Lego Universe game preview
Lego Universe is an upcoming MMO from NetDevil that will allow you to take on the life of a Minifigure, those little Lego men that children and adults of all ages know and love.
The game is unique in that, for the first time, you get to build your own Lego person and play in a full-fledged Massively Multiplayer Online game that’s set in an unlicensed, unrestricted world of Lego. Unlike the hugely successful Lego games from Traveler’s Tales which use other licenses such as Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones and Batman, this game is all the way Lego.
Sadly solid details on the game are pretty hard to come by, but EuroGamer got an exclusive sit-down with the developers where some details were let loose.
The game will fully let you create a Lego minifigure from scratch, and the Lego figures themselves are much more expressive, lively and colorful than anything we’ve seen before (such as in the Traveler’s Tales titles).
It’s so expressive that the developers promise the “widest range of emote animations in any MMO to date.” Although Eurogamer expresses their dissatisfaction with the fact that the Lego minifigures seem to be TOO expressive. Which makes them feel less like the figures you know and love and more like something out of a CG cartoon. At least, that’s what I imagine they mean.
Characters in Lego Universe don’t “die”, but when they are smashed apart they can be re-built differently than you previously had them. Naturally, when building your character, you can choose from a range of outfit-printed body parts, facial customizations and hair-styles (or go for the classic bald nub look). And you won’t have to create a character that looks like you, you can go for more outrageous ones or anything else your little Lego heart desires.
There are character types, such as pirates, ninjas and spacemen, and building your character to fit one of those types will apparently solidify them with a certain set of skills native to that class. But you can customize everything including their tools or weapons. And as you play through the game you will unlock new parts for you character to use.
There will be a storyline in the game although no details have been released yet, but it will somehow tie together the Lego theme-sets that include contemporary, medieval, space and pirates into a cohesive whole.
Overall that’s all the details that were gleamed from the developers. Others were only suggested or taken from screenshots. The game seems to be in the direction of a traditional MMORPG as far as gameplay goes with questing and the like all part of the game plan. It won’t be “some mini-game collection” from what Eurogamer could tell. There will apparently be pets in the game, and there is a news reporter type character who will be your guide and information source through the adventure.
As far as the environments themselves, they are more in line with the Traveler’s Tales games which means that they contain Lego elements (such as Lego-ized benches, rocks, tables, etc.) but otherwise are more traditional in look (i.e. = take out the Lego brick highlights and it could be a level to any other game).
Lego Universe is scheduled for release sometime next year.
19 November 2009 17:33bryan
cool
