Preview: Lego Worlds (Steam)

Rating: 0
Author: Jim Smale

by Jim Smale · June 8, 2015

In a galaxy of procedural worlds made entirely from LEGO bricks, will you… EXPLORE environments filled with adventure, then alter them? DISCOVER secrets and treasures, then play with them? CREATE your own models, then make a world your own? In LEGO Worlds, it’s up to you…

Pros:

Graphics come at you in the traditional TT games style. HD and crisp the graphics, Lighting in particular taking the game up a level presentation wise.
Full 360 pad with full keyboard and mouse support.
Seed generator along with random seed generator.
Game play is at the moment focused on basic building and exploration and adventure.
Unlock new items to build with by brushing by the object or by breaking them. Once unlocked you can then buy it with studs which means you can now create them at will.
Studs are found by destroying items just like in any Lego game.
Characters are unlocked much the same as the objects and items except some characters are hostile and need to be destroyed to unlock.
If you get stuck or lost or just fancy it, You can sky dive back onto the map.
New items and objects can be easily identified as they flash to alert you.
Powerful character creator. Use any parts from unlocked characters and make them up on the fly.
Loads of vehicles to find and unlock. Skate boards, Buggies, Tractors, Boats, Helicopters and even motor bikes and planes. Spawning one will automatically put you in the driving seat.
Day and night cycle.
Re-spawn where you die and drop studs upon death just like in other Lego games.
Easy simple controls with the controller.
Multiple save slots available so you can have many worlds on the go at once. Your unlcoks and money carry over between worlds.
Loads of characters to unlock. Some characters have abilities like Outlaws can call a horse, Vampires turn into bats and Wolfman can jump high and far. Its well worth seeking them all out.
Animals are in the game and can be used for transportation Goats, Sheep, Cows, Bulls, Bears and even Dragons and Eagles are in the game.
Huge playing area.
Good depth of field view.
Game-play is all done in 3rd person.
Multiple biomes to discover each with unique buildings, animals and characters. A few examples are Deserts with pyramids, Space with spacemen, Jungle with tree houses and even Snow with igloos and outposts.
Each map contains a handful of biomes and if your really lucky you can get them all!
Small chests are dotted around and contain studs. Big chests are hidden usually in structures and contain weapons for you to unlock. You do not need to buy the weapons.
Video options are in depth with resolution, V-Sync, Bloom and more included.
Skeletons are the only real enemy in the game and will hunt you down upon seeing you.
Clever AI. Skeletons chase you on sight, Attack a wolf and a pack will come after you. Characters will become hostile after being attacked and so forth.
Building is instant. Unlock the design/item and then choose where to build it via a outlined icon and press build.
Fast loading times even when creating a new world.
Climb anything. You can grab onto ledges and even climb along ceilings.
Powerful editor for raising/lowering the terrain. Create new land, Add hills and much much more.
You can paint different tiles, rotate them and change the size of each individual piece.
Aside from the easy building you can go all old school and build things brick by brick. Many types of brick are available.
Diggers allow you to dig underground very fast, Rollers can lay road or smooth edges off.

Cons:

Objects don’t always spawn correctly and can be floating in mid air.
Keyboard and mouse is fiddly and feels really clumsy.
No water physics as of yet.
Single player only with no online or local multiplayer.
Camera messes up a fair bit. Especially when you discover a new biome or climb high hills. When discovering a new biome the camera zooms over to it regardless of where you are and with walls its becomes messy.
Get stuck in scenery.
Building something high up can cause all kinds of weirdness like massive towers or multiple buildings being created.
Controller is not optimized for all the menu options like rotating and re-sizing etc.
Menu looks nice and easy but in practice is clunky and slow.
No under ground/water areas.
No first person view.

In Summary, Lego Worlds is the very definition of early access games. It has core game-play mechanics but not much else. I mean you can build and find things but that’s about it, The game is more focused on exploration and unlocking objects and characters rather than building a huge house and surviving the night. Skeletons are your only enemy and they can attack day or night. The biomes are really rather good, Each one can feel like its own little world. Watch Cowboys ride horses around the Wild West or find huge temples in Oriental gardens. A personal favorite is the Pyramids as you must navigate a maze within it to find the chest, Its things like this that set it apart from other games. Gamers are calling this Lego’s attempt at Minecraft and it does indeed have that feel but it is far to early for a true comparison. As it stands it is a good time waster of exploration and fun but extended play demonstrates just how little content is in here. I managed to max all weapons in a few hours and I cannot see much else to unlock. I ply it just because every new world has a huge sense of wonderment and enjoyment. Defiantly a title worth keeping an eye on.