Lego Jurassic World
Year: 2015
Developer: Travellers Tales
Publisher: WB Games
Platform: PC, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, WiiU, 3DS, Nintendo Switch, iOS
PEGI: 7
Published: 2015 (Legacy Review)
Developer: Travellers Tales
Publisher: WB Games
Platform: PC, PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, WiiU, 3DS, Nintendo Switch, iOS
PEGI: 7
Published: 2015 (Legacy Review)
With a Jurassic film in the cinemas and a new Terminator on its way anybody would think we took a step back to the 90's. We are however still firmly in 2015 and Jurassic World has gone on to smash box office records as well as being a very entertaining start to the summer blockbuster season. As such the folks over at Lego and Travellers Tales prepared us a plastic brick filled trip to 65 million years ago featuring familiar faces alongside the new ones.
Lego Jurassic World has a huge job on its hands, not only does it have to promote the newest entry into the Jurassic franchise, but it also took on the job of recreating the previous three films.
For those of you unfamiliar to the stories of the original Jurassic films; they follow Alan Grant and/or (depending on the film) Ian Malcom as they explore dangerous dinosaur filled islands created by billionaire John Hammond who dreams of opening a theme park filled with living dinosaurs. However, due to various technology problems the dinosaurs escape and its up to the small group of survivors (led by Grant or Malcom) to escape the island. The original broke new ground in 1993 with its mind blowing special effects, now just over 20 years later the fourth film in the franchise has hit cinemas. Having finally realised John Hammond's dream, Jurassic World is now a fully functioning theme park filled with living dinosaurs and millions of yearly visitors. Following brothers Zach & Gray Mictchell, their aunt Claire Dearing, and dinosaur trainer Owen Grady, when the parks newest exhibit, a genetically modified lab creation called the Indominus Rex, escapes captivity and begins hunting the other exhibits and park visitors for sport. As such the foursome must try to survive against various deadly carnivorous dinosaurs and escape the park alive.
Lego Jurassic World does a great job of retelling these stories, but at the same time also manages to fail in capturing the excitement and edge of your seat tension that the films create so well. The biggest problem is that Lego Jurassic World has been created with a child audience in mind; where the films could show death, and at times bloody images thanks to its family friendly though not child focused direction, the Lego game showcases no death in its storytelling. Instead major characters that meet a grizzly end in the films are chased away by dinosaurs, or replaced with an over the top, usually poorly executed joke that is neither funny nor a good replacement for showing the death of a character. This also strikes me as odd as there has been death shown in the Lego games before; nobody is expecting blood or limbs being torn off, but simply killing off characters as they have done in so many Lego games before is completely absent in this entry. Other than a few pacing issues, Lego Jurassic World does an otherwise good job of representing the films, with at times scenes recreated shot for shot in Lego.
Lego Jurassic World has a huge job on its hands, not only does it have to promote the newest entry into the Jurassic franchise, but it also took on the job of recreating the previous three films.
For those of you unfamiliar to the stories of the original Jurassic films; they follow Alan Grant and/or (depending on the film) Ian Malcom as they explore dangerous dinosaur filled islands created by billionaire John Hammond who dreams of opening a theme park filled with living dinosaurs. However, due to various technology problems the dinosaurs escape and its up to the small group of survivors (led by Grant or Malcom) to escape the island. The original broke new ground in 1993 with its mind blowing special effects, now just over 20 years later the fourth film in the franchise has hit cinemas. Having finally realised John Hammond's dream, Jurassic World is now a fully functioning theme park filled with living dinosaurs and millions of yearly visitors. Following brothers Zach & Gray Mictchell, their aunt Claire Dearing, and dinosaur trainer Owen Grady, when the parks newest exhibit, a genetically modified lab creation called the Indominus Rex, escapes captivity and begins hunting the other exhibits and park visitors for sport. As such the foursome must try to survive against various deadly carnivorous dinosaurs and escape the park alive.
Lego Jurassic World does a great job of retelling these stories, but at the same time also manages to fail in capturing the excitement and edge of your seat tension that the films create so well. The biggest problem is that Lego Jurassic World has been created with a child audience in mind; where the films could show death, and at times bloody images thanks to its family friendly though not child focused direction, the Lego game showcases no death in its storytelling. Instead major characters that meet a grizzly end in the films are chased away by dinosaurs, or replaced with an over the top, usually poorly executed joke that is neither funny nor a good replacement for showing the death of a character. This also strikes me as odd as there has been death shown in the Lego games before; nobody is expecting blood or limbs being torn off, but simply killing off characters as they have done in so many Lego games before is completely absent in this entry. Other than a few pacing issues, Lego Jurassic World does an otherwise good job of representing the films, with at times scenes recreated shot for shot in Lego.
When you buy a Lego game you kind of know what you're letting yourself in for. A 3D platformer with emphasis on finding all the various kinds of collectibles including the likes of mini-kits, red bricks, gold bricks, characters, and of course those delightful Lego studs that littler the virtual landscape. Jurassic World introduces some new collectibles to find including vehicles, sick dinosaurs, races, nectar fossils, and park workers who need helping. This helps extend Jurassic Worlds painfully short length to more acceptable levels, however its a shame that very few of these collectibles are actually fun to find. The dinosaurs are a great addition, making you scour the landscape for items of food to bring the dinosaurs back to good health. The workers in peril are also a good addition, but the races for example are a pretty disappointing addition and in much need of fine tuning due to shoddy vehicle controls and the occasional poorly mapped course.
It can make Jurassic World a chore to play at times, the story isn't much better either with its over reliance on chase sequences with crappy camera positioning and having recycled almost every ounce of gameplay from previous Lego games with very little originality to be had in mission.
The game itself looks great. Highly detailed jungle areas mix with well animated Lego characters and dinosaurs. Featuring a smooth 30FPS framerate and 1080p resolution on current generation consoles, it is easily the best looking Lego game yet. It's a shame the same cannot be said about the audio. All voices are audio ripped straight from the films, however they sound like they have been recorded by placing a microphone next to a TV speaker on several occasions, not to mention that Jurassic Park & The Lost World don't even sound like they have used the digitally remastered audio used in the Blu-Ray re-releases. This is simply inexcusable and some of the worst audio work I have seen in a game in years. That being said, the soundtrack's are also lifted from the films and sound excellent; so it does seem strange that one set of audio got a very different treatment and level of attention to another set of audio.
As a whole product Lego Jurassic Park is strictly for the kids. Its overly cautious approach to death does the game no favours and hinders the experience drastically. On top of this the sloppy handling of the audio and the gameplay that often becomes tiresome and simply boring makes this one to avoid for die hard Jurassic Park fans, as well as hardcore Lego fans. I'm not saying you should outright avoid the game, but it is one of the weakest Lego games to date and certainly not worth a £40 price tag.
It can make Jurassic World a chore to play at times, the story isn't much better either with its over reliance on chase sequences with crappy camera positioning and having recycled almost every ounce of gameplay from previous Lego games with very little originality to be had in mission.
The game itself looks great. Highly detailed jungle areas mix with well animated Lego characters and dinosaurs. Featuring a smooth 30FPS framerate and 1080p resolution on current generation consoles, it is easily the best looking Lego game yet. It's a shame the same cannot be said about the audio. All voices are audio ripped straight from the films, however they sound like they have been recorded by placing a microphone next to a TV speaker on several occasions, not to mention that Jurassic Park & The Lost World don't even sound like they have used the digitally remastered audio used in the Blu-Ray re-releases. This is simply inexcusable and some of the worst audio work I have seen in a game in years. That being said, the soundtrack's are also lifted from the films and sound excellent; so it does seem strange that one set of audio got a very different treatment and level of attention to another set of audio.
As a whole product Lego Jurassic Park is strictly for the kids. Its overly cautious approach to death does the game no favours and hinders the experience drastically. On top of this the sloppy handling of the audio and the gameplay that often becomes tiresome and simply boring makes this one to avoid for die hard Jurassic Park fans, as well as hardcore Lego fans. I'm not saying you should outright avoid the game, but it is one of the weakest Lego games to date and certainly not worth a £40 price tag.