BackGame Review: Lego Jurassic World
An enjoyable family game that helps you relive the past
Premium
Lego has overtaken legendary Italian car maker Ferrari as the world’s most powerful brand according to a February 2015 report by Brand Finance, the London-based independent brand valuation and strategy consultancy. The classic playsets have been around for 60 years; then there are the Lego video games, developed by UK-based Traveller’s Tales, with licences from popular movie titles such as Star Wars and Harry Potter.
Lego Jurassic World is an action-adventure video game. You play through sequences recreated from the recent blockbuster Jurassic World as well as from the original Jurassic Park and its two sequels. The entire storyline is filled with puzzles, so you have to literally build things brick by brick, with a lot of action. You can slowly unlock characters and levels.
As you may expect, a large number of the unlockable characters are dinosaurs being used by InGen. In the Jurassic Park franchise, InGen (International Genetic Technologies, Inc. based in Palo Alto, California) is the company that researched dinosaurs on the islands of Isla Sorna and Isla Nublar.
While the rest of Lego’s games tend to have characters with distinct superpowers, this title is more subdued. So it’s a more down-to-earth sort of experience.
Since the game hopes to recreate the movie sequences, you need a lot of patience. For you’re looking at an adventure game that doesn’t rely on fight scenes to keep things moving. Here, it’s usually about humans trying to stay out of the way of the dinosaurs. And when the two do come face to face, the battle for survival is actually meaningful.
Lego Jurassic World has recreated some iconic fights all through, from all the movies. The range of dinosaurs is impressive. There is the tiny Compsognathus, and the massive Brachiosaurus. The gamer has all the goodies—a map and a hub world playground. Along the way, you will unlock bonus levels, but the story has been sewn together simply.
If you don’t want to be locked into certain limited sequences, the Free Play mode is where the most fun is. You can roam around in a variety of vehicles, create your own dinosaurs and basically behave as if you own the place (till the T.Rex shows up—then, just hide, and don’t breathe too heavily).
The tiny dinosaurs are extremely frustrating to deal with. There is no time to stand around and pull your hair because these little bundles of danger usually move around in packs. An attack from them severely reduces the player’s in-game health levels. Plus, their agility and size make them tough targets.
Traveller’s Tales has somewhat dropped the ball on dialogue. Lego Jurassic World continues the Lego trend of using lines from actual films. This is good, but there is an issue with the audio. It isn’t always crisp, and the environment noise tends to overpower the words.
The good part is that the game has a generous dose of humour. The graphics are clean, and even though certain visuals can seem a bit boxy—some sections don’t appear to be three-dimensional—the detailing has been done well, be it the cosmos, the dinosaurs or the damage in action scenes.
LEGO JURASSIC WORLD
Genre: Action, adventure
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Feral Interactive
Developer: Traveller’s Tales
PC (Windows): 499
Mac: $39.99, around 2,560 (Steam download)
Sony PlayStation 3: 1,999
Sony PlayStation 4: 2,499
Sony PlayStation Vita: 1,799
Microsoft Xbox 360: 1,999
Microsoft Xbox One: 2,499
Nintendo 3DS: $25.89
Nintendo Wii U: $49.40
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