E3 2015: LEGO Dimensions Makes Toys More Fun

While LEGO Dimensions is only the latest entry into the games and toys genre that started with Activision’s Skylanders and has been embraced by Disney with the Disney Infinity games, and with Nintendo’s amiibo toys which work with a wide variety of games, LEGO Dimensions certainly looks to be taking the genre in a fresh direction.

It starts with the LEGO Toy Pad, which comes with an unassembled Gateway that you have to build from actual LEGO bricks and attach to the Toy Pad. The Toy Pad has spots for 7 figures or vehicles, which are split into three distinct areas. During gameplay these different areas can have different effects on the characters in game.

These three sections light up in different colours as the Toy Pad’s different modes get activated in game. One example showed off at E3 sees figures shrinking down small when placed on one area, and growing huge when placed on another. These were used to solve puzzles in game adding to Traveller’s Tales goal of really making the toy side of the game something more interactive and fun.

This is also seen in the games vehicles. Each vehicle you can buy for the game (the base set comes with the Batmobile) is actually a tiny LEGO set that can be assembled three different ways, each of which the Toy Pad can recognize. Letting you change the modes and abilities of the vehicles by physically dissembling and rebuilding them.

For the first time we’ve been given the chance to see an actual section of the game, and TT have chosen the Portal level to do so. Fans of Portal will be happy to hear that the LEGO versions of Glados and Wheatley are voiced by their original voice actors and seem to be as funny as ever. At certain points different portals in game correspond to the different sections on the Toy Pad, and you move LEGO toys around to teleport things. Numerous gameplay concepts from Portal show up, albeit it in a simpler and more LEGO appropriate form, but it hints at a wider variety of gameplay than most LEGO games offer.

Where the game really shines, and where it really sets itself apart from the other LEGO games is in all the potential crossovers. At any point, any toy you own can be added into the chaos. Anyone can drive any vehicle. Seeing a sweet LEGO recreation of Portal environments is a lot of fun, but once you have Scooby Doo awkwardly driving the Batmobile and a giant Peter Venkman stomping around, the magic of LEGO Dimensions really shows through.

So many logos!

With toys and in game content from The LEGO Movie, DC Comics, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future, Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Jurassic World, The Wizard of Oz, LEGO Chima, Midway Arcade, LEGO Ninjago, Scooby Doo and The Simpsons, people who invest in the game have a wide variety of toys to spend money on, and a large variety of insane crossovers to look forwards to. Personally, as a fan of some of the LEGO games and someone who already owns a LEGO Delorian and Ecto 1, I can’t wait for the first batch of content to launch in late September.

LEGO Dimensions is coming to Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3 and Wii U, and as is usually the case with these titles, any toys you buy will work on any platform. Just try not to go as crazy as I have pre-ordering way too much stuff. Stupid credit cards.

CLICK HERE for images of all the LEGO Dimensions toys up for pre-order now!
Click HERE to grab your pre-orders for all the killer LEGO Dimensions sets!