[SIB] Lego Worlds

It's a bit of a weird one.. it absolutely looks amazing, they've really brought Lego to life wonderfully. My 4-year-old nephew really enjoys running about as a Lego man, climbing and bashing things. However, for me to use to create cool places for him to climb and bash, I'm not so convinced..

  1. They've basically made the whole game a tutorial, that's been really drawn out, with no way to skip. So you can't just go and "build a castle" or something like that. You even have to unlock all the tools, so you can't even manipulate the terrain or build anything to start with, which I find annoying from having spent a fair bit of time in Early Access being able to do that. The early worlds are extremely small too - that would be fine if they were compelling, but they're not.. they feel very hastily designed.

  2. The controls and UI are really clunky. They have been all through Early Access, and I thought they'd get straightened out for release, but it's just not happened. Worse, there is no way to customise the controls at all. Where minecraft feels fun to build in, Lego Worlds feels like a chore, and I feel like I'm constantly fighting the controller. In-particular the tools are unreasonably annoying to access, given how you want to switch between them so quickly. Also the use of context is particularly annoying.

  3. The way the "building" is realised is strange and is a significant departure from standard voxel games. There are essentially two modes.. "character mode" where you run about and interact with the world, which feels good. Then when you go to use a tool to affect the world, you sort of change into an ad-hoc "build mode" where suddenly your Lego man is essentially irrelevant - and they even float randomly about the place as it's happening. Getting visibility on what you're doing can be very difficult in this mode.

  4. There doesn't seem to be any way to create your own vehicles, which is a real shame as that is essentially the number-one thing I used to do in Lego, and my nephew does now. To have even rudimentary vehicle construction I would have said was required (i.e. just create a "car" and it magically behaves like a car, irrespective of what you put where).

I think it's a nice little game for kids to mess about in, a stepping-stone before Minecraft. For a Minecraft veteran, there is nothing here for them in terms of game-play.

/r/ShouldIbuythisgame Thread