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The LEGO Movie Videogame
coffins and 7 others reacted to McJobless for a blog entry
Before we start; I don't like to insult or say harsh things about Game Developers. They work hard, long hours with minimal pay, and usually to little payoff. I'm sure with this game they worked their absolute hardest. However, I don't think it's right to ever let a game just slide away with cardinal sins, and so I will be brutal if need be. Not because I hate the devs, but because I hope that, if I can't teach them what's wrong, I can help prevent future devs from making the same mistakes. Furthermore, this is my first TT Game since LEGO Star Wars The Complete Saga. I'm ashamed right now. I'm ashamed of the fact I'm a Game Designer. I'm ashamed of the fact I'm a LEGO fan. I'm ashamed of the fact I wasted 10 hours on a game that may just be the very antithesis of my existence. The LEGO Movie was incredible, to say the least. In my own opinion, a film that can start right in the ranks of Disney and Pixar classics, and my own personal favourite animated movie of all time. It was a film that went beyond simple product-placement and actually gave us significant, strong messages and a story filled with laughs, tears and heaps of heart-warming moments. The LEGO Movie Video Game has none of these. You're getting no images with this review. If I had to slog through this thing in its entirety, you can slog through my raving and ranting as payback. I went into this game hoping for the best. I ignored the comments and reviews, and I simply hoped that TT would do this game justice. A perfect trifecta between Movie, Game and Toys is virtually unknown in modern times. The LEGO Movie is an incredible movie as discussed before, and the LEGO sets for the movie are equally as magnificent, and some of the most fun sets to build to date. This game doesn't belong. My journey started with the immediate discovery of incompetence on the UI team. "The ability to change the graphics settings? Why would anybody ever need to change those *before* you start the first level? That's crazy talk! Why, what a coincidence that EA did the exact same thing with a few of their games! It's not like we're both going to make an evil, soulless, money-sucking game, correct?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV6akps-b1k So, you finally decide to start a new game. 4 save slots is pretty standard for console ports, so I can't really fault it, especially since you'd be insane enough to even considering using one save slot and play the game. What happens next is absolutely incredible. Traveler's Tales decided the smartest thing to do was to take clips from The LEGO Movie, cut them up, compress them and play them onscreen at about 1/3 the size of the actually screen with massive black bars. And so help you if you dare want to use subtitles, those suckers will go right in the middle of the video. The definition of laze in the dictionary can probably be changed from whatever it is now to "Traveler's Tales' Business Plan". Unfortunately, what comes next explains where their entire development time was spent. TT Games assume that you're a moron. And, I don't mean a kid. Kids, unlike what many developers seem to think, are actually intelligent and can actually dissect and learn game patterns very quickly, sometimes faster than adults. Just look at the "Zelda" generation. No, TT Games assumes you're a complete nitwit who needs to be dragged along on their one-way amusement park. In fact, that's the exact feeling I got from playing this game. It's Disneyland Simulator mixed with Pants Simulator (we'll talk about that a little later). See, you've got these "Hub" worlds, and they act like the different sections of the Disneyland park. There's little mini-attractions here and there, and people begging you to spend your "hard" earned money on them, and they link up to some big rides which aren't worth the ticket price you paid to enter. Not only do they insult you with simple help messages, and not only do they use a trail of uncollectable green studs to show you the "correct" path, but the characters will go out of their way, good or bad, to tell you EXACTLY WHAT TO DO. And it's not like the challenges are incredibly difficult either. In many cases, they're telling you to do the most obvious thing you've already done multiple times in the same level. Apparently, this is linked to the "Dynamic" level of hints, which apparently makes it more annoying than "On". I decided though, in order to give you guys the best review possible, I'd stick with Dynamic, and see what'd happen. When the hints are telling you to do things that either; A) you've already done, B) are not an objective on this level or you lack the character to do something, or C) refuse to show up when they actually are required (for some new gameplay element that was not introduced properly), you know you have a very broken hint system. The saddest thing is that, the only point at which I had *some* enjoyment with the game was when the hints simply disappeared into the void. Frankly, I wish they stayed that way. Did I say that the options menu is hilariously broken yet? When an option (specifically Refresh Rate) appears twice, and you put most of your important configuration settings into an entirely different menu, you've got a big problem. And, what about those massive frame-drops during the hacking mini-game, or when you're fighting a Micro-Manager? There's just so many awful moments in this game, and one of them made the lack of attention to QA apparent. I was in Cloud Cuckooland, and I had already been introduced to characters sliding whenever they touched uneven terrain. It was an animation bug, but not major. It didn't become a problem until I was supposed to face off with a robot goon with a rocket launcher. I had just gotten Unikitty and Wildstyle stuck in separate parts of the geometry (don't ask me how), and Benny lacked a gun at this point, so I couldn't kill them to reset them. The robot goon needed to shoot these three silver objects, and to do that, you need to move your character behind each object and let him fire upon it "by accident". Simple enough, right? Apparently TT Games felt it in the best interest to send any competent programmers on holidays early before they decided to code the robot goon's AI. The Goon looks for the character in the shortest distance to itself, and fires upon that. Of course, both Unikitty and Wildstyle, who were stuck in geometry, happened to be closer to the Goon than Benny. Eventually I got Wildstyle unstuck, only to encounter the same problem, but not because of Unikitty. Because either Wildstyle or Benny would sometimes, when controlled by the AI, stray to the side of the silver objects a little bit, apparently that counted as them being closer to the Goon, who would then shoot promptly to the side of the silver object. Everything is tedious with TT. Hell, this same AI problem occurred with a code section later in the game. The game has two of those annoying, badly designed jumping puzzles, where you need to jump onto the correct buttons in sequence, with the camera in a locked position at an awkward angle while you still have platforming physics. Unikitty felt she needed to be the star of the show while I was trying to complete the nine digit code however, and so it took a LOT of attempts of trying to move Unikitty, who would quickly move back onto the keypad. I could go on about the AI, but there's far more problems. We don't even need to continue discussing the repetitive gameplay; TT tried to mix it up by adding platforming sections (with wall-kicks and climbing), turret sections, falling-through-space sections and more, but everyone of these new mechanics is both one-dimensional and wasted. Nothing is coherent or consistent. It feels as though TT tried to build this game out of a LEGO Duplo, a LEGO Friends and a LEGO Junior set, and couldn't quite figure out why the parts didn't stick together right. Anyone who plays Ratchet & Clank would remember the huge amounts of inflation between R&C and R&C3. What happened was that instead of making a single bolt worth a single bolt, Insomniac gave the engine leeway to come up with appropriate, random number values, so that the player wasn't constantly having to collect single bolt after single bolt. This was to avoid repetitiveness and make people feel more powerful due to the larger numbers. I can't quite figure out why TT Games have attempted the same thing, but they did, and it's jarring to say the least. The stud values remain the same; silver for 10, gold for 100, blue for 1000 and purple for 10,000. For some reason, though, in 10 minutes of play, I was already pushing 200,000 studs. The massive increase in inflation has naturally caused character prices to explode, with the most expensive costing a million a piece, and the lowest ones between 50,000 and 200,000. Let's just talk about the characters in this game. TT Games proudly boasts how they have so many characters. Something like 90? Less than the amount they have in Star Wars: The Complete Saga though. The process of purchasing new characters is a real pain the rear. After collecting the "appropriate" amount of studs, you must either find the character in the world, or open the character selection screen (which seems to be available when it feels like, rather than when it should), scroll over to them, press the button twice, and then watch a long and pointless animation as it purchases your character. So help you if you want to buy more than one character, because you'll be waiting at that menu for a long time. The increase in potential party characters is nice, if only wasted. You're only allowed extra party members in certain locations based on the story (and how much memory TT managed to waste on background effects). They can sometimes help, but usually you only need two people, and for most of the game you'll find yourself playing with two characters. The weirdest thing is they've modified the AI; firstly, the AI makes little to no attempt to follow you when you need it to, and vice-verse. It could be because this new system is supposed to allow you to have two characters doing actions at the same time and allow for seamless transitions, but it really doesn't work as advertised. Secondly, the AI is now capable of killing everything except the last enemy in the room. And, when I say it can't kill the last enemy, what I mean is that it stubbornly refuses to take any action at all. It just stands there like an garish rapscallion, watching you try to do the menial task of the hour and getting interrupt by the enemy. There really is just so much narm I want to talk about, but for size I'll need to cut down; the hacking minigame is the one mechanic I actually had FUN with, but it was less a "I'm so excited to be doing this!" fun and more like a "At least this is better than the crap I was doing before..." fun. The Pants mechanic, which allows you to have permanent special abilities for characters that wear pants (think the Star Wars hats if they were combined with powerups). The very lowest aspect of the game, and the one that highlights my argument the best is both the Master Builds and the Construction Builds. Master Builds simply require you to swing the camera around three times and then let go of a button. How that even constitutes as gameplay is beyond me. The Construction Builds, on the other hand, require you to look at a model, then look at a bunch of parts and select the one that should fit. Easy, right? Oh wait, there's a timelimit that's counting down your stud reward for both taking your time and getting the answer wrong. Oh wait, the controls are both hyper-sensetive and super-sluggish, so your chance of selecting the correct button quickly is very low. Oh wait, it regularly makes the bricks flip over and distorts them in some way to make selection harder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07So_lJQyqw The worst part, however, is the story. I'm going to be very blunt. It's bad. It's terrible. What Traveler's Tales do probably isn't Game Development. I think they may actually be butchers who just discovered how to use a computer. The amount of story they chopped up, jokes they ruined and the clearest and saddest irony of how The LEGO Movie Videogame goes completely against the morals and messages of The LEGO Movie, to the point they actually cut out the sequences in the movie that talk about those morals and messages is just pure disgusting. I'm going to wrap up here without even mentioning the other plethora of problems, because the longer I stay here to write the sicker I get. This game is a success. It's on a level of success far higher than Bioshock or Spec Ops: The Line. What it deconstructs is the art of lazy game making. It shows us, up front and center the grim reality of what the industry has become, and gives the player a chance to come to their senses and realise their mistake. Except, that was all unintentional. This is clearly the worst game I've played. Unlike Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing or WarZ, this wasn't made by people who were technically and theoretically incompetent. TT Games are responsible for my favourite Crash Bandicoot game of all time. This isn't due to a lack of good source material or assets, since The LEGO Group would have given them everything they needed, and the core message and ideas of the Movie were some of the strongest I've seen in a long while. What we have here is a game that blindly lies to your face; it shows you an experience that looks fun, but lacks any kind of subtance, and yet assumes it can stand amongst the greats. It abuses the LEGO logo, using that to ride the waves of success, without realising the deadly whirlpool of boredom that it's surfing over. The recent trend for big developers is to stop being creative and be safe, and do things as fast possible, over trying to do things to the credit of the idea (i.e. giving the original idea the respect it deserves). This game encapsulates everything wrong with that trend. The saddest thing is that you can tell people tried, but for whatever reason, the management of this game was lacking, and every fault in this product can be squarely blamed on the Creative Director. This game, and all TT Games as of recent seem to be stuck in the same trend as many, MANY developments. Instead of studying why a mechanic works, they look at how it works, and try to copy it without realising what made the mechanic fun in the first place. That's become extremely evident here. Do not buy this game. If you really must, watch videos on YouTube. Watch the Movie and then move on with your lives, because this is one experience you do not need to have.8 points -
Shale Monster
Seaborgium and 6 others reacted to Fush for a topic
HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I LOVE MIXELS RECENTLY? YES? WELL TOO BAD. The cragsters reminded me of rock monsters... so I built a rock monster out of them ^_^ It's similar in scale to the old single-piece monsters, maybe a bit larger, and it is fully articulate ^_^ I actually built this months ago and never bothered to post it. But now I have!7 points -
Having problems with IXS? Try enabling VSync (also, Anti-Aliasing)
lukas.tcn and 3 others reacted to lol username for a topic
A while back, in another topic, intrepidowl mentioned that he was able to force VSync on Island Xtreme Stunts in his graphics control panel, to fix its framerate issue: This can fix quite a lot of issues the game may have - broken physics, extremely sensitive skateboard grinding, boats and airplanes breaking the game, Wave Catcher being nearly unplayable, etc. Other things to try include enabling compatibility mode and running without a disc. Another nice little thing you can enable while you're in the graphics control panel is enabling anti-aliasing, which IXS doesn't normally have. The details of doing this depend on what sort of video card you have, just poke around and see what you find.4 points -
2 points
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Darth Plagueis - Hidden in The Complete Saga.
RobberBaron reacted to MaelstromIslander for a topic
i have researched on LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga while looking for information on unused content, i ended up on a wiki called The Cutting Room Floor, and here's what i read; According to this, the sith master who trained Darth Sidious was to appear in the game after reaching 100% progress, maybe something to do with that golden fountain. But, what interested me in this was how no one tried to access him, i thought you guys could hack inside Complete Saga, and at least pull out his model/texture, if you can't even play as him... Edit: Just so you all know, he's only on the Wii version.1 point -
Shadowblaze's Music Central
coffins reacted to Shadowblaze for a topic
Here I'm going to post all of my new tracks, along with some of the ones I made a blog for some time ago. My channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ShadowblazeLU/featured I am waiting for a friend to finish the visualizer to upload my next videos. Meanwhile, here's some old tracks: Truxican Standoff Inspired by Borderlands 2, it's some sort of weird DnB, Rock, Ambiance and Hardcore mix. Not my best music, but still. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNXgJn_v4y4 Jukebot A wonky Drumstep track with Reggae and Chiptune infuences. It is pretty uplifting and it has nice melodies. I could have boosted the mids in the main bass but whatever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiDuxZwYnqs Panther This dark, fast Drumstep track lacks of big melodies, but it has a pretty big drop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laiTdDaM8QU A LANDSLIDE HAS OCCURRED (ft. Chief) "Behold what a mad composer can do with an annoying LEGO Rock Raiders sound glitch." - c24 (aka me) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlUglQT4H5M1 point -
New Easy Simple Training Map. Crystal_Cloning.
Cyrem reacted to RockRaiderWolf for a topic
The name came from the fact that prior to realizing that the extra buildings provide plenty of energy crystals I had planned (and still do plan) to attempt to write a script that spawns an energy crystal on the tutorial block whenever there is not one already there. Anyway this map starts you off with one of every building access to plenty of crystals to power them and then another FIVE support stations to allow you to bring down a large number of raiders for you to train. You should have all you need to train your army! Note:it is an expanded version of the level one map. Objective: collect 35 energy crystals. DOWNLOAD here (Updated April 15th 2014) PS: anyone else think it's annoying to only be able to tell one raider to go train even when you select multiple? __________________________________________________________________________ EDIT: I created the script to spawn a crystal at the block when there is not one but, it only seems to do it once. Anyone know how to make it repeat the function (shown below)? Edit: Updated to include the things I had forgotten. (mentioned in post yesterday at 11:00)1 point -
The LEGO Movie Videogame
ProNoob13 reacted to Alcom Isst for a blog entry
While this is almost asking for you to write the converse of your review, what changes would you, McJobless, propose to fix the LEGO Movie Video Game, and would these changes keep the game within its budget?1 point -
Shale Monster
STUDZ reacted to coffins for a topic
Dude, don't be rude...no body gives a Sh** about that in this topic, also stay on topic... Nice MOC Fush, I like the looks of that articulation, you make me want to get Mixels... I'm not rude, vice versa, I said that I like it. By the way, Spaghetti Monster was just simple joke, which is on the status-bar, at the index page of forums. Yes, yes you are rude for bragging...and you're still off topic. If it was born on the status, leave it in the status. Okay.1 point -
Shale Monster
Fush reacted to The Ace Railgun for a topic
Dude, don't be rude...no body gives a Sh** about that in this topic, also stay on topic... Nice MOC Fush, I like the looks of that articulation, you make me want to get Mixels... I'm not rude, vice versa, I said that I like it. By the way, Spaghetti Monster was just simple joke, which is on the status-bar, at the index page of forums. Yes, yes you are rude for bragging...and you're still off topic. If it was born on the status, leave it in the status.1 point -
What are you listening to right now?
RobExplorien reacted to Fush for a topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySjXFjLTagQ1 point -
Shale Monster
Fush reacted to The Ace Railgun for a topic
Dude, don't be rude...no body gives a Sh** about that in this topic, also stay on topic... Nice MOC Fush, I like the looks of that articulation, you make me want to get Mixels...1 point -
Get drawn
Ayliffe reacted to Ben24x7 for a topic
O.T. *Slaps face* Okay, listen up, click on your profile picture in the top left corner (to go to your profile page) then click on 'edit my profile'. Scroll down until you find 'Memeber Title' and type in what you want there (there is a word limit by the way).1 point -
Get drawn
STUDZ reacted to aidenpons for a topic
The drawing of McSpudz... That is simple great Fushigisaur. It is one of the best drawings I've ever seen you make. You got that wonderful drawing from your own mind, totally not ripping of anything else with it. It is great. It is one of the best things I've seen. Better than McJobless, more hilarious than le717, this is an excellent drawing. The curve there! How that resembles a potato! And the 0% cheap pink ears are surely what everyone has on the side of their head. This is a monument to your drawings, and I bow humbly before you in reverence of this fantastical drawing. You deserve it, for this wonderful drawing you have made. O.T. *changes profile picture to it and sets Member Title to 'In Mockery of McSpudz'* O.T. Someone says "Enough! Fushigisaur has failed us. Aidenpons makes a mockery of us!... Those proxies can withstand any assualt! *argument carries on* We should defend this topic and expect an assualt in Forum Games! I daresay that'd be quite a feat... Even for the great high lord Cirevam. (Note: MASSIVE in-joke. Yell at me if you get it. It's not meant as an offence in any way.)1 point -
PAX South in San Antonio, TX
STUDZ reacted to Tauka Usanake for a topic
So I just learned (an in an amazing amount of time too!) that the Penny Arcade Expo is coming to San Antonio, TX as PAX South. My own hometown. Now personally I'm surprised that we got it and not Austin (those fags get everything), especially seeing that San Antonio is NOTHING IMPORTANT. We had one battle during the Texas Revolution that we LOST. We were so stuck up on ourselves having a single cannon to defend with. History lesson aside, this means something to Texas and the whole of the south to some extent. I'll most likely be attending it if I'm able to. It arrves here in January 23-25, 2015. Source: http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/12/5607624/pax-south-in-san-antonio-announced-for-january-20151 point -
Mario gloves
Wognif reacted to Yajmo for a gallery image
From the album: Creations
for that physical MOC I started forever ago1 point -
LEGO Magazines!
emily reacted to Brickulator for a topic
I keep forgetting I said I might scan some Adventures mags. I'm at home for a few weeks so I'll have a look and see which ones I actually have. I also have some club magazines stashed somewhere. Might just spread all the lego magazines I can find out on the floor and take a picture so you can see what I have1 point -
Gypsy Moth's car
aidenpons reacted to lol username for a topic
What's wrong with grey? Anyway, it's probably done with vertex colors. You'd have to open the chassis model in a hex editor and poke it with a stick until it looks like you want.1 point -
Get drawn
aidenpons reacted to STUDZ for a topic
AND YA THOUGHT I WOULDN'T NOTICE, YOU UNCULTURED SWINE.1 point -
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RRU Quotes 2: Reckoning
aidenpons reacted to Zephyria for a topic
"I want Bruce Willis to die of a Viagra Overdose just so I can see the headline 'Bruce Willis Dies Hard'" -Will Kirkby (Origamiguy, I think) "Wikiwiki sounds like a euphemism for sex"1 point -
RRU Quotes 2: Reckoning
noghiri reacted to McJobless for a topic
jamesster : (12 April 2014 - 02:19 PM) Even if somebody's a tad harsh they might have a good point, no need to moan in statuses and the chat about how you're sad and reporting them Car CrazeXVI : (12 April 2014 - 02:27 PM) And that's why the kangaroo-loving douche-bag with purple hair is still here.1 point -
About this Blog
aidenpons reacted to lol username for a blog entry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h93IbFwDHGA1 point -
LL-947 Space Defender
Ayliffe reacted to Jimbob for a topic
Nice construction! I love the use of sideways building to achieve the wings, that's some really awesome stuff right there, and the front lights too are a clever addition. Good integration of the cockpit too, it adds a lot of vertical height but you've made it fit in place well. Benny would be proud.1 point -
LL-947 Space Defender
Ayliffe reacted to The Ace Railgun for a topic
This looks nice, I like the shape, it kind of reminds me of an A-wing for some reason, or a reverse Y-Wing (a combo of both?)...1 point -
1 point
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LL-947 Space Defender
Ayliffe reacted to aidenpons for a topic
I saw this, and I was just like "wow, that looks like a real Lego set." I always wondered about the lack of weapons on both Blacktron AND the space guys' ships. Wait a minute; where'd you get those blue telephones from? This is one fantastically great Lego set MOC.1 point -
LL-947 Space Defender
Ayliffe reacted to Pranciblad for a topic
This is probably one of my favorite Neo-Classic Space designs that I've seen. Clean lines, a unique profile that stands out from other ships, and lots of detail without feeling visually cluttered. The only thing I can find wrong with it is that you've put mixed old and new light gray pieces in the wings, resulting in a small but noticeable mismatch in color. However, I can understand if you have limited pieces. Nice work!1 point -
LL-947 Space Defender
Ayliffe reacted to lol username for a topic
That's really great. I especially like the red and green lights on the front, you don't see that sort of build very often.1 point
