For years, everyone has loved LEGOs. It’s hard to forget those wonderful days of our childhood, pulling out the old box or bucket, and watching as the pounds of LEGOs fell to the floor and then your imagination ran wild. For decades, people have been coming up with some crazy contraptions and some very clever works. Now, in recent years, we have seen our favorite Legos being moved into the games industry with the release of a couple of titles that have everyone screaming back to their respective childhoods once again. LEGO Star Wars and the recently released LEGO Indiana Jones are two titles that put the focus back on those lovable plastic building blocks.

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What did we build in the past? 

LEGO titles have always moved a decent number of units, no matter what platforms that they’ve been released on. Many different types of LEGO games have been released over the years, and while most of them have brought joy, others may have brought annoyance. Let’s take a look at some highlights in this long line of games:. 

LEGO Creator 

Released in 1998 for the PC, LEGO Creator gave players the chance to customize to your hearts desire in animated form. There were various unique features of the game that helped make everything worthwhile as you built, destroyed, and recreated. You assigned tasks to your fellow bricked friends and gave them jobs to do, much like you see in the Sim City series. After this game was such a huge success you knew there was going to be more titles spawning from it. This game doesn’t disappoint if you’re looking for that one creative edge in the LEGO world. 

Bionicle 

This series was a major success in the eyes of many young children. It had a very interesting way of bridging together LEGOs that formed more realistic characters. The series ended up hitting the big screen in 2003 and a video game adaptation followed along with it. It was released for multiple platforms in the same year and gave you the chance to explore the world of Bionicle in the action-adventure formula. Unfortunately, critics greatly despised the game for many reasons, which explains why we don’t hear about the series at all today.

LEGO Racers  

There weren’t really many racing titles that would compete with Mario Kart back in the days of the Nintendo 64. LEGO Racers tried to with its simplistic gameplay attributes, and became one classic that may bring back some either frustrating or joyful memories. You might take a look at what LEGO Racers is, and then go and look at Mario Kart 64 and argue that they have the exact same formula. Well, that’s because they do… but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the game tried hard to be a credible kart clone. In the sequel, you were given more maps to race on and a few more options this time around, along with more vehicles to choose from and race as. You were also able to customize your tracks and characters as you saw fit.

LEGO Games: The Next-Generation

LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga

With the success of the past two console generations-- including the Xbox and PS2 and now the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii-- there became reason to enter the LEGO video game market once again. Traveller’s Tales entered the market with the idea to make game adaptions of classic movies in LEGO form. With crazy humor and intriguing character designs pulled from Episodes I, II, and III, LEGO Star Wars was born. It became an instant success and with the easy pick-up-and-play formula, LEGO Star Wars was fun for the whole family, as players were able to experience the movies like never before. LEGO Star Wars’ success spawned a sequel that covered the Original Trilogy and maintained the same amount of charm that the original game had. Finally, Lucasarts and Travellers’ Tales delivered LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga in 2007; this game basically combined the two previous LEGO Star Wars games and placed them into one neat package for all of the major platforms. Online co-op play was available for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, while the Nintendo Wii version implemented motion-sensing technology and the Nintendo DS version had a few new gameplay wrinkles, as well. 

LEGO Indiana Jones 

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, which was just recently released (and reviewed here at GamePlasma), utilizes the same basic gameplay formula that made LEGO Star Wars such a success. There were some changes made this title to take away from the violent nature of certain movies from Temple of Doom and others as the developer wanted this title to appeal to all audiences, thus keeping LEGO Indiana Jones as light-hearted as they could.  In working with Lucasarts once again, Travellers’ Tales ensures that you follow the plot of the original movies. Unfortunately, there isn’t any content from the newly released film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull… but don’t be down just yet, as it likely shouldn’t be too long until we see that in LEGO form.

The Future of the little bricks  

With the success of titles like LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones, you can expect that Traveller’s Tales will be expanding their market a bit and branching out into other areas. Our current listings show that we will be seeing releases for the much anticipated LEGO Batman and an original venture, called LEGO Universe. LEGO Universe will be the first MMO LEGO title and will allow players to customize to their heart’s desire while also interacting with other players online. There is a bright future ahead for the LEGO world, and whether you are a child or a child at heart, you certainly won’t want to miss what’s up ahead.