Recent reviews by Turerb

Simple puzzle game built of a neat concept. The daily challenges were nice to do for some time, and the escalation throughout the week was enjoyable, the length of daily challenges were perfect for me, I especially enjoy the simple puzzles, they make me feel smart.
A minor complaint with the pacing of puzzles through the main sets, which felt like they were a little scattered and some sets just got easier.

A pretty fun, really short clicker game. Progression for me was immensely satisfying, since I basically shot through the last three or four levels due to me upgrading myself a lot early on. Similar games have had the issue of dragging on for far too long, but it's not an issue here. Probably worth it for a dollar, I do recommend picking it up if you're into this sort of thing if it's on sale for fifty cents.

My opinion on this one is a little more sour since this is the third time I've replayed it in the last three or so years, although I've never 100%'d it before.
The main new mechanic introduced for this LEGO adventure is Jack Sparrow's compass, which is neat when playing story mode, but can be a little frustrating tracking down bonus items since you only get a vague idea of where they are and Jack moves at a snails pace while the compass is actually out. Also a lot of the bonus things you find are pointless, I don't want or need a fish, yet I must locate it for the compass. The other three newer sort of character traits are the swords, which can be used to activate certain switches, Davy Jones and his crew, which can move through special flooring to get to otherwise inaccessible areas, and finally Blackbeard's sword, which would pretty much be duplicated in Lego Batman 2 for Lex, but is still fun here.
The story of the game is nearly impossible to follow, I've never seen the PoTC films before, and I could only give you vague ideas of what happens during the story, unlike my time with the Lego Star Wars or Indiana Jones games. Lego PoTC just has to many characters that fight becoming allies without much explanation or vice versa, it really feels like it would benefit from being in the era of Lego games where the characters speak.
The game also felt really short in comparison to the other ones, only having twenty story levels that clock in at around twenty minutes each if you're breaking everything. The hub area is kind of small, but after dealing with Lego HP and having to save seemingly the entire student body, it's a welcome change. All of the bosses are a little boring, with most of them boiling down to running where the boss is and swinging your sword at them (ironically it's more effective to just punch them to avoid the combat animation).
There's an odd glitch in 4-5 that caused my game to crash both when first doing it's Story mode and Free Play which was annoying.
This game could've been made better by having dialogue to clear up the story, having the fifth movie would make the story mode suitably longer, but I still wish there was a bit more postgame content. The last thing this game could've done to really stand out is adding sections where you can actually captain the ships and engage in a simplified ship combat system in some levels (Or just make it a part of the hub world).

A brilliant game, held back by a kind of lackluster Steam version and grindy 100% requirements.

Lego Star Wars III is part RTS, several of the main levels are ground battles, in which you construct buildings in pre-set bases in order to push back enemy forces. This is probably my single favourite unique mechanic from any of the Lego games, there is a real destructive thrill in taking down enemy strongholds piece by piece and raising an ever growing army as you do so. My only real issue is that it doesn't feel like there are enough building options, especially considering how many ground battles you'll be doing for 100%.
The main game takes place across a prologue, three branching paths with six levels each, an epilogue, and two bonus levels. These levels will vary in length, but most hovered around twenty minutes for me to beat. Levels themselves are similarly designed from the last LSW games, with a balanced focus on puzzles and combat, although some abilities are certainly underused in levels, with characters like R2, Jar Jar, and C-3PO only getting one or two levels of use, the focus being placed on the Jedi and clones. This game does introduce the gold Lego objects, which need sustained fire in order to break, for that innovation alone the game should be kept in the Smithsonian.
Flying levels are greatly improved from every other game so far, being more fun to control and generally open, and also including ground segments to break up the gameplay.
In my opinion, the hub world is the best it's ever been, still being fairly small and contained compared to LHP 1-4, but exploring and using gold bricks to progress in the Resolute and the Invisible Hand is always a joy. The hub world is also improved by the two bonus levels on the Invisible Hand that can only be accessed by specific mission terminals on the far sides of the ship. The hub also doubles as a FFA arena, similar to the cantina from LSW:TCS, since you can go through and fight the entire crew of one of the hub ships by going in with a character with opposite alignment.

All levels are based on episodes from seasons one and two of The Clone Wars TV show, the episodic format honestly works perfectly for a Lego game, so I'm not sure why they haven't really tried it before or since. The biggest shame is that they only cover the first two seasons, I can only imagine how good a larger scale version of this game that covers all of the seasons would be. The story from level to level is pretty easy to follow even without dialogue, and I still think someone could understand what's happening if they've never seen the show, but they should still watch it.

My computer's not great, but it can run FO4 and SoM easily enough, so a Lego game should not be stuttering as much as this was. Every ten or so minutes everything would just pause for a seconds, it didn't make the game unplayable or anything, but it was super annoying and dampened the experience.

Starting off with main levels, True Jedi was actually really hard to get without stud multipliers, and I even just missed it in several levels, despite the fact I make sure to always break every breakable object, as Lego god intended. Minikits have a pretty solid range in terms of amount of effort required to get them, I even liked how many required utilizing somewhat unique mechanics, like the races in ground battles, or corralling crab children.
Bounty hunter missions are back, with some timers just being straight out impossible if you don't already know where the bounty is. The biggest downgrade for these missions is that you are basically playing free play as opposed to having an army of bounty hunters rolling out like in TSW:TCS.
Every planet has a space mission that involves using rapid-fire, missile carrying, dark side, or torpedo ships to break a certain number of Lego objects/ships within a generous timeframe. Doing these over the 16 planets can get repetitive, and having to navigate to the two hub ship's turret rooms to unlock the missions once was just annoying.
The biggest problem is the 32 extra ground battles that you have to complete with the Separatists and Republic to get gold bricks, although there are different objectives, there aren't enough to fuel any real sense of variety. Additionally, adding a timer just means you can't spend time mucking about and building a massive network of bases, which is where all the fun in the mode comes from anyway. This is by far the worst part of 100%ing the game, since it's just repetitive, easy, and boring, but still took me 3-4 hours to do.
There are no 1,000,000 stud bonus levels.

A small price to pay for CBT.

Very nostalgic game for me from when I used to watch commentary Youtube channels. The game itself is great and moderately challenging, although a couple levels err on the side of unfair, with RNG occasionally dictating if you'll pass a level or not, especially when going through levels without powers. The game would be rated higher if it didn't lag on my machine occasionally, often causing me to die. Despite my efforts, I couldn't find a fix for this.
Although a silver lining to the lag is that it meant I only had to do one phase of the final boss :)

Another one of the old school Lego classics, it ditches most of the traditional Lego character abilities for a selection of spells that grow as you progress in the game. Probably one of the buggier Lego games I've played so far, although nothing too extreme outside of a single crash.

Puzzles are the main focus of the game, with the game taking a massive step back from combat to accommodate it. Characters can use any one seven different spells that are learnt in classes throughout the main story, and some bonus abilities specific to each character (Harry's cloak, Hermione's timeturner, dark magic, etc). These spells are used creatively for the most part, although it's rare for any given puzzle to really use more than two or three of them at a time, and they don't really have any practical use outside of puzzles. Wingardium Leviosa is the most common skill in puzzles, it's used to interact with many different Lego objects similar to how the force works in the Star Wars games, and also to move around platforms to build staircases and bridges, although the controls for the latter are finicky in this game, and later in LSW3 as well.
In addition to spells, you also make potions in cauldrons, having to collect three different ingredients in the immediate area to be able to brew the potion to solve a puzzle, the cauldrons are also used throughout the hub world as the only way to change character is via polymorph.
Personally, I think puzzles are designed well and I like them in this game, with the exception of the Mandrakes.

Levels are fairly short, generally hovering around the 15-20 minute range, and heavily thematic, although a few environments are reused, one of the bathrooms in particular being a set piece of three different levels. At first, I hated how slow it felt to break everything in a level with just the wand, but I got used to it quickly (and you can rapid-fire when standing still and spellcasting). Interactions with objects is a particular high note for this game, as everything being magic makes for some fun animations for stuff breaking or otherwise being effected by magic.
The hub world is another selling point of the game, as you are able to traverse the campus of Hogwarts, which itself is pretty diverse in environment and large, but not overwhelming. Inside the hub there are also lessons that take place where you'll learn new spells and skills for the main trio, the lessons are all short, but are a nice way to break up gameplay and I rather enjoyed them.

I've never watched or read Harry Potter, and I can say that after playing this game I know enough to generally know what happens, but not really how interactions between characters play out or anything like that (why does the school seem to hate Hagrid?). The final bonus level is a 1,000,000 stud level prologue where you play as Voldemort in his and Harry's first encounter, which I thought was cool.

Levels have four parts of a crest to collect as opposed to Minikits, they don't give anything when completed asides from a gold brick. (Which are now back!) Levels also have three character unlocks since you don't unlock characters when playing though the main story for some reason, and a Student in Peril - which you can't track the location of with any extras. All side content puzzles in levels are laughably easy, most of them boiling down to using a single ability on an object and collecting something, or breaking x amount of something.
The hub is where the twenty red bricks are, and they were a joy to collect, character unlocks were also scattered and fun to get since they were numerous, and not particularly challenging. The way the hub is weaved into the story makes it feel natural to explore and collect more as you unlock new abilities, which was enjoyable for me to do. Not enjoyable, however, was having to hunt the last of the 26 Students in Peril scattered about the campus since, once again, there is no extra to track their location if you need to, and you are given no idea where they are without a guide.

One of the goats of my childhood. This game is very similar to the original Lego Indiana Jones in gameplay and puzzles, although with segmented open worlds in the form of six hubs - one for each movie and three for Crystal Skull - each with collectables and a slew of bonus levels.
The game's level structure has changed completely, fifteen levels in each hub, five story levels, five treasure levels, and five bonus levels. Each level is probably only going to take a little over five minutes to beat, and there are no optional collectables in any level, so there's no reason to ever replay them. The story levels generally take place in a small area, with the treasure level recycling a section of the level to create a new puzzle to get a Treasure Chest. The five bonus levels are all made using the custom level builder, they aren't amazing, but they do a good job at showing off the tool.
I actually do like the hub areas themselves, they are pretty tight and have a ton to do, you will be unlocking bonus levels' entrances, getting characters and vehicles to be able to complete treasure levels, and breaking objects to unlock red bricks. Super bonus levels are also massively improved, all of them were pretty short and gave enough studs for me to not have to prowl around for them.
Some puzzle elements are relegated to specific movies for some reason, for instance, Willie's perfume bottle and Maharaja's black sleep are only seen in Temple of Doom (as well as small characters that fit in access hatches). Black Sleep is only even needed for one puzzle in the entire game, which I thought was wasted potential since the mechanic of controlling an enemy like in Lego Batman is cool and underutilized in most Lego games.
As far as the stories for the four adapted movies go, Crystal Skull is pretty in-depth, but the other three were even harder to understand than in the original game, probably due to being a level shorter in the main story.
The biggest selling point, though, is certainly the level creator, which is actually surprisingly in-depth. You can use different parts from different themes to create levels, the closest comparison I can think of is Portal 2's level editor. I didn't muck around with it as much as I did when I was younger, but I do remember it being real fun, I do wish there was a way to actually share levels instead of having to download level files, though.

Another solid Lego game with very memorable levels and characters as well as mostly fun new mechanics and abilities for puzzles and combat.
Small issue is I lost five hours of progress when I switched computers, but the game now works with the steam cloud, so it shouldn't be a problem for anyone else now.

The puzzles utilise a few unique mechanics, with Batman and Robin changing suits mid-level being the main feature in the hero levels, which is a very cool feature to change the basic formula. Although some suits, like Batman's heat resistance suit or Robin's diver suit feel a little underutilized by the game (heat resistance was needed maybe five times for 100%). Additionally, I let out a small groan every time I needed to switch to the attract suit in a free play level, and the attract suit makes it possible to softlock yourself in some levels, which certainly shouldn't be possible.
The villains campaign takes a slightly different approach, and sticks to a 'main' villain for a set of levels and switching out their companion with new abilities. I don't really like how some abilities (freeze gun, ivy's plants, penguin bombers, etc) only have one character attached to them, though.
The puzzles that use character abilities from both campaigns are the standard affair, break, build, push blocks, the works. No puzzle was too difficult to solve, but I do like how they keep bringing back the TCS dance pad, and hope they continue to do that.
I do not like the combo system increasing stud payout, since it feels undeserved a lot of the time it pays out, and having to try and position the enemies close to a purple stud, or breaking objects as I combo, often won't work with the enemy AI or weirdly strict combo timer. Asides from that, I love the different grab animations that each character has (breaking the back of a police officer with bane is always a comedic experience) and the animations on the actual attacks feel improved. Also, the way that unique abilities are integrated into combat is nice, I loved letting the AI control Mr. Freeze and let it run wild on the enemies for me. Speaking of, the AI companions got another upgrade, and can actually kill enemies now!

The levels in this game are at their shortest, you get six episodes of five levels, four of which are ground levels that take around twenty minutes, and the fifth a vehicle level (Except for the riddler's episode for some reason) that generally takes about ten minutes. The vehicle levels here are a mixed bag, the levels themselves are generally good, but there are just so many constantly respawning enemies. The AI also doesn't feel like it was designed around the ground levels, since it will get stuck on random things constantly, meaning you have to backtrack to tag back to them (lucky the tag distance in this game is so far).
Asides from that, I like all of the levels, they are all made super memorable by either having a unique boss encounter at the end for the Hero levels, or by playing as a new member of Batman's rogues gallery for the Villain levels. The actual look of the levels also feels varied, as you constantly jump across Gotham (although the locations from a Hero level often correspond to a Villain level as well). Levels take place in an abandoned toy factory, a zoo, a church, the sewers, the botanical gardens, and so much more. I truly believe that the design of the levels is where this game shines.
On a side note, you will always have just two playable characters, no level's story mode ever gives you a third to play as. I found this odd given the last two games both had parties that could get much larger than two.

In a similar fashion to Lego Indiana Jones, this game only really has free play and two bonus one million stud levels to go through. Free play involves picking up several collectables around the map, Minikits specifically can be hidden in real devious places, with a couple being in random areas that you have no shot to be able to visually see. Red Bricks are still here, with Hero level Red Bricks granting suit upgrades as opposed to extras. While the suit upgrades are cool, they aren't super useful, with most providing small speed upgrades on your abilities. New to this game, there are also 25 people to save from thugs (in both Hero and Villain levels, which is odd), they're all super easy to find, and saving all of them gets you a special character.

Lego Indiana Jones is probably one of my least favourite Lego games out there. It isn't bad, but small parts of it are infuriating to play through due to infinitely respawning waves of enemies, and there isn't a ton to do outside of the story, making the whole game feel weirdly short. My relatively poor opinion on this game could just be due to the fact I have no nostalgia for it like I do for most other Lego games, but this just feels like the weakest of an excellent bunch of games.
The puzzles in this game aren't particularly challenging, being a Lego game and all, none really gave me any challenge or engagement. The Indiana Jones IP brings along some new abilities for puzzles, Indy's whip being a specific focus for the game. Ind is playable in every level, and you can use his whip on highlighted platforms to swing across gaps and pull switches to progress. Also introduced are phobias, where some characters are scared of certain animals (spiders, rats, and snakes), and you need to clear the way for them to continue. Hats also make a return from TCS, although this time you grab them from enemies when they die, and mercifully you don't lose them every time you take damage. Double jumping has also been changed to women just being able to jump higher naturally.
By far the largest change to puzzles, though, is the introduction of picking up objects. Shovels, wrenches, dynamite, keys, swords, and bananas are all collectible and used for various puzzles, although there are characters that can cover some of them by default. Additionally, some objects will need to be picked up and carried to their destination, either to progress in the level or to deliver a parcel (this game's Red Brick). I don't really mind this mechanic, since it allows for a better amount of variety in puzzles, and also a choice on weather a character will carry a gun or a utility item.

First, I would like to sing the praises of whoever made the CPU useful in combat, since it can actually stun enemies for you by attacking them. Overall, the combat is quite different compared to other games, mainly since in the story modes, you'll never play as a character that has an actual weapon by default, and will need to pick a pistol, rifle, machine gun, bazooka, crossbow, or spear off the ground and use it, all of them, however, have an incredibly limited durability. So for the most part, ranged options are limited for the player, and you'll have to rely on melee. Indy's whip can be used as a weapon, although it's range is pretty short so it's effectiveness is limited.
My least favourite enemy in any Lego game I've played was also added, the officers that carry around bazooka's, the rockets are AoE one shots and they fire them at the same rate as a normal gun. One level has at least four of these enemies respawning continuously while I was trying to break everything. The combat feels like it has less depth than TCS did, and also feels marginally more unfair.

This game's levels are designed to be a little under a half hour long, which I still think is an ideal length for Lego game levels. The levels themselves do have a habit of sometimes blending together, especially with Temple of Doom, where half the Episode takes place in a dark cave. Artifacts (minikits) and Parcels are placed pretty fairly, and don't take too long to get in free-play. I really enjoyed actually being able to pick up around 5-6 artifacts each level in story mode since it felt like it actually making progress towards 100% even while playing through normally.
The level design isn't perfect, though, with many abilities that character's have feeling underused in main progression. For instance, Willie has the ability to scream and shatter glass, this is used once or twice in Temple of Doom, and then never again for the story, rockets that destroy silver objects also destroy glass as well, so the ability is useless in free play. Indy's whip can be used to grab objects from a distance, but this is only used in one level to carry an object across a few gaps.
The AI also has a hard time moving through the levels, with CPU characters getting stuck on random things occasionally so I'd have to run back to get them. Also, two artifacts required me to temporarily tag in a second player because the CPU wouldn't stand or get to where I needed it to.

I am much less familiar with Indiana Jones than I am with IPs like Star Wars or Marvel, and there isn't dialogue or an opening crawl to read through, so I'd bet that a decent chunk of the stories of the films is lost on me through this game. I do think that the Charlie Chaplin voice acted story does actually work fine here since the base idea of a treasure hunter stopping treasure from getting into malicious hands isn't as complicated as the later Harry Potter films or anything like that.

Very limited, outside of free play for already completed main levels, there are three extra levels to go through, five Star Wars easter eggs to unlock Han Solo, and a fairly small college to explore.