• Advertisement

Make a small donation to Ye Olde Inn!

Donate via Paypal

Every cent received goes toward Ye Olde Inn's maintenance and allows us to continue providing the best resources for HeroQuest and Fantasy Gaming fans.

LEGO Franchise Video Games are fun and all, but...

Guests may gather here for General Discussions about almost any Topic. NO BRAWLING!
Forum rules
Certain topics have become known to cause friction among passionate members. We kindly ask that topics relating to these subjects be taken outside the Inn to Websites that specialise in those subjects.

Thus far, these topics are: Recreational Drugs, Religion and Science.

LEGO Franchise Video Games are fun and all, but...

Postby Malcadon » January 15th, 2014, 6:02 am

LEGO building blocks are the pinnacle of open-ended creativity, and despite that, their video games feels limited. I have been playing their franchise games (Lego Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, etc.) off and on for some years now, but I after I complete one, the game feels reduced to a flashy $20 beer coaster. Once you reach %100 in a game, their is absolutely no replay value -- made worst by games like LEGO Batman 2 that was way too short! I'm not expecting then to play like Minecraft, but sandbox gaming is something one would expect from a LEGO game.

It also feels strange that once you get everything done in LEGO Batman 2, the goons are still running a muck with everyone in a panic. Yeah, the major bad guys have been defeated and captured, but it if feels like nothing was really accomplished. If you clear out an area of goons, they should go away, with everything cleaned up and everyone as content citizens going about their business. If the games is not going to provide anything else at %100 -- besides having Supergirl as a playable character -- than the game might as well wind down by having a city were where there is little or nothing to do.

The only exception I can think of, are the bonus level in LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4. Once you complete a bonus level, you can change the level freely. I like that! You can make your own puzzles and obstacle courses to challenge yourself and friends. They should have more of these. Its not a lot, but they would add some replay value. Hell, you could even unlock extras with them!

A neat thing to have is the ability to alter cut scenes by changing characters around, add or remove abilities/access, or enabling the silly extras (like handle bar mustaches, carrot wands, etc.) to make them really funny -- kinda like mad-libs. With some extra coding, the cut scenes can be drastically altered for the changes. For example, replacing Superman with a non-flyer (or stripping him of his fight), would have him/her fall on his/her face or comically to one doom while trying to fly off a rooftop. Kissing scenes could be really sexy (Slave Leia + Oola :mrgreen:), or really gross (Jar Jar + Boss Nass :p). As audio tracks tend to eat up a lot of valuable game space, this would work best with the older, silent games, as the scenes alone would speak louder then words. I do not mind the dialog of the newer games, as long as they stay as funny as LEGO City 2 (oh, my Goddess*, the parodies are awesome!). If they start adding bland dialog and awful jokes to their games, they might as well scap it all together to added more game elements to it.

Another issue I have, are the custom characters you can play. This is a great idea, but the lack of options makes them not as enjoyable. And if you are going back through all the levels to unlock all the secrets, it would be nice to play characters of your own making, then to use some stock character that can do more then what are otherwise dolled-up generic characters. That is, in Star Wars, you can choose between a Shooter (with blaster and grapple gun) or a Jedi (with lightsaber and double-jump), but you cant choose to make them an Imperial (Shooter with Stormtrooper accuses), a Bounty Hunter (Shooter with grenades and BH accuses) or a Sith (Jedi with dark force powers). Some high-end character even have signature abilities or a great mix of more common abilities. Ideally, custom characters should be limited to generic parts, with little or no special abilities at first, but as you unlock new characters, you gain new parts and abilities. The point of this is not to make game-braking characters, but make personalized characters you would like to play.

In LEGO Indiana Jones, I made Lara Croft form Tome Raider and Zed form an old campy movie from the '70's called Zardoz -- yes, that picture of Sean Connery you could see, but can *never* unsee! :shock: Even without options, I still have fun with them, while saying silly stuff like "How do you like my big pair of .45s, boys?" or "The gun is good! Go forth and kill! Zardoz has spoken." If I had the option, I would keep them both as Jones-capable characters, but Lara would be a high-jumper (typical with females in the game) and Zed would have Thuggie access (in the movie, Zardoz was a murder cult). On the other hand, I never use them is the Potter games, as you have ten characters to choose form, but picking any one of them for a level is like a game of roulette -- they appear as a black silhouette with letters that cycles too quickly, and you forget who's who. The custom characters in Batman 2 seem to follow five basic hero/costume types, but they lack a number of abilities of the characters are trying emulate. With a superhero game, you need more option then choosing the right look to make a customized superhero!

There is also an annoying aspect with the bonus cheats. Once you get the better stud multipliers (x6, x8 or x10), money becomes worthless! The big-ticket characters that you would otherwise have to save up for are now as dirt-cheap as a Gonk Power Droid while starting out. When a game has stud multipliers (with a total multiplication of x3,840), high-end characters and options should be extremely expensive.

*Interesting edit, censorship, or whatever? Who add this feature? SheZow?


Rewards:
Created a Hot Topic. Encountered a menacing Chaos Warlock!
User avatar
Malcadon

Necromancer
Necromancer
 
Posts: 320
Images: 4
Joined: March 9th, 2012, 7:47 pm
Forum Language: English (United States)
Hero:
Evil Sorcerer: Zargon
Usergroups:
Artists Group Member Champion Group Member

Advertisement

Make a small donation to Ye Olde Inn!

Donate via Paypal

Every cent received goes toward Ye Olde Inn's maintenance and allows us to continue providing the best resources for HeroQuest and Fantasy Gaming fans.

Re: LEGO Franchise Video Games are fun and all, but...

Postby Goblin-King » January 15th, 2014, 5:37 pm

tl;dr


Rewards:
Created a Hot Topic. Participated in four (4) Miniature Exchanges.Participated in three (3) Miniature Exchanges. Destroyed a Zombie! Encountered a menacing Chaos Warlock!
User avatar
Ye Olde Judge Dredd
Goblin-King
Really looks like David Bowie

Frozen Horror
Frozen Horror
 
Posts: 3545
Images: 85
Joined: September 26th, 2011, 2:54 pm
Location: Sønderholm, Denmark
Forum Language: British English
Hero:
Evil Sorcerer: Morcar
Usergroups:
Wizards of Zargon Group Member Adventurers' Guild Group Member Artists Group Member Champion Group Member

Re: LEGO Franchise Video Games are fun and all, but...

Postby chaoticprime » January 15th, 2014, 5:52 pm

I think the whole series as boring as *lemony goodness*. I'm a life-devotee foremost to RPGs, but I likes me a good action game.


Rewards:
Created a Hot Topic. Participated in a Miniature Exchange. Zealot Miniatures: Twisting Catacombs Kickstarter Backer
User avatar
chaoticprime
Practically Lives Here

Swordsman
Swordsman
 
Posts: 1939
Images: 0
Joined: February 10th, 2013, 3:38 am
Location: Kansas City
Forum Language: English (United States)
Evil Sorcerer: Zargon
Usergroups:
Adventurers' Guild Group Member Artists Group Member Champion Group Member

Re: LEGO Franchise Video Games are fun and all, but...

Postby ampersand » January 15th, 2014, 6:22 pm

its for kids.......quite simply its enough to captivate a child between the ages of 4 to 12.......so it does its job for what its aimed at.
ive played pretty much every one because its kind of like a tradition that me and my daughter play her lego games together..for that i cant ask for any more


Rewards:
Created a Hot Topic.
User avatar
ampersand

Orc Shaman
Orc Shaman
 
Posts: 395
Joined: April 16th, 2013, 1:51 pm
Forum Language: British English
Hero:
Evil Sorcerer: Zargon
Usergroups:
Champion Group Member

Re: LEGO Franchise Video Games are fun and all, but...

Postby chaoticprime » January 15th, 2014, 8:37 pm

That's a fair point, from a different perspective. My son likes different games than I, and he's not really very friendly.


Rewards:
Created a Hot Topic. Participated in a Miniature Exchange. Zealot Miniatures: Twisting Catacombs Kickstarter Backer
User avatar
chaoticprime
Practically Lives Here

Swordsman
Swordsman
 
Posts: 1939
Images: 0
Joined: February 10th, 2013, 3:38 am
Location: Kansas City
Forum Language: English (United States)
Evil Sorcerer: Zargon
Usergroups:
Adventurers' Guild Group Member Artists Group Member Champion Group Member

Re: LEGO Franchise Video Games are fun and all, but...

Postby drathe » January 16th, 2014, 3:43 am

Malcadon wrote:*Interesting edit, censorship, or whatever? Who add this feature? SheZow?

You have the forum censor turned on. Some censors replace potentially offensive text. Some expand acronyms to full text. Others are for my own personal amusement.

I enjoy most of the LEGO games the first time around. They kill some time and are mildly entertaining, which is why I play them. They serve their purpose in my living room. The quality has gone down tremendously with each new game. The same old freezing type bugs in Indiana Jones are still present in each of the series release afterwards, but appear more frequently. You'd think they'd have fixed it, but they're in too much of a rush to make money to put a lot of care into the overall quality. Marvel has a tonne of stuff to do outside the main levels. But as you clearly state, once you've got 100%, there's no replay value. I also agree that the best characters should cost hundreds of billions of studs to unlock them. The multiplier just makes it ridiculous.
Image


Rewards:
Played a turn in a Play-by-Post game. Wrote an article for the Blog. Created a Hot Topic. Participated in a Miniature Exchange. Zealot Miniatures: Twisting Catacombs Kickstarter Backer
User avatar
Lord
drathe
The Bastiferous!

Innkeeper
Innkeeper
 
Posts: 2935
Images: 103
Joined: August 16th, 2008, 2:55 pm
Location: Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada
Forum Language: British English
Hero:
Evil Sorcerer: Morcar
Usergroups:
Innkeepers Group Member Wizards of Zargon Group Member Adventurers' Guild Group Member Artists Group Member Champion Group Member Scribes Group Member

Re: LEGO Franchise Video Games are fun and all, but...

Postby Malcadon » January 16th, 2014, 9:22 am

drathe wrote:
Malcadon wrote:*Interesting edit, censorship, or whatever? Who add this feature? SheZow?

You have the forum censor turned on. Some censors replace potentially offensive text. Some expand acronyms to full text. Others are for my own personal amusement.

The reference is form a cartoon about a cross-dress boy superheroine. They like to twist phrases so "Oh my god" becomes "Oh may goddess." It was silly at first, but got really old!
Wait, why the hell am I replying in fine print? :P
drathe wrote:I enjoy most of the LEGO games the first time around. They kill some time and are mildly entertaining, which is why I play them. They serve their purpose in my living room. The quality has gone down tremendously with each new game. The same old freezing type bugs in Indiana Jones are still present in each of the series release afterwards, but appear more frequently. You'd think they'd have fixed it, but they're in too much of a rush to make money to put a lot of care into the overall quality. Marvel has a tonne of stuff to do outside the main levels. But as you clearly state, once you've got 100%, there's no replay value. I also agree that the best characters should cost hundreds of billions of studs to unlock them. The multiplier just makes it ridiculous.

Yeah, the glitches are something else altogether. I have been playing some open-ended RPG titles that are prone to bugs, so I tend to overlook them when I critique them. There are some bugs I could overlook. If there is a bug or glitch that is weird enough to exploit, then I'm going to have fun with it. There are games were important items that should appear, never manifest, so I could never get a %100 on them. I'm not even a completionist -- I'm a sandbox gamer -- but that %99.6 or so fells like a big middle finger to my efforts, and reminds me that I'm playing a linear game with a completionist objective, and yet, I'm hooked like a fish.

Well there is always Minecraft -- a true open sandbox game. *withdraws money*

Your balance: 5 Lint balls, 2 live moths, 1 button, old letter. Damn. :(

OK, Roblox it is... :cry:


Rewards:
Created a Hot Topic. Encountered a menacing Chaos Warlock!
User avatar
Malcadon

Necromancer
Necromancer
 
Posts: 320
Images: 4
Joined: March 9th, 2012, 7:47 pm
Forum Language: English (United States)
Hero:
Evil Sorcerer: Zargon
Usergroups:
Artists Group Member Champion Group Member

Re: LEGO Franchise Video Games are fun and all, but...

Postby chaoticprime » January 16th, 2014, 4:24 pm

Dark Souls is the best thing ever. Go play that. It'll kill the crap out of you at first, but sooner or later you'll sharpen up and turn into a killing machine.


Rewards:
Created a Hot Topic. Participated in a Miniature Exchange. Zealot Miniatures: Twisting Catacombs Kickstarter Backer
User avatar
chaoticprime
Practically Lives Here

Swordsman
Swordsman
 
Posts: 1939
Images: 0
Joined: February 10th, 2013, 3:38 am
Location: Kansas City
Forum Language: English (United States)
Evil Sorcerer: Zargon
Usergroups:
Adventurers' Guild Group Member Artists Group Member Champion Group Member

Re: LEGO Franchise Video Games are fun and all, but...

Postby Sjeng » January 17th, 2014, 5:13 am

Skyrim.
Check out my YouTube channel Boardgame Heaven, and drop me a sub please!


Rewards:
Grin's Stone Map Played a turn in a Play-by-Post game. Wrote twenty (20) articles for the Blog in three (3) sections. Created a Hot Topic. Participated in three (3) Miniature Exchanges. Zealot Miniatures: Twisting Catacombs Kickstarter Backer Slain a measly Goblin! Slaughtered an Orc! Killed a mighty Fimir! Shattered a Skeleton! Destroyed a Zombie! Unravelled a Mummy! Encountered a menacing Chaos Warlock!
User avatar
Official Spokesman
Sjeng
Ye Olde Orcish Bard

Wizard
Wizard
 
Posts: 4536
Images: 92
Joined: July 26th, 2011, 9:58 am
Location: The Netherlands
Forum Language: Nederlands
Hero:
Evil Sorcerer: Morcar
Usergroups:
Wizards of Zargon Group Member Adventurers' Guild Group Member Artists Group Member Champion Group Member Scribes Group Member

Re: LEGO Franchise Video Games are fun and all, but...

Postby el_flesh » January 17th, 2014, 5:42 am

From coin-op video game review circ 1982:

It's repetitive repetitive repetitive and that equals boring boring boring.
"I will raise your dead body as an undead skeleton. Then I will make it do unspeakable acts. Like taking a shower." - El Flesh.

Image


Rewards:
Played a turn in a Play-by-Post game. Created a Hot Topic.
User avatar
el_flesh

Exiled
Exiled
 
Posts: 1315
Images: 4
Joined: April 25th, 2010, 4:38 pm
Evil Sorcerer: Morcar
Usergroups:
Champion Group Member


Return to Ye Olde Pub

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests