LEGO THE HOBBIT has no central hub from which to buy characters. And boy, is it possible to stray away from the story. Production value is high, with gorgeous drawn illustrations between cinematics narrated by Christopher Lee (Saruman) giving the scenes context and reminding players what’s going on in the story if they haven’t sat down with it in a while. It’s funny and charming, but it’s essentially The Hobbit-lite.

This makes the story weaker in comparison to LEGO MARVEL SUPER HEROES, which had an original plot but was on par with the other film-related games in the series. While each character has these unique abilities, it may be possible to find or craft special items with the same abilities on replays of the levels Story-wise, there’s nothing that new, as the game uses the licensed audio from Hobbit 1 and 2, along with goofy Lego visuals. Most of the dwarves also carry axes, which can be used to smash cracked rock plates, usually creating a tumble of bricks and studs, but some carry unique weapons like bows, slingshots, flails, and spears, each which has targets in the environment that only it can take down. It’s possible to change weapons in the middle of a fight to choose the best one. This is complimented by each character’s normal and unique abilities. LEGO THE HOBBIT goes farther by giving the dwarves collaborative gameplay where they must constantly help each other directly, linking up to climb short cliff faces, cross a gap on a grappling hook, or create a two-man team to fight one of the large-sized characters (like Trolls). With LEGO MARVEL SUPER HEROES, I was surprised how cleanly the developers divided tasks between individual characters’ special abilities in order to force players to switch often, or if two or more players are working together, pay attention and collaborate. LEGO THE HOBBIT also pushes the cooperative gameplay of prior titles even further. Make no mistake, this is the best-looking Lego game the developers at Traveller’s Tales have made yet, and the higher resolution textures and lighting just give the whole thing a more polished sheen than ever before.

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