LEGO City Undercover is my 10 year old’s favorite LEGO video game. Why? Because it’s got great gameplay and a solid story with good characters. Yes, LEGO Batman 2 and LEGO Marvel Super Heroes are great (it was a tough choice for him to decide, let me tell you) but it’s that original story that hooked him.
This is where The LEGO Movie Video Game comes in.
Yes, it’s a video game based on a movie, but unlike so many others this is actually worth playing because it stands on its own. Alright, so it doesn’t have the variety of characters that players have access too as LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, but it is still a solid game and fun to play through.
If you’ve never played a LEGO video game before, this might be a great entry point. The main campaign is shorter than many recent entries and the familiarity of the movie’s plot will help. For kids it won’t matter.
Players will wander around the landscape as Emmet, collecting LEGO pieces avoiding getting taken apart and in general going through some standard video game machinations. The movie is set up in stages and the game follows suit. Each new location in the movie is a new level in the video game.
Do you need to have seen the movie to enjoy The Lego Movie Video Game? No. Chances are, however, if you’re thinking of picking this game up you have seen the film. The question is if this game does anything to enhance or extend the enjoyment of the movie or if it sullies the goodwill of the film. Thankfully it is the former. My 6 year old son who did not see the movie did need some explanations as to what was going on a few times.
When done with the story the game’s Free Play allows players to use all of the characters that were unlocked and just sort of “have at it” in a way. The cut scenes are taken from the film. Locations from the film are used as levels, so when having watched the film and thinking “that would be fun to play with” well, now you can.
Fun. That’s the key word here. The LEGO Movie Video Game is fun. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but simply takes the well-honed formula of LEGO video games, drops it in the hit movie and the result works.