A few months ago Amazon was having another one of their disappointing ‘Prime Days’, but there was one deal that seemed way too good to pass up. By the end of the day I had ended up impulse buying the LEGO Dimensions Starter set at an amazing price. And it’s a good thing I did, because I just got the chance to play the Ghostbusters (2016) Level Pack. Year Two of LEGO Dimensions has begun and (besides the new Ghostbusters pack) it’s squaring up to be a pretty great year. Not only are we getting Knight Rider LEGO, but we’re also getting classics such as the A-Team, Sonic, Gremlins, and even the Goonies. Enough ‘building’ up the anticipation (pun DEFINITELY intended) let’s get right to it.
This is a LEGO game and anyone who has ever played a LEGO game will know they have an unique sense of humor, and the humor was plentiful in this. From the classic LEGO gags and jokes, mixed in with the humor from the Ghostbusters film, it works pretty well together. The 2016 Ghostbusters proves a pretty good fit for the LEGO Dimensions format as well as it’s a very well-known property, yet you can throw Batman or Homer Simpsons in there and they’ll fit in surprisingly well
The game looks very good for a LEGO game. Of course, LEGO = blocky. But the animation is pleasantly smooth (save for Wildstyle’s movement of course) and the minimal animation bugs weren’t too bad. The story pack features an open world element featuring the surrounding area of New York and it’s pretty decent. The open world is pretty expansive and it serves as a great time waster. The story pack includes a rather long string of levels that actually cover the events of the entire film. This is one of the longest (if not the longest) story pack released for LEGO Dimensions so far, and it’s an extremely fun play through. The story pack even presents players with an incredibly fun new ‘Portal Mode’ called Rip that literally opens windows into different realities so that you can solve puzzles interdimensionally.
Finally, what comes in the box: The box comes with a base which you’re supposed to swap with the basic LEGO Dimensions portal base, a minifigure of Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy’s character) and a mini-build of the Ecto-1 (or Ecto-2). The minifigure and the vehicle look great, but unfortunately I was a little bit disappointed with the base build. While it was fun to build, the end result is a little bland. I know what they were trying to do, yet I think they just slight missed the mark on this one. But the rest looks cool. One thing that I wish the set came with was minifigs for the rest of the team. It’s a little disorientating controlling four plus characters but only actually having one physically.
More onto the visual side of things, LEGO games have always been interlaced with its various bugs and glitches and the Ghostbusters story pack continues that tradition. Thankfully nothing TOO major (although I’ve heard horror stories of people’s games freezing in the same spot over and over again), but more along the lines cosmetic glitches. I experienced such things as characters repeatedly running on the spot, or into walls, even character and vehicles spawning on top of each other. But like I said, nothing too bad.
Just a few of the smaller issues I had with the game. The dialogue audio is a toss up of lines pulled from the movie and lines provided by a totally different voice actor and sometimes the difference is severely noticeable. Lastly the team AI can be anything but helpful and cooperative at times but players who often dabble in LEGO games should be used to that.
All and all this is an incredibly fun level pack, and I found it to be a great way to introduce myself to expanded intricacies that the whole LEGO Dimensions series has to offer. For $50 (CAD) I’d say what you get more than justifies the price. You get basically a full game (retells the events of the WHOLE film) as well as all the physical items you get for just over half the price of a AAA game. I can’t wait to keep playing the Ghostbusters and go on to see just what else TT Games has to offer in year 2 of LEGO Dimensions.
