Lego Jurassic World First Look – Hold Onto Your Butts

T-Rexes, raptors and familiar heroes enter the Lego universe for this Jurassic Park adventure.

Travelers Tales gave several Hollywood franchises the Lego treatment, including Star Wars (original and new trilogy), The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean and Marvel Super Heroes. However, its most exciting project is just around the corner, as the developer prepares to tackle dinosaurs with Lego Jurassic World.

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The game includes all four Jurassic Park movies, including the new Chris Pratt entry that arrives this June. In it, players will be able to re-experience familiar events, from the thrilling T-Rex pursuit to escaping an island crawling with raptors. Of course, the game follows in the tradition of previous Lego titles, complete with plenty of humor and content appropriate for players of all ages.

WB Games, the publisher behind the forthcoming adventure (in a partnership with Universal Studios), recently invited us to go hands-on with the game to provide an idea of what to expect from this dinosaur-filled experience. Thus far it has plenty to offer, right down to the iconic T-Rex chase from the original film.

The familiar Lego elements are there, as you can break items in the environment (barrels, flowers, whatever looks like it can be destroyed) to collect Lego pieces and studs. The more Lego parts you collect, the more a meter fills up. Once it’s full, you’ll earn a gold brick. Pick up enough of these and you’ll be able to unlock additional items, including bonus levels and characters from the game.

Speaking of characters, similar to other Lego titles, you’ll have dozens to choose from, spread across four movies. You’ll hop into the shoes of Dr. Grant or Ian Malcolm, while at the same time receiving the opportunity to play as dinosaurs once in a while.

The opening level is a great demonstration of this, as Ellie, Dr. Grant’s assistant, must heal a sick triceratops. In order to do this, she’ll need to collect items around the surrounding area, either by watering plants that grow into vines she can climb, or diving head first into a pile of Lego dino feces. Once healed, the triceratops becomes a playable character, able to smash through walls and barricades that humans wouldn’t be able to go through otherwise.

Players can switch between any of the characters wandering around the level with a quick button press. In some cases it’s a necessity, as you need certain characters to complete duties, like using the tracker character to find hidden things in the level by following footprints that only he can track.

The second level featured the iconic T-Rex chase, as we took control of a Jeep speeding away from the hungry beast. This is one of those typical run from the enemies towards the camera types of levels, but with a twist, as you have to collect Lego bits and avoid the T-Rex’s headbutt charges to avoid taking damage. As a bonus objective, you can also shoot flares into the dino’s mouth, although this took a bit of practice with our play through. The level came to a humorous end when the T-Rex ran into a log in the middle of the roadway, collapsing from exhaustion.

The final hands-on level was short but sweet, with Dr. Malcolm and his comrades scrambling across rooftops to avoid raptors – a scene taken from The Lost World: Jurassic Park. This segment showcases how Malcolm and company can use items like zip lines and roof tiles to throw off their pursuers and reach the awaiting helicopter to escape. Along the way, items can be broken into, and some switches need to be activated in order to put the zip line in its proper place, so the crew can continue getting away from its ravenous pursuers.

We didn’t see levels from Jurassic Park 3 and Jurassic World yet, but the development team assured us that these stages will follow the same entertaining formula as the rest. Players should find several hours’ worth of value, with plenty of items to collect and characters to unlock. For good measure, local co-op will also make a return, so players can team up to thwart enemies, solve puzzles and survive their run through Jurassic Park.

Lego Jurassic World will arrive this June for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, PC and PlayStation Vita.


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Prima Games Staff
The staff at Prima Games.