History of the LEGO game series. Part 2: BIONICLE: The Game and the death of the golden age

“Just imagine…” is the LEGO company slogan. Imagine a wonderful future ahead. All games are sold, toys are bought, and every developer dreams of getting a license for the LEGO brand because design doesn’t require effort, but it’s not that simple. The next five-year period in the world of video games made a whole bunch of revolutions in each of its genres, which required new high achievements from developers in each new game. It was no longer enough to make a product under license, because then the discs would only be sold in a cereal box, and not on the shelves of large stores. But it reaches the publisher too late. I have no idea how to start a story about a turning point from the point of view of the gaming industry, the period of death of LEGO Media at that time called LEGO Software, and later LEGO Interactive, published all games under the brand LEGO. Like this blog, each game has gone through more than one or even three reworks from scratch. Perhaps, enough of the suspense and it’s time to talk about the matter, as you should do at a funeral.

Step 1. Brew something stronger
Step 2. All games that are important or launched are included in the analysis, but all are mentioned.
Step 3. Read and leave a comment. The author is young, growing and loves constructive criticism
Step 4. Bring out the cars and Bionicles.
Step 5. Cry over how awesome it was.

First part: https://stopgame.ru/blogs/topic/98257

Third part: https://stopgame.ru/blogs/topic/104042

Five-year plan, like a year like the decade, Daur starts from scratch. From scratch meaningful games. I personally have a favorite LEGO Alpha Team, children’s LEGO My Style, boring and mentioned in the last part by mistake LEGOLAND, BUT there are huge BUTs. They are all insignificant and only highlight the hole that the company is digging for itself. On the other hand, the British Toy Association recognizes LEGO “toy of the century”, which makes it clear what high expectations ordinary people may have from Lego products.

As a child, I had the games of this five-year-old on a “6 in one” disc, so when I played them, my memories mixed everything into one game, crooked, but varied. Now I was in pain over every game, but the pain was different. My personal hell, which anyone who dares to follow my path will experience. Well, one of the important things this year is that I was born to write this blog.

Retail stores LEGO are opening in England, Germany and Russia, and on the LEGO website.com, which has been around since 1996, was added LEGO Message Boards, so I’ll start describing it in Russian Message Boards sequel LEGO Island.

LEGO Island 2: The Brickster’s Revenge

Start of development of "Brick’s revenge" literal translation was started from the project LEGO Fantasy. Produced by David Upchurch and, in his words, the television show was supposed to air every Saturday morning and was like adventures of jackie chan, with an episode-by-episode morality of life and a slowly moving global plot comparison – assumption of the blog author. A game based on this show was already in early production.

Platformer level Mario 64 with three heroes from the series, each of whom is endowed with their own abilities. There would also be a companion dog that would sniff out secrets and dig up objects. On paper it was even cooler Fable.

In theory we should have had three times, as in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The castle is the past, the city is the present, space is the future. You could cut down a tree as a bridge in the Middle Ages, go back to the present and there would be a wooden bridge there.

Within 6 months we already had a prototype with a teenager and a dog that could dig. Right before full development began, the show was canceled along with the entire project. The publisher noticed similarities between the teenager and Peper from LEGO Island and then it started. The dog was removed, but a skateboard was added. We were going to add tricks like Tony Hawk, but not everything came into play. Also, time travel was not included in the game, but mini-games were added… now everything is much simpler. This is where my participation in the development stopped – on the prototype. To be honest, I didn’t play much of the final product, I just hung around in the first location and that’s it. It seems to me that there is nothing of mine left here. Silicon Dreams end developer It’s easier to start from scratch several times than to use someone else’s work.

David Upchurch wasn’t even listed in the game’s credits, but in the history of development he laid the first bricks.

Actually, this show was called LEGO World and all that can be found on it is the above translated interview with David Upchur and this… trailer!?

Already on the menu LEGO Island 2 meets with a crackling sound when you hover over each item. This sound is like shaking a Lego box. From the first to the last scene there are only two of them: introductory and final experience in their elaboration will be visible, but the lack of wit, which will be completely in TTGames. Just like in the first part, there is a Toy function here – changing the color/figure by pressing Enter. Essentially the island remained the same, but it doubled in size and acquired a railway along which the train travels. And if you stand on this railway, the station master in a red cloak will fly in and take the main character to a safe place, a la Superman. Now Pepper has learned to jump, and his height depends on the longitude of the space bar pressed. Well, I was also struck by the double jump, the animation of which is repeated one after another in LEGO Star Wars. There is even the ability to swim, BUT the game lacks platforming as such. Why all this is needed is not clear.

They even added a skateboard, but it’s no faster than running on foot. The difference is that you don’t have to hold down the forward button on the skateboard. And the locations are intimate, which is why you rarely have to travel long distances. But near the main character’s house there is a skate park as a separate location, where they give you 2 minutes to perform all sorts of tricks on one ramp. After all, you CANNOT do tricks in the game. The game engine takes into account the slope on which Pepper runs and reduces his speed from this, BUT where is it seen that the character runs along walls with a slope of 90°!? And here you can! Even the ability to throw pizza for my taste, disrespect for food, made crookedly, because the animation of a punch while standing still is not interrupted, and you can throw a pizza while running into the distance and continue to do anything besides this. The boat can only be placed in certain ports, BUT why then does the main character have the opportunity to sail?!? Well, here’s the thing, what does a hero sound like? Link from Zelda. One gets the impression that this is a mishmash of gameplay mechanics that are not used in the game at all. That’s how it is.

Inhale and exhale. As for the plot?

Pepper delivers pizza, meeting everyone in town, and gets paid in the form of cubes for his house. Having built the house, he receives an order for the Brickster. But not to kill, but to deliver pizza. Try to understand further events from the castscene:

And now I’ll chew on: the Brickster added a bunch of pepper to the pizza, burned his camera, stole and tore up the Blockpedia, which is why buildings began to collapse and the Brickster robots began to invade the world. Even children playing in the clearing have their soccer ball taken away..

We break four special robots. We collect 4 pages of the local bible and thereby restore 4 dismantled houses. Then follows minigame on the arrows where you need to hit the robots and not hit the Informaniak. Then we are given a tip that the remaining pages should be looked for in the Middle Ages. We jump into the portal that appears on the water and get where we need to go. IN minigame as a diver we collect blocks from the bottom to build a bridge, which allows us to fight in a tournament against the black knight in minigame. Suddenly, after defeat, the dark knight does not give up and begins to fire at us from cannons. Once again minigame destroy all the guns. Great, we got another page, let’s go back. Now we are sent to another portal, behind which lies another island of jungle and desert, or, more simply put, a set Adventure Island, or Oleg island Lego island in reverse. Not a single modern bucket will pull out the logs from the effects of smoke from the crater of a volcano. If you are stuck somewhere in the desert, then a scorpion sting will save you.

Let’s return to our minigames…plots. We will be met by two new characters and immediately sent on a chase, because snakes are chasing us. IN minigame we shoot back from them and leave, so that we can then pass minigame in the tomb. Now, having obtained the key to another tomb, we go through it minigame to match the pictures, and then steal the required Blockpedia page and run away from the ball hello Indiana Jones. We are going by car to minigame with very jerky controls, because the game is designed for low FPS. We reached the lake and you know what to do? That’s right, fun fishing in minigame. We got another page and we’re going into the jungle. I said let’s go? We’re flying to minigame on a cornfield while monkeys throw bananas at you. Arrived? Then we jump on the T-REX and run through the obstacles in minigame. We got there? HEY, build a hot air balloon and save the dinosaurs from the cages of the evil local villain. Just kidding, there is no need to build, but minigame There is. Page mined How? and you can go back.

Everything fell into place, even the children got their ball back, but the Brickster took our parents and flew to the moon, and even scattered robots that don’t just get knocked out by being hit by a pizza. Then we take the speaker with us and wait in the most boring way until the robots get tired of dancing, so that we can break them then. Minus dancing, which means it’s time to save your parents. Let’s go to minigame young cosmonaut course and already in another minigame learning to jump from a parachute. We jump on the rocket and go into space through a bunch of asteroids in minigame. We land on the moon with a parachute, in the same minigame, then we find the parents and prepare pizza for the robots guarding them you won’t guess minigame. Now you can climb into the Brickster tower, but you need to climb in minigame along the circular staircase. Here I killed 5 minutes versus 33 seconds of the speedrunner. Let’s go up and just throw pizza at the Brickster. Returning home in the castscene. We are kissed and greeted by a girl who was not in the game. But all this doesn’t matter, because the Brickster is making his own tunnel from prison. End.

Minigame with a chase https://casinosportingbet.co.uk from snakes is completed by simply holding down the shoot button. All snakes sooner or later jump under the endless fire of the protagonist.

That is, the plot is a mess of a plot LEGO Island, references to Indiana Jones, The Wizard of Oz, 2001: A Space Odyssey and NINETEEN MINI-GAMES. Plus, there are technical bugs and long download times.

Version for the first PlayStation was cut down in general, there is no fishing and parachute jumping, very severe bugs and more suffering on the spiral staircase at the end. In the Russian version, action icons such as getting into a boat or speaking are not displayed. Sometimes it’s better to play, sometimes it’s worse. This is the last LEGO game to come out on PS.

Version GBC was made by another developer, so this is a completely different game: there is a subway and pirates, new characters, stealth Kojima suck, enemies are knocked down, but no more. You can even collect cards and exchange them with friends. It had its own map:

And to the version for GBA put his hand in Dean Roskell, which we will return to in more detail in Island Xtreme Stunts. In this version, for some unknown reason, you can only walk on the sidewalk; it doesn’t go on any roads. An original quest with local minigames + 10 old ones has been released. Essentially it’s a mixture PC And GBC versions. Even the map is different:

In fact, a game is a game. You can play it, have fun, get mad at the difficulty and complete it. But why is she better then? Rabbit School 1999 ..?

When installing games, I cried, because with such a screen I sat and watched when the scale was filled to the end. This overall style evokes genuine anticipation and love:

As the classic said:

The memories of the fishing mission remain in my childhood brain, because then I did not understand the controls of this minigame and the goal. Burn it all now with a blue flame in my soul.

It’s worth starting with a short excursion into the designer itself. Any Lego set is divided into topics and subtopics, the rights to which the company must renew in order to release the corresponding products. For example, the first part LEGO Racers was the subject Race 1985-2000 and, with the release of the sequel to the game, the theme Racers 2001-2012 became independent, and a subtopic appeared Xarax 2001, which is the final stage in LEGO Racers 2.

I have a personal nostalgia for Xarax, which could be shot from their original set using rubber bands. Fast, small and simple. What amused me more was not the cars themselves, but the triangular packaging from them, which folded very coolly:

Xarax this word is a palindrome.

The game itself will begin with the creation of a character or the selection of a ready-made one. Creating your own is quite pleasant, like collecting a piece in life. You also have to choose to build your own or choose a ready-made car. Transport is assembled like instructions, which blurs the boundaries between the game and sets in life, but just like in life, we are free to put some parts ourselves wherever we want. There is also a game convention with a limit on the number of these spare parts, but even with one body on wheels you can go, and there is a limit of up to 20 parts.

Here the problem arises that most players, including me, take ready-made cars, because one way or another the process of creating a car is long and not very convenient, although not poorly visualized.

At the moment of completing character creation, we are thrown into an open world with dynamic weather and side quests to collect items or deliver passengers to improve the car. Improvement is good, of course, but the enemies don’t stand still either, so the feeling of progress is only in the speed numbers. The weather is great, but it causes the wildest lags for me and from the press of those times. But even so it is possible to enjoy the physics of the car in flight.

A few words about the plot: yes Racer from the first part, whom we overtook at the end of career mode. He is sad about this fact, so he transforms in a trance and flies off into the world Xarax, where he declares himself the champion of all worlds.

We had 5 locations, 24 routes, 17 opponents and 4 bosses to complete. Each location is painstakingly recreated from real Lego sets, except for the world Xarax, which is the arena. In each world you can choose only one type of transport.

Scattered throughout the world are side missions and gold bricks that will be used for the same purposes later in LEGO Star Wars. If you collect all 35, then in the final there will be fireworks and that’s it. In the process of a clean passage without side effects, approximately 2/3 of them are collected among speedrunners.

In a side mission to collect balloons in the Arctic, if you collect 5 out of 5 balloons that can be carried in the vehicle, the car will fly away.

But all this is a prelude to the coolest children’s arcade races with destructibility transport. And the car breaks down down to the last detail, and then all you have to do is run on foot to the pit stop. And for balance, when strength is lost, nitro is given. It’s very easy to get injured: with any jump or striking a wall/opponent/dinosaurs in the jungle, not to mention the heaps of bonuses placed throughout the track. Now bonuses look like a white brick and you can either stop the bonus roulette on time and get the one you need, or wait and get a bonus corresponding to your position. The further you are from the leading position of the race, the better the bonus will be. There are 7 of them in total and all are configured to either slow down/destroy the enemy, or speed up/protect themselves.

Six of the bonuses have an alternative use. So you can drive onto a torpedo and fly; use invisibility to steal other people’s bonuses; and shoot the disc backwards.

The game is not without problems. For example, you can’t drive past a checkpoint, but this is very easy with local physics in an open location. Even so, there is a race with ETTY, ring RAMPS and areas with ZERO GRAVITY.
Alas, technical shortcomings took their toll, which had a bad effect on the ratings of the press and users compared to the first part. Even the music playing now in the background is not taken from LEGO Racers 2, and from the first part.

This game holds a special place in my heart, but now I couldn’t run it with normal FPS, which is why I had to watch several longplays and speedruns. Fans like me still love this game. Even StopGame users subscribe to this:

The version for GBA is the same in fact, but with minor differences. And the version for PS2 started for me like this:

My favorite kids arcade racer is Pac-Man World Rally, which I remembered during the writing process, downloaded it, played a couple of modes and cried.

And Gleb, Vasya, finally answer:

The further into the wilds… The LEGO company changed its slogan from "Just imagine…" on "Play", but they don’t fit in with games. In the same year, the second episode of Star Wars will be released, which for our history of the series is a return report to that very game..
It came out missing in this particular part of the history of the series Soccer Mania/Football Mania. And now let’s return to creepy and strange new projects, the release of which is accompanied by a TV show.

Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension

Again it’s worth starting from afar. First of all, this game is an adaptation of a TV series. Secondly, LEGO signed up for this and published toys. The toys were a failure, which is explained in detail in English here. If you don’t have time or don’t know English, that’s okay, I’ll just leave a photo of the toy that’s already in front of your eyes:

And we are here for games, so we lowered expectations below the Mariana Trench, from a failed series that didn’t even finish the first season, from a failed series of toys, and from a game that didn’t pay off.

Inside the game it becomes scary already in the menu picture called. You still need to get used to the local graphics. The plot is simple: we control the ship with our feet in a spatial tunnel, we get hit, we lose almost all our friends and we need to get them back, collecting a space egg along the way.

One of the main character’s friends’ name is KEK.

The main character named Nick Bluetooth stylish, fashionable, youthful has the ability to glyTcha: by killing enemies, gain their abilities. By killing a jock you can get a bitsuha, and by crushing a frog you get its legs with a high jump height. These abilities are needed to complete platform sections. In addition to the above, you can get a grappling hook, a blaster and wings that will appear directly on the hero, but the time of their use is limited by the energy knocked out of enemies. It seems like there is pumping here, but for this you need to collect a lot of flasks scattered throughout the level. The controls are not subject to change, so you will have to jump to “L” until the end of the game, but overall it’s convenient. The grappling hook is also technically poorly implemented, because of which I abandoned the passage, and because of which speedrunners lose minutes to complete the passage.

When receiving damage, the hero sounds exactly like a character from LEGO Star Wars.

In terms of gameplay abilities, this game reminds me of "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs", and in terms of complexity "Chicken Little". How about the series itself? "Legend of the Seeker". I liked it because it was the first game that launched without lag and without minigames. Well, there is an obvious gameplay similarity with LEGO Star Wars does his own thing. Collect “coins”, kill enemies, easy platforming using the hero’s features and cast scenes at the forefront.

Personally, I had a problem finding the menu button – PAUSE. You can’t save during missions, and the camera is located on the numpad, which is missing on my laptop, but the auto camera saves the day.

Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension also went to GBA and satisfied with the quality. She was going to be released on PS2 and on G.C, but financial failures decided everything for the publisher.

Island Xtreme Stunts

Dean Roskell. In my opinion, this is an exhaustive description for this game, but for those who don’t know, I’ll explain. He was the producer and chief designer Island Xtreme Stunts on PC And GBA, and in the future he will participate in the development Dragon Age: Inquisition And Mass Effect: Andromeda killer designer.

Initially, back then LEGO Island 3, was about the Silk Road in the footsteps of Marco Polo, but after doing some market tests we were fired, but hired to do a threequel differently. The design of this game, unlike Lego Island 2, should have been more like Zelda Ocarina of Time,.. then he retells the concept one by one The Legend of Zelda 1986

As a result, the game was renamed Island Xtreme Stunts for marketing reasons, and the word LEGO as such is not in the name itself.

In general, to the game. Finally, you can move faster on a skateboard than on foot. You can do tricks on a skateboard. BUT, according to the speedrun, high fps does not allow you to do tricks, so you need a lock of 60. All this is needed on the way from one minigame to another. Each of which must be completed 3 times.

This is the map we made initially. Unfortunately, due to lack of time and resources, we had to focus on mini-games. There is no human energy left for the gameplay of the island itself.

The game has a Toy function, described above in LEGO Island 2, there are shadows and scary faces from the uncanny valley. In the version on GBA there was no usual method of movement, but there was a more complicated system of passing not the most convenient mini-games several times. I need to talk more about how bad everything is?

The game did not start on PC, I had a black screen on the emulator PS2, A GBA this version is simply unbearable. As IGN said in their review of this game, “There are better titles for kids.”.