LEGO® Games are Inspirational

[Demetreous]

When Alpha Team was in its prime, I wasn't "around" yet. It had been recently discontinued when I ran into the theme on the "product" page of LEGO®'s official website.

I remember when I was younger how much I was into making action/adventure type sci-fi creations; and after recently stumbling into the game again, I remember why.

I didn't enjoy the game as much I what inspired me within the game. There were giant secret base fortresses and other outposts that you infiltrated. And because nearly everything was made of LEGO® (besides the terrain), I was inspired to build such things as control panels, sliding doors, laser forcefields, and a whole lot of unorthodox vehicles.

The physical sets I looked up were pretty cool, but not nearly as cool as they seemed in the game. Same thing happened when I played the last LEGO® Star Wars™ game they made, and watched some gameplay videos of the Batman™ game.

Speaking of Batman™, I was equally as inspired by the old animated videos LEGO® had on their website back when they first released the theme: videos such as the one where The Penguin™ broke into a museum, via a giant rubber ducky, and stole a bunch of diamonds.

I don't know… There's just something about seeing LEGO®s virtually come to life that make the little plastic gears in my head turn and inspires me to build.

(I'm uncertain of where to put this topic, so I'll trust the mods will give it a good home)

Anyone else get similar effects from these games?

Edited May 15, 2015 by Demetreous

[buffalo movies]

Well Lego Racers is what started me collecting Lego, because I wanted to have all the characters from the game and to build the tracks...

[Demetreous]

Well Lego Racers is what started me collecting Lego, because I wanted to have all the characters from the game and to build the tracks...

They were indeed a great marketing scheme as well.

[Lyichir]

When Alpha Team was in its prime, I wasn't "around" yet. It had been recently discontinued when I ran into the theme on the "product" page of LEGO®'s official website.

I remember when I was younger how much I was into making action/adventure type sci-fi creations; and after recently stumbling into the game again, I remember why.

I didn't enjoy the game as much I what inspired me within the game. There were giant secret base fortresses and other outposts that you infiltrated. And because nearly everything was made of LEGO® (besides the terrain), I was inspired to build such things as control panels, sliding doors, laser forcefields, and a whole lot of unorthodox vehicles.

The physical sets I looked up were pretty cool, but not nearly as cool as they seemed in the game. Same thing happened when I played the last LEGO® Star Wars™ game they made, and watched some gameplay videos of the Batman™ game.

Speaking of Batman™, I was equally as inspired by the old animated videos LEGO® had on their website back when they first released the theme: videos such as the one where The Penguin™ broke into a museum, via a giant rubber ducky, and stole a bunch of diamonds.

I don't know… There's just something about seeing LEGO®s virtually come to life that make the little plastic gears in my head turn and inspires me to build.

(I'm uncertain of where to put this topic, so I'll trust the mods will give it a good home)

Anyone else get similar effects from these games?

I agree with this sentiment. I used to love MOCing based on games like Rock Raiders, Legoland, Alpha Team, and even the Mata Nui Online Game for Bionicle. Heck, even when The Lego Movie came out, I spent a lot of time trying to reverse-engineer Emmet's apartment (largely so I could try to get a better feel for the layout, and shrink the interior down to fit the modular exterior).

Of course, by the same token, it always frustrated me when a video or game like that featured a non-existent recolor, or a non-existent part variant (like some of the parts in Lego Racers). When I could see the parts so clearly, I wanted to build them exactly as they appeared, regardless of how feasible that was! For that reason, I do now appreciate non-brick-based Lego media like the Ninjago cartoon, since the fact that the parts AREN'T as clearly defined means it's easier to make do with existing parts.

[qoucijure]

the fact that the parts AREN'T as clearly defined means it's easier to make do with existing parts.

Edited May 17, 2015 by qoucijure

[Demetreous]

I agree with this sentiment. I used to love MOCing based on games like Rock Raiders, Legoland, Alpha Team, and even the Mata Nui Online Game for Bionicle. Heck, even when The Lego Movie came out, I spent a lot of time trying to reverse-engineer Emmet's apartment (largely so I could try to get a better feel for the layout, and shrink the interior down to fit the modular exterior).

Of course, by the same token, it always frustrated me when a video or game like that featured a non-existent recolor, or a non-existent part variant (like some of the parts in Lego Racers). When I could see the parts so clearly, I wanted to build them exactly as they appeared, regardless of how feasible that was! For that reason, I do now appreciate non-brick-based Lego media like the Ninjago cartoon, since the fact that the parts AREN'T as clearly defined means it's easier to make do with existing parts.

I totally understand. I always get annoyed when I watch movies involving LEGO® and the background terrain and infrastructure isn't made out of bricks, however, like in the LEGO® Star Wars animated commercials where the only things made out of LEGO® is the product.

[Lyichir]

I totally understand. I always get annoyed when I watch movies involving LEGO® and the background terrain and infrastructure isn't made out of bricks, however, like in the LEGO® Star Wars animated commercials where the only things made out of LEGO® is the product.

I think you might be confused, because I'm kind of saying the opposite of that. While I do love when things are 100% built out of Lego, these days I appreciate the creative freedom granted by things like the Ninjago cartoon, where there aren't many visible "bricks". That animation style may be less inspiring as far as building techniques are concerned, but at the same time it makes it easier for me to put my own spin on the vehicles and settings which don't appear in sets, instead of getting frustrated by not having the right part in the right color to build them "correctly".

Part of what I liked about classic games like Legoland or Rock Raiders was that the low-res graphics offered the best of both worlds—the buildings and vehicles were very clearly brick-built, but the actual builds were pixelated enough that it was easy enough to make the necessary substitutions without dramatically changing the overall "look". Of course, it'd be impractical to expect a TV series or modern console game to make do with '90s video game graphics!

[Demetreous]

I think you might be confused, because I'm kind of saying the opposite of that. While I do love when things are 100% built out of Lego, these days I appreciate the creative freedom granted by things like the Ninjago cartoon, where there aren't many visible "bricks". That animation style may be less inspiring as far as building techniques are concerned, but at the same time it makes it easier for me to put my own spin on the vehicles and settings which don't appear in sets, instead of getting frustrated by not having the right part in the right color to build them "correctly".

Part of what I liked about classic games like Legoland or Rock Raiders was that the low-res graphics offered the best of both worlds—the buildings and vehicles were very clearly brick-built, but the actual builds were pixelated enough that it was easy enough to make the necessary substitutions without dramatically changing the overall "look". Of course, it'd be impractical to expect a TV series or modern console game to make do with '90s video game graphics!

Oh, no I understood that we disagreed. Suppose I didn't make that clear: sorry.

But wow, I totally get your point here. I never thought of it that way: by TLG choosing to use a more vague background, you get to make more creative liberties on interpreting it into physical MOCs. Very interesting point, indeed.

[The Indivisible Woman]

I get this, absolutely! For me it goes way back to LEGO Racers - I wanted to recreate everything in the game! And then the Rock Raiders game came along, and for a long time I wished I could make something like their spaceship, but unfortunately there aren't that many turquoise parts around.

I'm kind of conflicted about the whole non-LEGO backgrounds thing. On the one hand, it usually looks nice and doesn't ruin the appearance of the game, but on the other hand it's just really cool to see absolutely everything made out of LEGO (like in The LEGO Movie Videogame) and think "I could actually make that!"

[Boxerlego]

LEGO Racers is a very good a game even though the background was not all LEGO the game did a good job at displaying it.

I recently heard about LEGO making a video game called LEGO dimension, Dont know much about it But I thought I would share.

Edited May 19, 2015 by Boxerlego