TT Fusion are back with their latest LEGO® movie tie-in, this time based on Disney•Pixar’s The Incredibles. This is the first time a LEGO game has been based on a Pixar movie and what a movie to choose. The Incredibles first hit cinemas almost 15 years ago, and it’s taken that long for the sequel to arrive. Unfortunately it’s even longer for those outside the US, where both The Incredibles 2 movie and game is already available. In the UK, we have to wait until mid-July to experience the continuing adventures of the Parr family. The Incredibles The Video Game, transforms the events of both The Incredibles and Incredibles 2 into a brick-built LEGO Games adventure. Thanks to WB Games UK we’ve been playing the game early, which means we can also bring you our review a little earlier than expected. So prime those super-powers and get ready for our review of LEGO The Incredibles.
Product Description
LEGO The Incredibles, a new video game where players take control of their favourite Incredibles characters in unforgettable scenes and action sequences from both Disney Pixar films, The Incredibles and the upcoming The Incredibles 2. The game encourages players to work together by combining the Parr family’s abilities and unique powers to conquer crime and family life in a LEGO world full of fun and humour. With LEGO The Incredibles, fans can experience the non-stop action from both movies while fighting crime together as a super hero family. In LEGO The Incredibles, players explore action-packed story levels and an epic hub world, including Municiberg and New Urbem, as they use their unique super abilities to bring the city’s villains to justice.
- Game Title: LEGO The Incredibles
- Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
- Developer: TT Fusion
- RRP: from £39.99
- Features: 2 Player Co-op, Remote Play, Switch Play
- Availability: Physical Media, Download
The Gameplay
The game open immediately at the same point as the original movie ends, with the Parr Family primed to take on The Underminer. Before with get into that, a special mention but go to the games ‘title’ sequence. The classic Disney Castle opening, seen on many Disney movies is recreated with set 71040, before being interrupted by a rampaging LEGO Omnidroid, which in-turn takes the place of the ball in the Pixar logo. Before being ‘unbuilt’ by Luxo Jr. If this doesn’t make you smile, then maybe LEGO Games aren’t for you.
As mentioned above the game opens where The Incredibles movie ends, and has you facing off against The Underminer. Oddly you than proceed to play through the storyline of the second Incredibles movie before tackling the events of the first movie. It kind of works and perfectly splits the game into 12 different levels, with 6 levels for each movie. Gameplay has that familiar LEGO style, which has you, and a second player should you want to team-up for some local multiplayer, taking control of various characters mainly focused around the Parr family and Frozone.
TT Fusion have included numerous elements from past games, such as the multi-builds from LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Speed Runs from the Sonic sections of LEGO Dimensions. But as much as the gameplay feels familiar, there are new gameplay elements as well. Characters can team up to overcome various obstacles, for example Violet can create a energy bubble which can then allow her to pass through lasers grids. But then Dash can join her to move across acid puddles or to activate sphere switches. Elastigirl can become a boat and with a dash of Dash, becomes a speed boat.
The focus on teaming up extends to a new element known as Incredibuilds. These are activated by collecting a set number of incredibricks. Once you have the correct amount, two or more characters are needed to build a special LEGO structure. You then need to partake in a little button bashing to keep your build meter up, once all characters are fully filled, the build comes to life.
Outside the story levels, Incredibuilds also see you create a number of very special Pixar Builds. This unleashes a number of iconic Pixar-themed builds from many of their other movies. Once built, you unlock the character associated to the build. Who can then be used to unlock a Red Brick. With Pixar famed for sneaking in call-backs to their previous films, it’s a nice touch for the game to do the same. As well as being a nice way to expand the playable character count. The Pixar nods don’t end there, keep an eye out during levels for other little Pixar secrets.
I did enjoy the story levels but felt the game really came into its own once you get into the open world. Just like other LEGO Games, there are plenty of things to track down and collect as well as plenty of side missions. But the stars of the game are Crime Waves. These see districts of the open world taken over by criminal masterminds, many of which are original creations of TT Fusion. You must then complete a number of fun missions to rid the area of the bad-uns control, before facing off against the super villain. Crime Waves are great fun and the stories connected to them are amazingly funny.
Being able to create your own minifigure characters, as long been feature of LEGO Games. In recent years this has become a little more advanced, with many more pieces to use and elements of the character to tweak. And who better to help create your very own Super, than fashion designer to heroic – Edna Mode. Popping over to Edna’s place allows you to create any sort of character you wish. With Edna on hand to give you her opinion of your creation, whether you want it or not and yes you can wear a cape, much to Edna’s disgust.
If like me you enjoy fully completing your LEGO Games, then you’ll know trying to trackdown all the secrets and collectibles can be a tricky task. Thankfully TT Fusion has that covered as well, with a Red Brick ‘cheat’ allowing your to detect every last collectible. It may not seem like much but being able to easily fly around the open world to find all those bricks, characters and collectibles is very much appreciated.
I’m sure many LEGO Games fans will agree, that LEGO City Undercover is one of the finest LEGO games ever made. Although LEGO City Undercover is unlikely to see a sequel anytime soon, LEGO The Incredibles is the nearest you’ll get. The open world, crime waves and the original characters created to fill the villain roles are just has creative as the original content found in Undercover.
Finally, an often overlooked part of the LEGO Games are the load screens. For something that is just placed on screen between gameplay, so much work goes into those microscale scenes. I absolutely love inspecting them and seeing how LEGO pieces are used to create certain details. Hopefully one day TT Games will choose to make them unlockable somewhere in the game, so people can go and have a proper detailed look at them. As they show how skilled the TT Games LEGO model builders really are. Because all the microscale builds and indeed all LEGO builds within The Incredibles and any LEGO title, can be recreated with physical LEGO elements. Which is no mean feat!
The Minifigure
LEGO The Incredibles continues the long-standing tradition of including a special LEGO Minifigures, created exclusively for the games release. Here you get fashion designer to the Supers, Edna Mode. With The Incredibles only getting a limited range of LEGO Juniors sets, this is the only version of Edna Mode available in LEGO form. However she appears in two different styles in the game. The main version of Edna looks nothing like the physical version, mainly thanks to the digital version using a unique hair/glasses combo element. The minifigure achieves this with print detail on the head with somewhat limited success. The grinning version used on the packaging is quite bad, yet the alternate face showing Edna’s more judging expression is way better. Although many were hoping for a Frozone minifigure, Edna makes more sense as she plays a bigger role outside the games main storyline.
Overall
The story sections of LEGO The Incredibles may be a little uninspired but TT Fusion has more than made up for it with the rest of the openworld stories. Blasting around Metroville and Municiberg, taking down the various villains during Crime Waves, is genuinely great fun. Often more fun the some of the levels. I don’t think this is down to poor development but more to Disney maybe limiting what TT Fusion could cover of the story. This is more evident with the second half of the game, focused on the original movie, being a little more varied that the first half. I have a soft spot for TT Fusion made games, they have always had to push themselves during their handheld games days, due to the limitation of the platforms they were developing on. Now they are focused on ‘full sized’ LEGO Games, they still have that determination to go a little further and include plenty of useful features like the Red Bricks collectibles finder. With the main TT Games studio working on DC Super Villains, I can only assume TT Fusion will be working on a possible The LEGO Movie 2 tie-in and I can’t wait to play it.
LEGO Disney•Pixar’s The Incredibles will be available in the UK from July 13th and is available to pre-order now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC. Thanks to Warner Bros. UK for supplying us with a copy to review, the opinions within this review of those of our own and do not reflect those of WBIE, Disney or The LEGO Group. Version review: PlayStation 4. Pre-order details for both the standard game and minifigure editions can be found here.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks