Tag: lego

MCU-inspired worlds collide in LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2 trailer

by Tom Buxton, posted in Nintendo, Videos

Riding on San Diego Comic-Con’s hype-fuelled wave, TT Games have ramped up the marketing for the sequel to 2013’s LEGO Marvel Superheroes a step further. The inventively-named LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2 now lies only four months away and to celebrate we’ve gotten a new trailer focused on its main campaign’s central antagonist.

Takeaways:

  • Whereas the original instalment in this makeshift, brick-busting franchise of licensed platformers brought a band of classic Marvel Comics foes together to wage war on Earth’s mightiest heroes, this time around the Avengers must reunite to battle the near-omnipotent menace of Kang the Conqueror and his armada of alien invaders.
  • Judging by our first glimpses at Kang as he lays siege to Earth, transforming iconic Marvel locales from our world – not to mention time-zones such as the Old West and 2099 – into the tyrannical city of Chronopolis, he scarcely needs any back-up, overseeing the predictable carnage from his high-flying intergalactic cruiser.
  • The sequel’s narrative would naturally seem short-lived without some resistance from a protagonist or 100, however. Sure enough, we catch glimpses of a plethora of heroes like Iron Man, Spider-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy fighting back, with most closely resembling their big-screen Marvel Cinematic Universe counterparts.
  • That said, new recruits are evidently along for the ride too, not least Spidey’s fan-favourite multiverse rival Spider-Gwen and – for those willing to shell out some extra cash for Superheroes 2’s newly-christened Deluxe Edition – the original Guardians roster, some of whom were recently teased in James Gunn’s Guardians Vol. 2.

Check out the full gameplay trailer in all its madcap, quite literally world-shattering glory for yourselves below. LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2 assembles on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One – no word on an ‘enhanced for X’ version yet, however – and PC this November 14th.

July 2017 Xbox Games with Gold freebies unveiled

by Tom Buxton, posted in Videos

In the event that any of your closely-guarded timbers start to shiver uncontrollably as you read this news article, there’s probably good reason for your unlikely predicament. Microsoft are providing Travellers’ Tales’ 2011 licensed platformer, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, with a new lease of life via their Xbox Games with Gold service this month, alongside three other forgotten best-sellers soon to become available to Xbox Gold subscribers – technically – free of charge.

Takeaways:

  • Heading over to the Xbox Live Marketplace straight after consuming this report in all of its glory will find both the bizarre robot-starring sci-fi platformer Grow Up as well as the short but sweet, all-guns-blazing thriller Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days lying in wait already, the former exclusively for Xbox One from July 1 to 30 and the latter a backwards-compatible 360 title available until July 15.
  • Come the month’s halfway point, Kane & Lynch developers IO Interactive will pass the virtual baton onto side-scrolling Xbox One racer Runbow and TT Games’ aforementioned buccaneering, block-busting 360 odyssey through The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End and On Stranger Tides, available July 16th – August 15th and July 16th – 21st respectively.
  • There’s been no sign of a Salazar’s Revenge-themed follow-up to the latter project yet, though, so those looking for a LEGO rendition of Javier Bardem’s undead antagonist might need to get inventive with LEGO Pirates‘ character creator instead or squint a little while checking out the film in cinemas this summer.

Much as some Xbox players have already bemoaned the lack of AAA megamoths in this month’s Games with Gold line-up after the likes of Watch Dogs and Ryse: Son of Rome in the past two months alone, there’s a lot to be said for exposing lesser-known gems to mainstream audiences which they likely would’ve missed after all.

Yours truly can well remember downloading Ubisoft’s Valiant Hearts: The Great War last summer with little-to-no expectations due to its non-existent marketing campaign, only to come away stunned by what ended up as one of his favourite gaming experiences of 2016. Who’s to say the same won’t ring true here for those Gold subscribers brave enough to take that exhilarating plunge into the unknown?

See for yourselves whether that eventuality might come to pass this month via just under two minutes of gameplay footage of the quirky quartet of freebies below…

The Teen Titans join LEGO Dimensions in new trailer

by Sally Mettson, posted in Nintendo, Videos

The superhero team, The Teen Titans, are coming to the wonderful world of LEGO Dimensions. The new trailer released today shows off Raven, Beast Boy and Starfire.

Takeaways:

  • There are new looks available for Robin and Cyborg (as a Robin fan, I approve)
  • A brand new adventure world is coming
  • There are new battle arenas to fight in
  • Buying either the ‘Fun pack’ or ‘team pack’ unlocks an exclusive in-game episode
  • The game is released in a few months on September 15th

You can find the new trailer below. I’m just happy we get to see Robin in a (slightly different) outfit. What about you? Let us know in the comments below, if you please.

LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2 Unveiled With Full Trailer

by Tom Buxton, posted in Nintendo, Videos

Until recently comic-book devotees had assumed they should ‘only’ expect a PS4 exclusive Spider-Man title and a genre parody with South Park: The Fractured But Whole this autumn, but evidently that’s far from the case.

Enter LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2, the de facto follow-up to 2013’s LEGO Marvel Superheroes which, unlike recent franchise spin-off LEGO Marvel Avengers, looks set to embrace the sheer lunacy of the superhero world via a gleefully ridiculous original plot.

Whereas Avengers kept its focus firmly on the various MCU movies released to date – from Age of Ultron to The Winter Soldier to Ant-Man – this long-awaited sequel will bring together characters and events from across Marvel’s printed lore as classic and modern heroes and villains team up to wage war on the open-world plane of Chronopolis.

The action won’t be limited to one period of history either; the 23rd major LEGO licensed console effort since 2005’s LEGO Star Wars will let players deploy time-warping mechanics to battle Kang the Conqueror across multiple settings – including Sakaar, NYC and the Wild West – in the campaign as well as in four-player competitive arenas to boot.

If that premise didn’t already sound bonkers enough, then the first full trailer ups the ante considerably, initially playing with fans’ expectations via a neat homage to MCU blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2‘s opening set-piece before throwing in waves of comic-book characters from myriad alternate realities for good measure.

Indeed, from Spider-Man 2099 to Spider-Gwen, from Captain America to Captain Texas and from Groot to the ever-adorable Baby Groot, the array of caped (or branched in Groot’s case) crusaders seems staggering at this point and knowing TT Games’ past LEGO rosters, what we see here will probably represent but the tip of the iceberg.

LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2 will assemble worldwide on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC this November 14th. Until then, be sure to follow the mantra ‘Keep Mine D-pad’ and stick with us for further details on the crime-busting sequel.

Review: Lego City Undercover Review (Nintendo Switch)

by Stephen Carter, posted in Reviews

As a Wii U exclusive, Lego City Undercover was the very reason I purchased Nintendo’s under-supported console when it was first released. A questionable choice granted, but my Lego obsession knows very few bounds and beyond this, the console was left untouched. It’s quite funny then, that in its re-released form, I find myself playing Undercover once more on a Nintendo console; the Switch. Thankfully, given the Switch’s improvement in power over the Wii U, the Switch does Lego City justice and it’s a real treat to play as Chase McCain once more.

Those who played the game first time around will see that improvements have been made to Lego City, first and foremost with the resolution and frame rate. The game now runs at 1080p on the Switch (when docked) and the frame rate is much smoother than it was before (again, when docked). For the first ten hours or so of playtime, I ran Lego City undocked in order to see how it performed in both modes and to see how smoothly it ran. There were a few instances where the frame rate dropped slightly, and the resolution drop was noticeable at times, but there was nothing there to seriously dampen the experience.

2 player mode

Content-wise, you’re getting exactly the same package that was released on the Wii U only this time there is a local co-op mode included. Much like the other Lego titles, this means that another player can drop it any time and join in the brick-smashing fun. Sadly there are no missions or puzzles specially designed for co-operative play, resulting in the second player acting as a second Chase as opposed to a partner of his. Given the size of the city though, there will be no shortage of things to see if you do decide to take on the game as a pair as opposed to solo.

All of the segments that were handled by the Wii U’s second screen are all now dealt with on-screen, which is at no detriment to the game whatsoever. Phone calls now pop up in the bottom corner of your screen, and the environmental scanner is now controlled by the two thumbsticks rather than holding your controller up and moving it around manually. The former is much more convenient as you don’t have to divert your attention away from the screen to watch the conversation unfold.

Blue Whittaker

You certainly don’t want to miss any of the story or script as it is probably the wittiest title that Traveller’s Tales (TT) have written to date. There are countless references to popular TV shows and movies which are superbly written and integrated throughout both subtly and as part of the main story. The reference to Morgan Freeman and The Shawshank Redemption is a noteworthy example of this.

If there’s one thing that lets Undercover down, it’s the poor optimisation in the load times which plagued the Wii U outing, and sadly do the same here. It would have been nice to see TT give this area some attention to address the problem, but this does not appear to be the case, with some load screens being evident for over a minute in some instances. Much like the frame rate drops, this isn’t something that will spoil the experience, but it is noticeable, nonetheless when you’re left waiting for the next section or chapter to load.

Lego City Undercover Loading Screen

The main string of story missions will probably take the average gamer around ten hours to complete, but the sheer volume of extras on the side mean Lego City has a near endless playtime which only adds to its appeal. It’s not perfect, that’s a given, but it’s the best Lego title there has been to date and should be played by newcomers and returners alike.

Lego City Undercover: PS4 VS Switch

by Casey Mcstefan, posted in Nintendo, Videos

With Lego City Undercover out this week many gamers want to know: how does the Nintendo Switch version of the game hold up against the PS4? Well, you can see in the video below.

It’s impressive results for the Switch, especially when you consider its portable factor and size. The PS4 version looks sharper in our opinion but other than that they’re pretty close.

Source: YouTube