New Lego Videogames I Would Kill For

Build em up and smash em down with Hedgie

Lego. A staple of childhood play, builder of both the imagination and desperately ugly sculptures by kindergarteners. I had so much Lego as a child I had a huge city permanently constructed beneath my bed that I could drag out and play with. I stole the idea from a friend whose name I can’t even remember. All I can remember is that he had an even bigger city under his bed. Ahh memory, you fickle bitch.

Mostly I would pretend Transformers were invading, and massacring the native population of tiny, yellow people. Or I’d have my Voltron lions descend from upon high and enslave the masses to build large, impossible structures. I was kinda messed up I guess. Maybe I was just preparing for the inevitability of alien invasion. For me though, Lego was all about the stories I could tell and not that much about the building – although I admittedly spent far more time building the sets for said stories than the stories themselves took to unfold.

I suppose then that it’s no shock I enjoy the recent crop of Lego videogames for console. Lego Star Wars is great for the Padawan Geeks amongst us. Lego Indiana Jones gave us new tombs to explore. Lego Harry Potter combines my two favourite things; magic and being mean to children. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean gave us something, probably; I never played that one. And it doesn’t end there with the new Lego Lord of the Rings game due out this year, complete with Lego Balrog, and the recent release Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes currently spinning up in my PS3.

But there are untapped franchises that scream out to be given the Lego treatment. Some are obvious, some are likely, and some are so unlikely that mentioning them at all makes me sad they will never, ever exist. But mention them I shall, in my list of the new Lego videogames that I would kill for.

1. Lego Back To The Future

This is a no brainer. Back to the Future is easily one of my favourite film trilogies. I just got my copy of the trilogy BluRay set signed by Christopher Lloyd. It was a good day.

Imagine it; a true Lego game featuring time travel, Doc Brown and Marty McFly in his many iterations. They could release each movie as a separate game, thus stretching the profits and giving us something new to look forward to. The first gives us missions to skateboard to the Doc’s house avoiding obstacles, defeat the Libyan terrorists, travel around Hill Valley doing quests for characters to unlock new areas like the school and the home of Marty’s grandparents with the town square serving as an excellent game hub.

Then in the second game a system of information transference similar to that of Mass Effect, The Walking Dead and other such ‘ghost data’ utilising games could be employed: imagine wandering the streets of Hill Valley a second time, keeping out of sight of your very own character from the first game, following the very paths you took, and which you must avoid at all costs save destroying the fabric of the universe. It’s like the Nemesis from Resident Evil 3; much cuter but just as omnipresent a threat.

This is in addition to hover board chases and a stealth mission inside the future home of the McFly family.

Then in part three, well. The Old West. Need I say more?

2. Lego Aliens

This may not seem like a franchise that really lends itself to the Lego treatment but hear me out because I think a game based on the Sigourney Weaver Alien films would be spectacular.

The Nostromo. The Sulaco. LV426. Like the upcoming Aliens: Colonial Marines, this game could take us through a separate story running along side those original two films and with a Lego spin that would provide some much needed humour.

This is an unlikely marriage of properties, mostly because Lego is so ‘everyone’ oriented and Aliens is a clearly adult product but I think that since the majority of gamers are aged eighteen to forty, and there are a lot of adult Lego fans it would be great. I mean just picture it; Lego Ripley in a yellow loader versus Lego Alien Queen in the hangar of the Sulaco.

It will never happen but a boy can dream.

3. The Walking Lego Dead

The Walking Dead is hot property right now. The comics are award winning and incredibly popular, the TV series has widened the audience and brought great, long form zombie drama to the small screen and the current episodic game by Tell Tale is outstanding. This is another adult title that while incredibly unlikely to ever get the Lego treatment has the potential to be truly awesome.

With an open world city – modelled after existing Lego City toys for example – the game could be a sandbox style, persistent world survival game. It could have drop in/drop out co-operative gaming, with up to four players please, because two player games are kind of early century to be honest. A horde of thousands of undead minifigs would make for some great obstacles during a survival of the fittest style campaign.

To get around the obvious gore that such a title would involve, the zombies could bleed the little round flat pieces, in a transparent red.

4. Lego Ghostbusters

This one’s another obvious choice. Four player co-op with drop in / drop out. A range of levels based around familiar New York locations, possibly even with an open world hub styled after the Ghostbusters HQ.

It would be best to have an original story, because everybody is already familiar enough with the original movies to have a game based on them feel incredibly stale. But with an original plot and original monsters you could fight ghosts, demons, beings from other dimensions and the Stay Puft Marshmallow man. I know he isn’t an original monster but fuck it; he’s great.

Don’t cross the streams!

5. Lego Firefly

This will never happen. Never. We’ll never get more Firefly and we certainly won’t get it in Lego form. Recently the Lego Cuuso branch was given the option to pursue a licenced set of Firefly Lego and declined.

But think about it. Lego Mal Reynolds. Lego Wash and Zoe. Lego Kaylee, Simon, River and Jayne. Lego Book. Lego Serenity. Lego Reavers.

Serenity herself would serve as the level hub, with a Mass Effect style galaxy map providing mission selection when the player visits Wash up on the bridge. Taking on smuggling jobs, defending settlers from bandits and infiltrating Alliance cruisers.

We could even have a flashback level set during the war, with Mal and Zoe fighting Alliance purple-bellies with their fellow soldiers. The comedic style of Joss Whedon is a perfect match for Lego and personally, I would love this so much.

6. Lego Transformers

Autobots! Build yourself, transform and roll out!

Transformers is a big property these days, between the excellent Transformers Prime cartoon and the shit but I still watch them because I’m easy to please Michael Bay movies everybody knows who Optimus Prime is. There are plenty of Transformers games already, and the War for Cybertron series is pretty fantastic.

Transformers though, opted to go with Mega Bloks, the Lego ‘competitor’ for their line of block-based figures. This notwithstanding, I think a Lego Transformers game could be pretty special. Upgrades could come in the form of new Lego pieces found and attached to the character. There are plenty of characters to choose from, and plenty of lore to consider when designing a plot. Fight Decepticons. Play as Decepticons fighting the Autobots. Co-op play, online multiplayer, an appearance by popular villains like Unicron the World Eater.

7. Lego Pixar Adventures

Lego already make toy sets based on Toy Story and I think that using the wide array of Pixar properties in a solo game could be amazing if handled correctly. Imagine it, the wider Pixarverse is in peril and the worlds are colliding.

The heroes from various properties: Buzz and Woody, Sully and Mike, Wall-e and Eve, Kevin and Carl, The Incredibles, Lightning McQueen (he might be useful for vehicle sections) – all coming together in a Kingdom Hearts style multiverse of gameplay.

The possibilities are almost endless and if they allowed Pixar on board for the writing and overall design then this could be as winning as their entire back catalogue of work.

8. Lego Muppets Roadtrip

The Muppets are one of Disney’s most popular IPs right now. The recent film was superb and there is a sequel in the works. I think that a road trip themed game to put on shows across the world would be so much fun.

Play as the Muppets in theatres across the US, Europe and Asia, on Cruise ships in the Pacific and tropical islands as they entertain. It could be a combination adventure and rhythm game. It could have musical numbers you sing along to Singstar style. This one would appeal to all ages, and could have a Muppet Babies section and a quick visit to Sesame Street.

9. Tron Lego-cy

Forgive me that, I couldn’t resist the admittedly awful pun.

I love Tron. I adore the original film, Tron Uprising is my new favourite animated series and I even enjoyed Tron Legacy, Garret Hedlund’s performance from the “Kristen Stewart School of Pretending You Are A Plank of Wood on Screen” aside. I think that given the current resurgence of Tron themed media, a Lego Tron game is a great concept.

Tron is owned by Disney, who already have deals with Lego for sets based on Marvel and Pixar properties. So how cool would a game set inside the computerised world of Tron, rendered entirely in Lego, be? The sleek lines of Tron marry well with the rigid forms of the typical Lego brick landscape. The game itself could have lightcycle races – after you find the pieces of said lightcycle and build it, of course. There could be intense battles with intricate visuals and a soundtrack by Daft Punk (arguably the single greatest thing about the recent movie). Derezzing an enemy could cause them to disintegrate into 1×1 blocks.

The concept of disassembling the world around you one piece at a time is something that fits into both franchises already and it really could go in many cool directions if handled well. Not to mention that the bricks could be, for the very first time, UV reactive and actually glow!

10. Lego Avengers: Assemble

The Avengers just made somewhere in the area of a billion dollars at the box office. Apparently a second release is being considered, only this time it would be the original directors cut of the film with an additional 30 minutes of cut footage.

The most recent Lego videogame puts all the DC superheroes and villains together for a massive, Justice League style adventure (which, I am loving) and ties in well with the DC Superheroes playsets.

Know what else has playsets? The Avengers. Lego already has the real-world product and I think it is time for a videogame featuring the expanded universe of Marvel characters – The Avengers, Spiderman, the X-Men, The Fantastic Four and more; a Marvel universe sandbox game, much like Lego Batman 2.

Play as any one of the Marvel superheroes. Battle a wide range of Marvel supervillains. Roam New York as Spidey and fight Mysterio, Doc Ock and Venom. Battle Loki and his Chitauri army as Thor. Visit the Shield Helicarrier and Triskelion. Play as Nick Fury, Clint Barton, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers or Natasha Romanoff. Play as Lego Bruce Banner and Lego Hulk.

Play. As. Phil. Coulson.

This is a thing that both could happen, and needs to happen.

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You can harass the author of this post via Twitter: @CAricHanley