That's not a criticism: one of the reasons this series continues to endure is that kids feel comfortable and confident working within rules and systems that remain steadfast whether they're roaming Hogwarts, Tatooine, Gotham or Minas Tirith. The story missions are on more familiar soil, with the tried-and-true template of ability-based exploration, scenery bashing and item collecting you'd expect. Appropriately, it feels a lot like those oversized dioramas at Legoland where entire countries are condensed down to their essential features, creating a world that is both thrillingly gigantic and pleasingly cosy at the same time. The camera has swapped out the elevated view of previous Lego games, opting for a more intimate third-person viewpoint. The game's funniest achievement comes in Free Play, if you travel to Mordor on foot. It's not a journey that will take a distractingly long time - this definitely isn't Skyrim - but it feels like an epic undertaking all the same. You can walk, run or ride to and from anywhere you like, trekking from the Black Gates all the way back to Bag End if you choose. Map stones en route act as fast travel points and also mark all nearby collectables and quests when activated.ĭespite being a somewhat shrunken version of Tolkien's world, where landmark locations are visible in the near distance at all times, the sense of scale is impressive. Trails of pale blue studs take you to the next level, but the destination can be changed on the map screen, setting waypoints to whatever point of interest you fancy. The game eases its young players in, however, with story missions that lead you through the land in a more or less linear fashion. Beyond its boundaries, a ride on the Bucklebury ferry away, Middle-earth stretches before you in all its dark majesty. Following an epic prologue that mirrors the battlefield opening of Peter Jackson's movies, you find yourself in the bucolic idyll of Hobbiton, tiny Lego hobbits scurrying around its rabbit-warren lanes, drinking and dancing at Bilbo's birthday party.
Eclipsing even the sprawling virtual Gotham of Lego Batman 2, this game sees Lego embracing the open-world principle in full. TT has risen to the challenge of adapting such a vast saga with characteristic aplomb.
A story in which small things turn out to hold great power and small people prove to have enormous courage, the core ideas of inverted scale that have made TT Games' series so popular are woven through Tolkien's tale like strands in elven rope. The Lord of the Rings, it turns out, is the perfect source material for a Lego game.
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