Lego Minifigures Online

I really enjoy Lego games by Traveller’s Tales with their charm, humor and pop-cultural references. Minifigures Online however was created by Funcom and you can feel that the Norwegians just don’t understand why TT’s games appeal both to young and older gamers. What’s more, LMO is boring, rather ugly, full of bugs and dubious design choices.

Obviously I’m not the target audience, and sure there might be some kids that get a kick out of collecting figurines that resemble wizards and hot dog men, but I like to think the developer should have given a bit more credit to the target audience. The other LEGO games all manage to be child-friendly without being insulting to everyone else in the process.

In terms of accessing content (especially the chance to collect all the minifigures) the change from free-to-play to pay-to-play is a welcome step. But it opens the door to a whole other world of problems: Why not change the game to offline with optional online connectivity? And also with the redundant fighting system and the mission grind Minifigures has to compete with a wide variety of offline Lego games, which are almost always the better choice.