Building A Better Middle Earth | LEGO The Hobbit Review

<p>I would be hard pressed to come up with another gaming franchise that innovates so little from title to title&comma; and yet remains so consistently fresh and fun as the LEGO games have&period; Gamers have nearly made a career out of berating titles like <em>Call of Duty<&sol;em> for rehashing the same mechanics and gameplay year after year&comma; but it seems as if the LEGO games can get away with it because everyone loves LEGOs and the games are completely charming and hilarious&period; The newest title&comma; <em>LEGO The Hobbit<&sol;em>&comma; is no exception&period; It is every bit as fun and funny as you have come to expect&comma; as well as having an almost mind-boggling amount of side quests and collectibles to track down&period; If you play this game&comma; then you’re probably already familiar with the source material&period; It is based on the two Hobbit films&comma; An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug&comma; and the third film will be covered in DLC which will be available this winter&period; The story moves along quickly&comma; as the LEGO games always do&comma; and it does a decent job of covering all the major beats&period; If&comma; however&comma; you’re not intimately knowledgeable of the tale itself&comma; do not look to this game to give you an exhaustive account of all the goings-on&period; The purpose of this game is not to tell you a well fleshed out story&comma; but rather to let you smash and build your way through the most iconic parts of the films&period; I’ve actually read some other critics bashing the game for this and I have to wonder what it is they were expecting&period; LEGO Marvel did a good job of telling a story&comma; but the developers wrote that story themselves&period; Anytime LEGO has adapted a pre-existing movie &lpar;i&period;e&period; Harry Potter&rpar; they have always truncated the story a bit in favor of getting to the gameplay&period; It keeps things moving at a brisk pace and I wouldn’t want it any other way&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;60849" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-60849" style&equals;"width&colon; 750px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;building-better-middle-earth-lego-hobbit-review&sol;2389401-goblintown&lowbar;09&lowbar;rev&sol;" rel&equals;"attachment wp-att-60849"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-60849" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05113400&sol;2389401-goblintown&lowbar;09&lowbar;rev&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Even small and plastic&comma; Thorin is one bad mamma-jamma&excl;" width&equals;"750" height&equals;"385" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-60849" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Even small and plastic&comma; Thorin is one bad mamma-jamma&excl;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Gameplay-wise&comma; things are much as they have always been&comma; with a few innovations peppered throughout for good measure&period; The instruction building platforms make a return from the <em>LEGO The Movie<&sol;em> game&comma; as well as mithril crafting from the <em>LEGO Lord of the Rings<&sol;em> game&period; The mithril items are particularly entertaining as you will find yourself crafting some hilarious &lpar;and useful&rpar; items&period; The Necromancer is a little harder to take seriously when you have him decked out in a sparkling afro and musical dancing shoes&period; There’s also a loot system now that allows you to pick up helpful elements such as wood&comma; precious stones&comma; and other things to help you craft a series of useful items&period; Fast travel is also a helpful option as you can visit any location you have already discovered with the help of the eagles&period; It’s about time those lazy things pull their weight&period; Another standout aspect of the game is the sound&period; The music is&comma; of course&comma; beautiful as it is pulled straight from Howard Shore’s fantastic score from the films&comma; but my favorite part is the voice work&period; Instead of having a script for the game&comma; like in <em>LEGO Marvel<&sol;em>&comma; TT Games has brought back the lines straight from the movies process that we enjoyed in their Lord of the Rings games&period; It’s all done very well and most of the time it is simply hilarious&period; Scenes of heavy and foreboding dialogue from the films are interestingly juxtaposed against completely goofy and silly scenes and I never once was able to wipe the smile off of my face during the cutscenes&period; Think Azog’s meeting on Weathertop with the other orcs was dark and disturbing in the movie&quest; Wait until you see Azog’s severed hand bouncing around and taunting him in this version&period; Puts a bit of a different spin on it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;60850" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-60850" style&equals;"width&colon; 750px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;building-better-middle-earth-lego-hobbit-review&sol;h&sol;" rel&equals;"attachment wp-att-60850"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-60850" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05113351&sol;H-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"H" width&equals;"750" height&equals;"421" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-60850" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Look&comma; Sting is glowing blue&excl; There must be a clever goblin hiding somewhere in this picture&period;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I mentioned that there is an absurd amount of things to do and collect and I want to make it clear that that is no exaggeration&period; I put about twelve hours into the game in an effort to beat the main story line &lpar;I get easily distracted&rpar; but I have now put well over twenty hours into the hub world and I am not yet at 50&percnt;&period; Every location has a multitude of things to do and for the most part&comma; they are all fun and entertaining&period; The races are&comma; however&comma; the worst part&period; Much like every other LEGO game&comma; trying to get through those timed check points can often be a severely frustrating experience&period; The LEGO games have mastered the art of smashing&comma; building&comma; and collecting&comma; but they have always lacked in the platforming portion&period; The timed races require a degree of precision that the game simply doesn’t offer you&period; In an attempt to get to 100&percnt; completion I try to do all of these portions first&semi; otherwise I may never go back and finish them&period; Besides that one annoying blemish though&comma; sidequest are a joy&period; Most everyone in the world wants you to find or build them something and exploration and building are squarely in this game’s wheelhouse&period; If you have never liked the LEGO games then this title will not change your mind&period; There just isn’t enough innovation to get unbelievers on board&comma; but that’s OK because if you&comma; like me&comma; can’t get enough of these games&comma; then LEGO The Hobbit will be just what the doctor ordered&period; And with the promise of There and Back Again DLC to finish out the story&comma; we can smile for the fact that the road does indeed go ever on and on&period; Oh&comma; also&comma; Bombur in the barrel is an unlockable character&period; Maybe the best LEGO character yet&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;