LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 is an action adventure platformer available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 is a tie-in game within The LEGO Movie franchise that originated as a tie-in with the LEGO construction range in February 2014 to a successful box office from LEGO fans and critics alike, alongside winning a multitude of awards such as the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film. The LEGO Movie’s sequel is titled The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part that released in cinemas in February 2019. Can LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 deliver yet another entertaining multi-themed LEGO game?
The story is based upon LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 that revolves around a group of friends including Emmet, Lucy and more returning characters from the previous LEGO The Movie working together as a team to defend their home from a re-emerging hostile alien invasion.
LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 is balanced and presented differently in relation to the gameplay of most LEGO games as free play mode and story campaign are intertwined into a single set of continuous gameplay. Story quests are provided by numerous characters situated in areas of each environment referred to as quest givers.
There are lots of additional activities beyond completing the levels comprising of qualifying and championship races, collecting 475 purple brick master pieces, collecting relics, building, taking pictures and much more besides. Purple bricks are referred to as master pieces that can be found when exploring environments and rewarded for completing quests that unlock new planets when accumulated to a particular quantity. There is far more emphasis on building instead of constructing an item required to progress onto the next area from deconstructing LEGO bricks. Scanner Binoculars can be utilised to discover new builds within your character’s surroundings that are then added to your builder page to be built in build zones and anywhere else, while they can also be used to reveal hidden LEGO objects. A camera is eventually unlocked on the Old West planet of the Rex-Plorer System that allows players to capture a photograph of their favourite areas or moments that are saved to a gallery to be viewed at your own convenience.
Character design is excellent as it reflects that of not only what you would anticipate from a LEGO game, but also LEGO The Movie films as there are 205 unlockable playable characters that can be found in purple relics also referred to as character relics or mega relics that can be opened at a shop within any world. Character customiser effectively allows players to mix and match components from gradually unlocked characters; comprising of 9 categories including hair, head, neck attachments, body, arms, hands, hips, legs and torso.
Environment design is quite different to most LEGO games as it takes more of a LEGO Worlds styled galaxy and universe approach. Emmet starts out in their city of Apocalypseburg before gradually unlocking new planets within the Systar System by collecting a particular quantity of purple bricks master pieces as the Systar System contains 7 planets, while Rex-Plorer System has half a dozen planets to explore that are each individually full of fun LEGO gameplay. Many other LEGO games have alternative paths that can be explored by unlocking a specific character that has an ability required to explore that area, but LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 has another different approach such as utilising Rex’s danger fists that any of your character’s can equip from towards the end of the third planet that allows harder green walls to be punched through in order to find new areas.
LEGO and LEGO The Movie 2 are such a natural combination to retain the trademark humour of LEGO gaming. There are numerous clever gaming references such as the machine that your character needs to build in order to clear through mounds of dirt is named Metal Gear Thumper and the fact that the scanner binoculars look reminiscent of virtual reality headsets.
LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 is supported by free post-launch downloadable planets to explore. Meanwhile, an Amazon exclusive Limited Minifigure Edition variation of the retail release includes a physical Star-Struck Emmet LEGO Minifigure toy.
LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 will not be ported to Vita; however LEGO fans looking for a Vita native portable experience can find exactly what they are looking for in a dozen or so LEGO games that are available at retail or via download, although remote play is a consolation for gamers looking for a portable version of LEGO The Movie Videogame 2. LEGO The Movie Videogame 2’s remote play performance is excellent as it produces the quality of graphics, audio and general performance from the PS4 version. As with previous LEGO games; split-screen multiplayer is displayed in split-screen during remote play, although it would have been much better to have the player using remote play to have their own full Vita screen with the other player having a full television screen. Remote play control optimisation includes dodging being mapped to the top left of the rear touch pad, while performing an attack on an enemy is remapped to the top right of the rear touch pad as an alternative to pressing square, alongside tapping the touch screen to enlarge the map; resulting in a comfortable and enjoyable remote play experience.
The controls are appropriately mapped to the DualShock 4 controller with the control scheme consisting of pressing X to jump or double tapping X to double jumping; pressing O to equip or unequip tools; pressing triangle to open the inventory; pressing square to perform an attack or holding square to aim; pressing L1 or R1 to toggle through tools; pressing L2 to dodge; pressing R2 to perform an attack; changing the direction of the left analogue stick or pressing up, down, left or right on the d-pad to move your selected character; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to pan the camera; pressing the share button takes you to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu. Tapping the touch pad displays a map of the world you are currently exploring, while vibration occurs subtly after your character is attacked by an enemy or when performing a stomping move on an enemy, although the only light bar support is when two players are playing co-operative multiplayer that could have been expanded to certain shades of colour representing each tool or build within your inventory.
Graphically, LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 possesses excellent models and animations of everything within the large-scale environments as well as character models having a charming appeal to them; not only as they are all constructed entirely from LEGO but also as they are incredibly faithful recreations of characters and the grand scale of environments from the LEGO The Movie cinematic franchise.
LEGO The Movie Videogame 2’s presentation is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, options menu, additional content and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and touch pad. Menu backgrounds set the scene for the scenario that the lead characters find themselves in as their home city is in the middle of being rebuilt.
Characters have rather positively retained their quirky sense of humour from LEGO The Movie and LEGO The Movie Videogame with their personalities brought to life by a talented voice-over cast. Sound effects include a variety of characters walking, running, jumping, climbing, punching, firing weapons, driving vehicles, creating builds and super builds, collecting LEGO studs, relics and purple bricks master pieces and a gentle ringing sound indicating a nearby chest. The rather fun and appropriate music soundtrack is composed by Simon Withenshaw who has previously composed for LEGO videogame soundtracks including LEGO City Undercover, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2, LEGO The Incredibles and LEGO DC Super Villains. There is no DualShock 4 speaker implementation that could have produced particular sound effects such as an indication of a nearby chest, collecting an item or build, creating a build or super build, scanning an item and unlocking a new character or item in general.
The trophy list includes 51 trophies with 37 bronze trophies, 12 silver trophies, 1 gold trophy and 1 platinum trophy. Around half of the trophies can be earned naturally by completing each level, defeating each enemy boss and unlocking main characters. Easier trophies include the Save Lucy bronze trophy for unlocking Lucy as a playable character; the Simply the Chest bronze trophy for open a discovery chest; the Oodles of Items silver trophy for collecting 100 items; the A Knack for Discovery bronze trophy for opening your first relic; the What Are Ya Buyin bronze trophy for buying something in a shop; and the Stick to the Plan bronze trophy for firing 50 stickers with the sticker gun. Harder trophies include finding all purple bricks master pieces on each individual level and the Intergalactic Planetary Scavenger gold trophy for achieving 100% completion. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 40 to 50 hours to platinum the trophy list.
There are no difficulty levels, although characters will immediately respawn after being defeated during combat and there are some puzzles that require changing to another character in order to begin a story quest or progress through certain areas. These gameplay elements result in the difficulty curve for the story quests being only as hard as the player would find the puzzles, exploration and combat. It is most probable that players would generally find LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 relatively easy to progress through, although achieving 100% completion is hard given the scale of the environments that need to be explored to find purple bricks master pieces, relics and much more besides that is rather appropriate given the appeal of LEGO to a wide audience and age range from young children to adults.
Split-screen multiplayer allows a second player to join in at any given moment via drop-in/drop-out multiplayer and play co-operatively, while each of the planets see both players working together within the same environment to figure out puzzles and overcome obstacles. Co-operative multiplayer is presented in vertical split-screen that works exceptionally well; allowing players to usually explore two completely separate areas of the same planet without restriction to their location, movements or actions for as long as both players remain on the same story quest.
However, rather surprisingly, LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 does not feature a dedicated competitive multiplayer mode even though LEGO Ninjago: The Movie Videogame and LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 have previously featured multiple competitive gameplay modes. For instance, split-screen competitive multiplayer could include on foot and vehicular races, alongside trying to explore planets to find more relics and purple bricks master pieces in comparison to the other player within the set time limit.
LEGO The Movie Videogame 2’s replayability stems from revisiting planets as unlocked characters with more builds and items that are required to participate in a story quest. There is a natural satisfaction of customising characters, creating builds and super builds, alongside collecting LEGO studs, relics and purple bricks master pieces. Split-screen co-operative multiplayer is always fun to play with a friend, especially as both players are able to independently explore such vast environments, while taking pictures with the unlockable camera. LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 represents exceptional value as it collectively contains more than enough replay value throughout every feature to keep players returning for many story quests or continuous exploration as your customised versions of any of the 205 unlockable characters, especially considering the free post-launch support of additional planets to explore.
Analysis – Title: LEGO The Movie Videogame 2 – Developer: TT Games – Publisher: Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment – System: PS4 – Format: Blu-Ray Disc/PSN Download – Cross-Buy: No – Cross-Play: No – Players: 1-2 (Local Co-operative Multiplayer) – Hard Drive Space Required: 7.63GB
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Jason
Jason plays all genres of games and enjoys all different kinds of experiences that the games industry has to offer. Jason's favourite PlayStation exclusive franchises throughout various eras include: Crash Bandicoot, God of War, Gran Turismo, inFamous, Killzone, Little Big Planet, MotorStorm, Resistance, Spyro the Dragon, Uncharted, Wipeout and various games that never became big name franchises. A special mention goes to Black Rock's superb Split Second: Velocity as it is rather unbelievable that it will never receive a sequel.
Jason now mainly plays modern PlayStation games on home console and portably, but occasionally returns to the old retro classics on the 3DO, PS1 and PS2 such as discovering Cool Spot Goes to Hollywood 20 years after its original release on PS1. Jason is happy to see gaming coming full circle with updates for retro classics such as Alien Breed, Superfrog and Crash Bandicoot.
