General LEGO Fusion First Impressions

[lol username]

Today I finally got around to trying the three new LEGO Fusion games. I was gonna post reviews here, but decided to blab a bit on Skype first:

 

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[6:58:32 PM] jamesster: should I bother with reviews of the LEGO Fusion games or just quickly dump thoughts here?

[6:58:50 PM] jamesster: I'll do the latter anyway:

[7:00:15 PM] jamesster: Town Master: I had a goofy smile on my face the whole time, and I played it for quite a while. Definitely gonna pick up the full set. Skateboard physics are hilariously broken though (gonna record it, it completely screws up)

[7:02:07 PM] jamesster: Create and Race: A remarkably average, generic racing thing, except the stats of the car are determined by the colors of the bricks you attach. Car building is technically more advanced than in the Racers games, but the limited piece selection means you'll only be building green/blue/orange cars of a specific style. Only three average, generic tracks. Not really broken, but forgettable.

[7:03:51 PM] jamesster: Battle Towers: It's some sort of strategic... thing, except I played through a ton of battles and haven't lost a single unit yet. I suppose there might be some strategy in choosing minifigures but the actual combat is mostly "swipe at whatever comes your way". Oh, and the LEGO scanny-buildy customization bits are completely cosmetic, a gimmick completely unrelated to the gameplay. I was choosing from pre-built models at random, didn't even care. Not sure why this exists.

[7:04:19 PM] jamesster: All three games share UI code and perhaps some other stuff

[7:04:40 PM] jamesster: Which isn't a problem except there's a completely game breaking bug in the UI and camera code where the game freaks out at random

[7:05:10 PM] jamesster: I dunno how to describe it, it just spazzes out and the game is unusable for a few seconds until it goes back to normal (if it does)

[7:05:17 PM] jamesster: as said it happens on all three

[7:05:36 PM] jamesster: tried all three on a Galaxy S4, gonna try them on a tablet later

[7:05:39 PM] jamesster: Town Master anyway

[7:05:46 PM] jamesster: I don't feel like playing the other two any more

[7:05:52 PM] jamesster: But Town Master is cool

[7:06:50 PM] jamesster: Definitely raised the bar for LEGO mobile games, LEGO stuff tablets/smartphones etc

[7:07:29 PM] jamesster: Every other LEGO mobile game I've played has been a.. very mobile-y game, very game-y, very bland

[7:07:45 PM] jamesster: Town Master is a sandbox that's just way too cute

[7:08:38 PM] jamesster: Not groundbreaking but I know if I were a kid in its target audience I'd love it

[7:09:22 PM] jamesster: It's very reminiscent of LEGO Loco, LEGOLAND, etc

[7:10:00 PM] jamesster: Those LEGO games I loved when I was a kid in the actual target audience

[7:11:02 PM] jamesster: I built a little pizzeria and set up some tables and chairs outside and bought a pizza and sat in one of the chairs

[7:11:03 PM] jamesster: 10/10

... Then I decided just to post that here.

LEGO Town Master is supposed to have some online features, like visiting other people's towns, but that's not in the game yet as far as I can tell. It's not the next Sims, but for a kids' tablet game, it's pretty neat, and a step up from LEGO's previous mobile offerings. It leaves me with a craving for an all-out LEGO Sims game on PC... Something TT was toying with at one point, but left for the concept that became LEGO City Undercover. Oh well, maybe some day...

So, anybody else tried these yet? What do you think? The Friends one is coming later, and it looks somewhat similar to Town Master, plus some interior design stuff, which sounds neat, so I'll be trying that one as well.

[ProfessorBrickkeeper]

I played these when they first came out and for the most part, I shared your opinions and critiques of them. I do, however, have a bone to pick with whoever thought that it was fair to give "Create and Race" a fully digital building platform where you could customize the whole of the cart asymmetrically but didn't think to do the same with "Town Master", which really is rather disappointing. Still, I also found "Town Master" to be the most enjoyable of the Fusion line and also envision picking it up in the future. I was impressed by how TT games has been able to raise the bar for their mobile games with Fusion lately, just as they have been continually been doing with Legends of Chima Online and LEGO Marvel Superheroes: Universe in Peril, both of which were decent enough.

Oh, and I should mention that these seem to have been created in Unity3D, possibly allowing some modding possibilities. (Or at least some decompiling and poking around with in Unity3D)

[lol username]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbRbWPVCzJA

LEGO Fusion Town Master Provides A Realistic Simulation Of Skateboarding.

[PeabodySam]

[7:02:07 PM] jamesster: Create and Race: A remarkably average, generic racing thing, except the stats of the car are determined by the colors of the bricks you attach.

I wonder if a red car is faster than a blue car? I wonder if the colors run, does it make it faster? Or if the colors clash, will the car crash? Or...?

[lol username]

>Hearing that Create and Race was discontinued reminded me that I never said anything about the Friends Resort Designer after it came out.

Opinions on LEGO Friends as a theme are quite varied (I'm personally indifferent on it), but as far as the game goes, it's neat. It's fairly similar to Town Master at its core, with you building and placing buildings, but it has the additions of character customization and interior decoration, which are pretty neat. There aren't really any events like there are in Town Master as far as I've seen, and the camera is also in a more fixed position - and while buildings can be rotated a bit, free of a grid they can't be rotated a whole lot. It's got more to customize, but less to do. I think it's safe to say it came out better than the 1999 LEGO Friends game.

Also, all four three Fusion games were updated recently, with things like online functionality from what I've heard - visiting other people's towns and stuff. I haven't updated yet but that sounds pretty neat nifty.

[brick5492]

Can anyone please upload the .obb files (from town master)? I got the APK (via a mirror because the app isnt available in my country) but NOS I het the error 'cannot download the files' (probably because my country's play store doesnt support it and it needs verification from the play store to download the files).

If anyone could upload the obb files (located in Android/Obb/com.lego.townmaster.whatever-folder) that would be awesome. Thank you!

[lu9]

so basically this is a more complex and with more features version of Life of George?

Which in fact ended this month

[TalonCard]

Do any of these have lore-related information? Original characters, world names, etc?

 

TC

[lol username]

Eh, not really. Town Master just opens with a cutscene where a mayor is daydreaming about running a happy town. Create and Race has some original characters, but they don't have proper names or any sort of personalities (I'll get screenshots of them sometime - they walk around the garage, you can play as them, and they appear on the winner's podium at the end of races). Battle Towers sorta has a story, but it's basically just "a king needs to build towers to collect floating treasure, and there's bad guys". Friends Resort Designer... It uses the Friends characters and I think there's some sort of opening cutscene where they talk about going on a vacation or something.