Imagine an MMO RPG where you venture through fantastic worlds with great environment variety, fun enemies, and an entertaining story. I know, this description fits most good MMOs, so now imagine that in this MMO you get to play as one of over a hundred different characters, each with his or her own skills, special moves and powers, and you’ve got the new LEGO game, Funcom’s LEGO Minifigures Online (LMO) (Free), the iOS version of the original computer game. The game offers a variety of fun worlds and environments, one included with the game and four more as IAPs, an incredible amount of ridiculous characters to play as, and the usual LEGO gameplay fare of fighting, smashing, and building.
Now, not all is rosy; the game has plenty of performance issues with huge slowdowns and not very rare crashes that can really mess with your fun, especially when playing as part of a three-player group. Also, while the game controls well overall, issues such as the auto-targeting system having too strong of an opinion can annoy. And, finally, in its attempt to make the game safe for children, Funcom limited the social interactions between players, which makes this online game more fun when playing LAN style (in a room with other people) but really hurts the multiplayer element when playing online with random players. Despite these issues, if you like LEGO games and you have friends or family to play with, this game belongs in your collection.
As we wrote about recently, LMO started out as a F2P computer game geared mostly towards younger players. The game primarily focused on collecting the many Minifigures and building a team of three to explore the various environments. However, Funcom’s initial attempt didn’t pan out the way the company wanted to, so it reimagined the game and released it for computers and mobile. The developers added voice-overs, cinematic cut-scenes, and scripted events, and also switched from F2P to premium. While the game is definitely geared towards younger players (upon registering, the game asked me to make sure my parents allow me to play LMO) as it has a very smooth difficulty curve, an abundance of health to be found around each level, and a relatively-basic gameplay, I found it quite fun, especially since I’ve been a fan of LEGO since I was a kid. So, I’d have to agree with Funcom’s claim that LMO is a game for people of all ages.
The game’s presentation easily stands as its most endearing feature, oozing with the plasticky charm that only LEGO toys possess (at least in my opinion). The game invokes a childlike sense of wonder while still managing to have good level design that, in traditional LEGO fashion, transitions from theme to theme with ease. You might be walking across a land filled with pirates and find an ice cream truck, and it still won’t appear weird. Some might say that this theme incoherence feels out of place in an MMO, especially gamers used to playing the Skyrim’s and WOW‘s of the world, and up to a point they are correct as a game’s theme often helps player immersion. However, theme consistency in an MMO can also tire considering the number of hours players spend playing games like those. So, LMO‘s abilitiy to mix-and-match themes creates a refreshing MMO that becomes visually stimulating in a way that most other MMOs cannot achieve. The game’s graphics are relatively sharp and not too downgraded from the PC version, although the square-ish nature of LEGO toys is definitely forgiving. The game’s music is also quite lovely, with cute and context-appropriate music themes accompanying your Minifigures’ actions.
Speaking of Minifigures, part of LMO‘s fun is collecting and assembling the over one hundred Minifigures the game offers. The Minifigures come in three main categories, Defender, Striker, and Builder, all of them pretty self-explanatory. All figures can attack or build, but, for example, if you need to build a cannon to shoot at pirates coming to shore, a Builder will do it much faster than a Defender. The different figures have a crazy variety of skills that can really alter the way you play the game; one has a bouncing laser gun while another can slow incoming enemies with honey. You can collect Minifigures either by completing quests, assembling them from the various pieces you find along the way, or even from buying real-life Minifigures, and you can very easily change the Minifigures in your group of three according to how you want to play the game or which ones entertain you the most (and some are truly fun to watch). You can level up each figure by using the stars you earn through smashing everything in sight, although the upgrades are pretty similar for all figures and include skills like having more damage, dealing more damage, moving faster, and so on. The developers have stated they didn’t want to create a complex upgrade system to avoid confusing younger players, but the leveling up system still allows for some customization.
The way LMO controls also shows that the developers wanted the game to be accessible by all. You control your minifigure either by tapping on the screen or using the on-screen joystick, and you can attack and use your skills using the buttons on the right side of the screen. The buttons are pretty responsive as us the joystick, but I wish they were a bit more customizable in terms of screen placement and size. Also, the auto-targeting mode, obviously there to help younger players, can often force you to attack the wrong target, for example you might try to kill the enemy boss but the game insists on forcing you to attack the goons around him. And there’s occasionally a small delay when switching minifigures, which doesn’t help much when you are under attack by five skeletons, two tigers, and a few monkeys. The menus are colorful and well designed and display all the necessary information without forcing you to dig much. The Minifigure information screen shows you the character’s skills, his description, and even a fun paragraph that situates that character within the LEGO universe.
The game’s story is surprisingly entertaining and with good production values. LMO uses strong voice-actors that help the story come alive, the game abounds with cut-scenes, and there’s plenty of humor throughout. The story’s pace is good and doesn’t drag, and all the side-quests are short but fun, with most of the goals being of the “smash all of X" or “kill all of Y" variety but with some original ones too like having to build cannons to shoot at little boat targets. To be honest, I was surprised at how coherent the whole story was, and how it guided the player along a fun and not too restrictive path.
Keeping in mind how huge and ambitious LMO is, I wasn’t surprised to encounter quite a few technical issues and glitches. I’ve been playing the game on my iPad Air, and still I’ve had quite a few slowdowns. Also, I’ve had crashes and freezes, which you can endure in a single player game but can be quite annoying when you are playing with other people. To Funcom’s credit, the company has been updating the game constantly the last few days, and I can already see some improvements; however, the problems persist, and they are definitely harming the whole cross-platform aspect of the game as they make playing with PC friends slightly awkward.
Even without the performance issues, the multiplayer side of LMO isn’t the most enthralling because in favor of making the game child safe (which it truly is), Funcom decided to limit player interactivity. Adding friends to your group is very easy, as you can see every other player in your area and add them with the tap of a button, and you can even add specific friends or family by using their player codes. However, LMO doesn’t offer a sense of a team as you can’t really communicate with other players; in a way, they might as well be NPCs. I understand the need to protect children online, but you can’t have a fun MMO without good player communication.
Finally, when it comes to monetization decisions, Funcom’s designers gave an interesting interview over at Gamespot where they explained their decision to switch from F2P to premium. Apparently, they were tired of having to put their content behind walls, and they wanted to set players’ parents at ease by removing any worries regarding children buying IAPs as if the world’s ending tomorrow. Also, they claim it’s harder to make a F2P game than a premium one because “you feel kind of dirty when you’re creating a microtransactions-based game." I have to admit, I enjoyed entering a game’s shop that only contains 4 items, the extra worlds, priced at $2.99 each rather than a long list of IAPs. With around $17, you can get an enormous game and play it without worrying about pay walls (although you still need to reach a certain level to unlock a new world, pretty much like most MMOs).
Overall, LMO is a pretty fun game with a great amount of content that will entertain young and old(er) gamers. The many, many Minifigures also trigger the need to “collect them all," which adds another layer to the game. The game’s not perfect, with technical issues marring the game’s entertainment value, especially when playing with others. For me though, the biggest disappointment of the game is the relative lack of interaction with other players, which detracts from one of the game’s greatest features, its MMO nature. However, if you can play the game with players in the same room, you will have a lot of fun traversing through the crazy worlds of the LEGO universe.
