LEGO Universe

At least, not with anybody else around. Where you do have total freedom is on the small plots of private land the game offers you, which is also when the hoard of bricks you've accidentally amassed comes out (as well as your collection of "behaviours", attributes you can apply to bricks to make them react to your touch, useful for making elevators or surreal forests of rotating trees).

But even here there's disappointment, because it's just no fun. It is anti-fun. The thrill of LEGO is in that tactile compression of two pieces fitting snugly together, and in how fast you can turn a jumble of bricks into a helicopter, or a fort, or a giant cock. Here, building anything is just a pain. The interface makes laying bricks about as fun as being an actual bricklayer. Neither selecting pieces nor placing them is either smooth or satisfying. You could build something faster with actual LEGO, and might even have fun.

But there's a much bigger problem here than a wanting build mode; NetDevil itself is wanting builders.

The content that's actually here is fine. Quests and characters are routinely charming, always bright and cheery. The game is digital Ribena. But despite this being a subscription-based MMO, in a single lazy Saturday you could happily blitz more than half of LEGO Universe's quests, which takes you worryingly close to the almost non-existent endgame. The whole "universe" consists of a small questing area before you reach the town of Nimbus Station, then that leads off into one minuscule area called Pet Cove and a couple of mid-sized questing areas called the Gnarled Forest and Forbidden Valley, and that's it.

LEGO Universe tries to sidestep this problem with some grinding, and during that sidestep the game trips over its feet, falls off a precarious catwalk and into a vat of poison. It's astonishing. After you've cased everywhere you can reach in the Gnarled Forest (perhaps nine hours into LEGO Universe), you need a set of Tier 2 gear before you hit the Japanese-themed Forbidden Valley, otherwise you'll get your ass handed to you.

A full set of Tier 2 gear (hat, pants, shirt, weapon and book that lets you use the sodding stuff) will set you back 475 faction tokens. Faction tokens are dropped by mobs of Stromlings. If you hammer the crap out of Stromlings wearing Tier 1 gear for a solid hour, you can expect to earn about 86 tokens. That's what I earned in the hour that I spent hitting Stromlings. That entire hour of my life that I'll never get back.

All told, you can look forward to 5 hours of mindless grinding if you want a set of Tier 2 gear and the extra few hours of quests you'll find in the Forbidden Valley. And it is mindless. The game's combat being lightweight and uninvolved is great when tumbling through a quest arc, but less good at holding your attention all by itself.

What then? Well, there's Tier 3 gear, of course! Not that you'll have anywhere to use it, except perhaps on the Dragon that represents the game's single boss. Tier 3 gear is also much more expensive, so that's another 8 hours of grinding, right there.

According to LEGO Universe's Wikipedia page there are a whole range of worlds currently in development, and assuming these worlds end up being substantial additions with plenty of quests and some new enemy types, then they cannot get here soon enough.

With triple the worlds to explore and a more robust and social building mode, this game could be a perfectly acceptable way for a LEGO fan to lose a weekend or two.  As it is now, LEGO Universe starts as a pleasant distraction but promptly ferries you straight into a fierce, ludicrous grind that leads nowhere. That's one brick wall I could do without.