LEGO World First Impressions

When LEGO Worlds arrived in the mail courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment Canada, I was pretty excited. The LEGO games have been a household staple since before my boys were even born; even my wife has enjoy the odd LEGO game from time to time – especially LEGO City Undercover on the Wii U! With no prior knowledge of LEGO World, as I had avoided the steam early access release, I quickly realized this isn’t your typical LEGO game.

Graphics

The number one complaint I’ve heard about LEGO Worlds is that the game doesn’t look as good as other LEGO titles. To that I would say, I agree. But this isn’t like other LEGO games. While a lot of LEGO games are made out of LEGO, you could argue that half – if not more than half – are actually just backdrops, props, and environmental landscapes that are NOT actually made of LEGO. Therefore, you can have the rolling hills of the LEGO Lord of the Rings titles, or the neat hallways of Hogwarts. LEGO Worlds is 100% made of LEGO bricks, and worlds can be totally disassembled if the player wanted to. For that reason, this game lacks the smooth edges finish of your average LEGO games, so it looks different, not necessarily worse.

When playing through a forest level in the story of LEGO Worlds, the game was having hard time keeping up with the map. When you land in any given world, the map generates as you walk, usually giving you a fairly decent look ahead of yourself. After a few hours – and a few custom buildings – I noticed that I could walk to the edge of my current playing area, while the game attempted to load what should be showing up next. It was rather frustrating, but it was the only time this happened.

There are also a number of frame rate issues which I expect to be patched in a fix soon. They are not game breaking in any way, but should be noted none-the-less.

The Gameplay

I hate Minecraft with a passion, so I was skeptical of LEGO Worlds once I got going. However, my love for LEGO overtook my hatred for crafting, and before I knew it, I was crafting houses and towers and having a blast doing it. I’ve heard from those playing on PC that this is a title that needed a controller. From what I’ve played on Xbox One, I can assume this is true. The controls are easy to understand and to master, and creating my own builds was much easier than I thought it would ever be.

Initial Thoughts

Overall, despite the graphical problems I have had, and the performance issues, I’m having a great time. I’ll dive into the nitty gritty of everything in our review – how to get items, buy items, etc. – but for now, if you love LEGO and building things, this game is a must own.