ARS: NetDevil has nailed the LEGO feeling in its upcoming MMO LEGO Universe-you can tell from the character creation screen. You start with a minifig, and you get to choose the eyes, the mouth, different arms, and illustrations on the chest. As you move the pieces around, the arms and legs flail. In the screen where you choose which character to play, the other minifigs look hopeful, although they sometimes swat at the cursor. When you choose one to play, he or she celebrates, and the rest kick the ground, dejected.
"Everything is moderated," I'm told as we put our name in. We'll have a generic name until the name is given the thumbs up. The game is aimed at young boys, "but like LEGO itself, we're really shooting for kids of all ages," the representative outside the booth tells me. I begin to lope around the world with my newly created character, building things. In a game about Lego bricks, who exactly is the bad guy?
Often it is asked why Lego hasn’t done Minecraft. After all, the formula fits. You put blocks on to other blocks to create something blocky and wonderful, fresh from your imagination. Surely that just screams Lego.
It seems that they tried with Lego Universe, but how do you make a kid-friendly Lego MMO when almost everybody seems intent on building penises?
Developed by The Lego Group, the app takes the form of an interactive comic book, complete with mini-games and virtual Lego build kits to be unlocked. The Antimatter Missions is broken up into five parts, with five short comics making up the bulk of the title.
Funcom Lead Designer Oscar López Lacalle previews the new MMO LEGO Minifigures Online and discusses The LEGO Movie in this exclusive interview from GDC 2014.
