay are engaging, and while there isn't a strict reason to rebuild your vehicles every time you want them to do something else in the game, the option (and instructions) to do so is a welcome way to keep players active. The big question that remains is just how much content will be tied to expansion sets. If the base game itself is satisfying, collecting more figures and getting more missions in which to play with them is a welcome bonus.