I have a confession to make: as slow as I am at building actual LEGO sets (it takes me well over 5 hours to build a 500 piece set), I’m orders of magnitude slower at playing through video games! How slow, you ask…? Well, let’s just say that I’ve still never completed the LEGO Marvel or Harry Potter Year 1-4 video games, much less opened LEGO Batman 3 or Dimensions. So even though I spent over $200 on LEGO Dimensions video game toys this week, I still had no clue how the game actually was.

Luckily, my dear friend Dave M. has been kind enough to step in and give me (and all of you!) his first impressions of the video game based off his first 8 hours of gameplay…

“After playing other underwhelming ‘toys-to-life’ video games, I was a little dubious about LEGO Dimensions, particularly with its rather hefty price tag. However, some good MetaCritic reviews encouraged me to give it a shot. And I’m glad I did!

I’ve played virtually every LEGO video game that has been released. I remember playing the first Star Wars game way back on my first gen Xbox. Looking at the list of games online, I believe I’ve played all but three of the console games – even LEGO Rock Band! I even got 100% on a couple of them. Even with those likely hundreds of hours played on these games, I think I’ve had the most fun so far playing LEGO Dimensions.

In case you haven’t heard about LEGO Dimensions yet, it’s a video game released on major consoles (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii) that integrates minifigure and small assembled miniature vehicles and other accessories into the game via a chip base that is recognized by a light-up platform. As you place the mini-figures and accessories onto the pad, the game recognizes that you own them and they appear in game, ready for you to play with.

The major draw of the game for many will be the fact that this is the first LEGO game which integrates and mashes up many different franchises into one game. All the major franchises are included in this game. The list of included franchises is pretty amazing: DC Super Heroes, Lord of the Rings, LEGO Movie, Simpsons, Doctor Who, Scooby-Doo, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Jurassic World, Ninjago, Legends of Chima and Midway Arcade.

The notable exception is the exclusion of Marvel and Star Wars licenses in the game. I’m guessing Disney didn’t want to play nice and let those DC guys play in their sand box. This may be because it competes with their own toys-to-life Disney Infinity game, or because they feel it somehow erodes their brand. Who knows, but I’m hoping they realize how much money they left on the table and decide to play nice with the other toys for the inevitable expansion.

The base game includes 3 mini-figures from 3 different licenses: Batman from the DC Universe, Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings, and Wyldstyle from The LEGO Movie. It also includes 1 assembled mini-vehicle: Batman’s Batmobile. With both the base game and any of the many add-on packages, instructions are included to build the mini-figures.

The accessories and vehicles, such as the Batmobile, are built in-game using on-screen instructions. Each of the accessories and vehicles has 3 different builds. The base build unlocks automatically, but you must unlock the alternative builds by leveling up your accessories by using the ever-present studs found in these video games.

If you want to play other characters, you’ll need to spend some real-world money though! Fun packs and team packs add new characters and vehicles to the game. Level packs add new characters and vehicles as well as unlock whole new levels to the game, such as the Back to the Future level. Each character has different abilities. You will not be able to get 100% or complete all puzzles with just the base game.

As you progress through the base game, each level goes to a different dimension, such as the Land of Oz, Simpsons World, or Doctor Who. There are also open-world environments for each of the different dimensions. The base game only allows you to access the 3 associated with the base game characters. Again, you’ll need to spend some real-world money to get access to the other dimensions by buying associated characters from those worlds.

So is this game fun? Yes, absolutely – and very funny. What makes the game truly delightful is seeing all of these characters interact in fun and unusual ways. The kid in me delighted in seeing Batman fly through Middle Earth on Benny’s SPACESHIP!!! or Gandalf riding a raptor from Jurassic World while fighting Cybermen from Doctor Who.

One thing that is different about this game from other “toys-to-life” games is that part of the usual problem-solving is done in the real world. You must activate and move your mini-figures around to different areas of the pad in order to interact with the game. For example, if one of your characters is stunned, you must move them off the red area of the pad to another pad. Using Wyldstyle’s Master Builder ability requires you to move her to each of the different areas of the pad as they light up. Fortunately, the pad has a fairly long USB cord on it, which still enables me to lie on my couch while I play the game. I definitely wasn’t going to walk across the room every time I needed to interact with the pad!

I will admit there were a few times I was confused early on because there was no on-screen hints for what I should do. I needed to look at the pad on the floor beside the couch for a hint on the action I needed to take! While novel at first, I found it a little annoying after a while. I appreciate the effort though. These mechanics definitely revolutionize both LEGO games and other games in the ‘toys-to-life’ market.

Playing the game on the PS4, the colors are very vivid and each of the different dimensions and open world environments has a completely different aesthetic with accompanying theme music. Some worlds, such as the Simpsons World, don’t use their iconic theme music, which is very disappointing. They did their best to approximate the style of Danny Elfman’s recognizable theme music, but it just wasn’t the same.

There are lots of in-jokes in the game, but only pop culture enthusiasts for each of these franchises will likely get all of the jokes. While I enjoy all of the game, I definitely enjoy the interaction the most for the franchises which I follow. Like me, your enjoyment of the game will exponentially increase based on how many of these franchises you know well.

For now, I look forward to continuing my adventure and finding out what LEGO Dimensions has to offer!”

For those of you out there who’ve already played it, how do you feel about Dimensions? Is this game worth the serious amounts of money it costs (especially if you want to buy the additional characters), or are you regretting dropping a huge chunk of change on this video game?