The Lego Movie 2 Videogame review - everything is not awesome

The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame is based on events that take place in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part film that came out in February. The story begins in the desolated wasteland of Apocalypseburg where alien invaders have left Bricksburg in ruins.

Emmet is still a happy little chap, but his smiley demeanour is at odds with his surroundings. The world around him is a wilderness of sand and bricks, and similarly the grandiose gameplay of the previous instalment where his merry bunch of misfit heroes went on ambitious adventures and quests, has returned as a shadow of past glories. 

Ironically, Lego games don’t build on each other. Instead, we are treated to an all too familiar gameplay recipe that we have seen countless times before. It’s a steady diet of collecting countless studs and multi-coloured bricks to build with, random loot drops containing new characters and items and exploring scenes from the latest movie.

There's still fun to be found in wandering around each level, scavenging collectibles and solving rudimentary puzzles as you journey through the movie's main scenes – but this is a game best enjoyed by younger players and with a split screen two-player option, gaming parents too.     

Most missions can be completed within minutes, and the tasks are simplistically repetitive – beat up a few enemies, fetch a locally placed item, change the colour of an object, or build a rudimentary structure. It feels like a conveyor belt of mundane tasks, that once completed yields purple bricks that, when enough are collected, open a new planet to explore and thus progress the story.  

The trademark clever humour found in the very best Lego games is diluted in this offering, no doubt a nod to the much younger demographic this title is aimed at. But if you have little fans of the movie this reasonably priced game will certainly keep them entertained for countless hours – just don’t expect innovation or any real diversion from a tried, tested and rinsed-out block-building formula.

• The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame is available on all major formats
• Read more gaming reviews on theartsdesk

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