LEGO Universe MMO for 2010

Lego might be accused of cross branding, but they do it well. They work with other big licenses (Star Wars, Batman) and the products share the quality that their vanilla bricks do. The company motto is “Only the best is good enough” and you don’t destroy an international household name’s reputation to make a quick buck, after all.

Perhaps more importantly, Lego bricks are fun, interactive entertainment, so video games aren’t that big a stretch. Their games are generally regarded as amusing and cute for adults while being perfect for younger players who would ask their parents too many difficult questions if the game played was Grand Theft Auto. Coincidently, there is still no word on Rockstar and Lego hooking up for an M-rated Grand Theft Lego.

The jump from solo games to MMOs isn’t an easy one, but it isn’t as tricky as the one from making toys first patented in 1958 to video games. Lego is likely to at least deliver a quality game that will excite and entertain younger players; but if “only the best is good enough,” will LEGO Universe do more and draw in a broader audience? Currently, no version for Mac has been announced.

Lego is working with NetDevil to bring LEGO Universe to life. This company, run by divers and named after an odd-looking creature of the deep that uses a bioluminescent lure to attract prey, is most widely known for the Jumpgate and Auto Assault MMOs. The name is meant to reflect the company’s commitment to exploring the unknown and embracing the unique, and the games they release back it up. I am not sure if the fish can do the same thing, but the company has approximately doubled in size in the last year or so.

Turning its back on the crowded fantasy-MMORPG field, NetDevil makes MMOs that bring large numbers of players to other gaming environments. Auto Assault lasted little over a year, but it did allow players to customize and drive a heavily armed vehicle through a post-apocalyptic landscape. Unfortunately it was burdened with drab graphics, confusing crafting, and repetitive delivery or kill x of monster y type quests. The quests were as derivative of bad fantasy RPGs as you could get, leaving the impression that this was a traditional MMORPG with post-apocalyptic graphics and vehicle avatars, ultimately trampling the originality of the death car MMO. The game’s servers were shut down permanently on August 31, 2007.

Despite having its publisher go under while the game was being released in 2001 and having to market and distribute the game themselves, NetDevil fared much better with Jumpgate. They’ve had to merge servers, but seven years is a pretty good run for an MMO, and they are planning on launching a sequel, Jumpgate Evolution, this year. The game has an excellent UI and physics (for 2001) that, while making for a rather steep learning curve, allows players to engage in actually piloting their space craft. You are in the cockpit, not just ordering your ship from a distance, making combat a seat-of-the pants twitch type of game a la Wing Commander or X-Wing games of yore. MMORPG elements are fleshed out with experience leading to increased rank and the ability to obtain nicer equipment, a detailed economy not only of player equipment but trade resources for merchant oriented players, and an elaborate story line the player can move along by completing certain quests.

Taken altogether, NetDevil seems quite capable of developing the original kind of MMO that Lego wants to make, particularly if one figures that Lego’s quality commitment will prevent the faults that sunk Auto Assault and that Lego will have a downloadable version on their website and probably have boxes not just in video game but toy stores.