Let me just point out that Tt Games is probably the best set of developers when it comes to translating movie licenses into pure fun. They are quite possibly the only company outside of the late, great LucasArts to consistently make a movie-based game into a fun fest. They created some beautiful magic with the Harry Potter series. Perfectly stormed the empire in their Star Wars games. Now, they’ve gone back 65 million years in the making (2,000+ if you’re a creationist) to release an entertaining quadrilogy with LEGO Jurassic World.
The gameplay in LEGO Jurassic World is what you would expect from a LEGO game. You run around a LEGO world, destroy everything humanly possible, collect LEGO studs to unlock goodies (gold bricks as well), and attempt to get a high score. Typical stuff for a LEGO game, but still welcomed and motivating to keep the game going. Outside of the usual, the added benefits of the Jurassic theme is that you can play as dinos and cross movies with different characters to unlock even more hidden items. It’s mindless fun for adults, but addictive gameplay for the younger kids in the household (my six-year old boy loves the LEGO series, and this game).
One new aspect of gameplay that will most likely fly under the radar of most gamers and critics is the fact that tasks have become less burdensome when compared to other LEGO releases. For example, The Hobbit LEGO series had tasks that would be fun, but the journey to get from point A to point B in them would be a little bit gnawing on gaming patience. Having to find objects in the big world of The Hobbit made it feel like an open world adventure — and sometimes not in a good way. With LEGO Jurassic World, the tasks and level design seem to be a bit more focused and managed. They’re shorter in terms of time, but the gameplay seems a bit more streamlined and easy to get through (and still fun). For example, the first game in the bunch has a moment leading up to the T-Rex scene where Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm run into a fallen pillar blocking the truck tracks they’re riding on. To get around, the gamers must access the triceratops dino and ram through a series of fallen trees to find a way around the situation. The time it takes to get from the beginning of the task until the end is around 7-12 minutes. The amount of diversity to the mission (triceratops in it, alan trying to find a jackhammer, etc.) makes that time go by fast. Each task/mission is like this and it’s an improvement to the LEGO series. No mission in the game feels like a drag, which is a huge plus — especially for adult gamers. The majority of its gaming audience is young, so keeping them engaged in shorter missions helps as well.
On the level design side of things, like I stated above, the game is contained and not quite as big/open as The Hobbit. While I certainly understand and respect the pacing reasons (you have four games in one) for the level design, I think some parts could have expanded out a bit. Giving the gamer a bit more freedom to roam a world set in a Jurassic Park would help to make this game an even more epic adventure when compared to its brethren. Again, I understand the need to keep it a bit more linear because of the amount of landscape it has to cover, but it still would have been nice.
Having said that, the gameplay underneath is exactly what you would expect from previous LEGO titles, which equals out to hours of enjoyment. I can dig that in another LEGO title.
So what about the looks? Jurassic Park set a new standard back in 1992 when it arrived on the scene, so can LEGO Jurassic World do the same on PlayStation 4? Almost there in the visuals, but definitely there in other areas.
What I find particularly intriguing/great about this LEGO game release is how the game follows the movies incredibly well. You get all the good chase scenes, terrifying moments with the dinos and other little moments that remind you that you’re playing a game within Jurassic Park. The game really puts you in the movies, even when you may not want to be there.
The graphics are getting a bit better in terms of detail. While I can see the pieces were still built with the last generation in mind (little bits of pixelated imperfections still roam the character models), the LEGO series is getting closer and closer to letting go and pushing itself into this generation. The smooth details of the dinosaurs are impressive, as are the surrounding environments, the lighting and the little details like water animation. The visuals are slowly progressing towards this generation standards (whatever they might be), but they aren’t there quite yet. Soon, hopefully.
What is improved and helps the presentation out a bit more is actual voices from the actors (not all of them) direct from the films. Those help to push the enjoyment a bit more. Add in the off-beat humor that the LEGO series is known for and the audio/voices turn out splendidly. Tt Games’ decision to include voice over work starting with the Batman series was a wise one. It really does add an element of entertainment to the entire package.
Anyway, the presentation value is solid in LEGO Jurassic World.
So, is this game worth the price of admission? This all depends on what you want. The first game in the quadrilogy took me about 3 hours to complete. That’s not a long time, but the completion didn’t include going back and exploring previous areas with new characters. The longevity of this game is helped by the co-op, unlockables and exploration. Add those to the main stories and you get plenty of reason to drop $59.99 on a LEGO title.
Onto the summary!
