Lego The Hobbit review

[Administrator]

As much as Lego The Hobbit was inevitable - as well the last words Bilbo would ever want to hear while being flown around by those eagles - it does rather beg the question: "Wait, now?" We're only two thirds of the way through the unnecessarily bloated film trilogy, leaving a gap the size of Smaug's corpse in the story, with a concluding DLC pack nothing more than a rumour at present. For now, though, we have the initial parts, "Too Many Dwarves" and "Holy Crap, What an Awesome Dragon": two blockbusters, now with endlessly more blocks to bust and enough irreverence to make that barrel ride look like the Silmarillion as read by Orson Welles.
If you've played any of the Lego Whatever games before, that about sums it up. They don't change a vast amount between licenses and this one is no exception. Two-player co-op that's perfect for parents and kids, running through a slapstick version of the first two movies, swapping characters to use different skills and smashing everything that can be smashed for both items and the delicious jangling sound of thousands of Lego studs going into the pot. Levels are linear and recreate moments from the movies, unlocking for free play once completed, with plenty more to do on a sprawling world map full of additional characters, quests and other goodies to make 100% completion a solid challenge for any player.
Like Lego The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit uses the actual voices from the movie, with the growling seriousness of the characters, to great advantage. It's a whole universe of pratfalls and visual gags: building a giant key to open a door only to have the dwarves use it as a battering ram, leaving armoured orcs in their comedy boxer shorts with a good hit and stuffing Bombur with food to turn him into a bouncy trampoline. It doesn't work quite as well as last time, but only because The Hobbit is already a much goofier adventure than The Lord of the Rings. Making fun of something with its tongue in its cheek is always harder than spoofing the serious, especially when restricted to visual gags and clips of the original dialogue. (There is additional voice work too, which immediately stands out as "wrong", especially the narration - but it's restricted to characters like the traders who hand out quests on the world map.)
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