Lego The Hobbit is the latest game from TT Games. Established in 2005, this developer is best known for marrying the Lego property with popular movies franchises into a videogame package. This started with Star Wars and has weaved through popular franchises like Batman and Harry Potter. Now in the middle of 2014, they are tackling The Hobbit, based upon the films by Peter Jackson. They have already done The Lord of the Rings so this won’t be their first foray into this universe but with all the Lego games, will fatigue have set in?

The story of Lego The Hobbit follows that of the first two films by Peter Jackson. There are some minor deviations along the way but for the most part, what you watch in the film will be what you experience here. As with the movie, the story starts with Bilbo, a simple hobbit in the land of Middle Earth who has been selected as a burglar for an epic quest to help the Dwarves retake their land. Long before, they lost it to a dragon, drawn in by the Dwarves and its insatiable lust for previous items. The main item, the Arkenstone, is believed to bestow upon whoever carries it the right to rule. If the band of merry men or orchestrated by Gandalf were to succeed, it would be to recover this stone and remove the dragon.

For the most part, this story is quite faithfully reimagined in the style of Lego. If there is to be a critique of the story here, it would also be a critique of the movies. There is the feeling that this is a magical rollercoaster ride that this band of unlikely questers goes from setpiece to setpiece. Some might say that the story adds elements not in the Hobbit book. Others may critique that some changes were made for the worse. The simple fact is though, this is based upon the movie. The biggest downfall is the choice to make this game after just two movies of a trilogy. Especially when the second movie ends on such a cliffhanger. There are some additions to give it the characteristic Lego charm, such as some liberties to make parts more humorous, which I enjoyed and felt fit right.

Overall, if you enjoyed the movies, you’ll just re-experience them here. If you thought they were too violent for your children, this could be the perfect way to introduce them to this material. The humorous additions should make it even better for children and add a minor twist for those who have seen the movies to make it fresh.

Lego The Hobbit follows in a similar vein to its predecessors. You play are a party of characters from a third-person point of view fighting enemies and progressing through puzzles and other challenges. For the most part this works quite well and even better, it is set up like an arcade game. If you want a friend to jump in, they just need to pop in a controller and press start. The enemies are quite easy and your death from them or from falling off a cliff merely means a loss of coins, Sonic-style. Destroying objects typically rewards you with building material or the material to construct something right there on the spot. Certain characters can mine or fish for even more materials. The culmination of all the materials can be used at certain spots to build even more impressive objects. If you have all the materials necessary, it pulls up a building mini-game where you must select the appropriate pieces to be used at various points of the construction. While initially cool, the game is quite elementary and not incredibly fun or entertaining.

Despite an aim at children, I found some aspects to be frustrating. At certain times, the only way to progress is to destroy everything so you can use the pieces to build a new path. Other times, the game requires you to use special abilities of the dozens of playable characters. Unfortunately, the game does not adequately convey what each of the dozen characters can do. Therefore when the game asks you to do something, it’s a game of switching between each character and each of their weapons to find the right combination.

Overall though, the game can be quite fun. After playing through sections, you can go back and replay them to your heart’s content. This is important because upon your first play through of an area, you won’t have all the characters. This means some things simply cannot be done at that point. The game just teases you, letting you know they are there but you can’t access them yet. Unfortunately though, for most people these points won’t yield much satisfaction. For those that like to complete everything, it will help add a decent amount to the game.

The graphics bringing this Lego creation to life are quite well done. Characters look and objects in the world look exactly like their real-world counterparts transformed into Lego. A complaint could be made that some parts of the world mimics realism a bit more than a Lego world but overall it works quite well. It is hard to imagine the other way working as good. The animations, particularly the destruction of an object and all the Lego pieces flying away, are nice. The best part of the design here is simply the recreation of the movie, in the form of Lego. All the characters are recognizable, as are the locations from the films. Despite not pushing the technical boundaries, this game looks like what it should be, a recreation of The Hobbit movies in the form of Lego.

The sound, takes an interesting approach. They used this approach on the prior Lego Lord of the Rings title. Basically they have ripped the voice acting from the movie and placed it here perfectly. Whereas some titles can get away replacing the iconic voices of movies, they completely jumped around that issue. It works well. The music is also taken straight from the films and obviously works equally well. The other sounds have been dipped in the characteristic Lego charm and used to bring more humor to the game. The melding of this works really well and makes the transition from movie to game much less jarring. Obviously this limits the story to merely the track that was already taken but it’s hard to imagine any major additions possible. In summation, they did a fantastic job.

Considering that The Hobbit has been made into a trilogy, it is somewhat disappointing that this game decided to leap in at the second film. So instead of having a game for each film or a game for the trilogy, we got a game that encompasses the first two films. Either way, there is a little disappoint to be had. Neither of the movies has a conclusive ending and where the second one ends is right in the middle of something quite important. It’s a move equivalent of Halo 2’s “finish the fight.” On the other hand, I feel that it faithfully bring the property to Lego. Any critiques of the story here apply equally to the movies. If you come expecting the issues you had with the movies to be fixed, you’ll be sorely disappointed. The gameplay is the same Lego gameplay that people have come to know and love but there are some issues. Sometimes the only way to progress is to just destroy everything to find the pieces to build something. Other times progression is blocked and needs one of the characters special abilities to actives. The issue there is there are so many characters and some characters abilities overlap. In essence, both contribute to making certain points frustrating. The graphics, don’t push any technical boundaries, but it looks like it should. One could critique it doesn’t push the Lego mantra far enough but imagining that look doesn’t feel like it would work. The sound, takes an interesting approach. They used this approach on the prior Lego Lord of the Rings title. Basically they have ripped the voice acting from the movie and placed it here perfectly. Whereas some titles can get away replacing the iconic voices of movies, they completely jumped around that issue. It works well. The music is also taken straight from the films and obviously works equally well. Overall, if you’ve enjoyed the prior Lego games, this one might be right up your alley. Especially if you have kids that you want to introduce to the movies without experiencing the violence of the films. Do note though, since some parts are frustrating, you may have to be their sidekick through this adventure.

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