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LEGO Island: The History So Far

LEGO Island was one of the first video games to be released by LEGO. It's over a decade old, released in 1997, and proved to be a sales and critical success. It was the catalyst LEGO needed to develop subsequent games such as LEGO Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Batman.

LEGO Island was a collaboration between LEGO and Mindscape. Developed for children, it was only released for Windows PCs. Which is a shame, considering the wider mass market appeal games consoles usually have for younger children. LEGO Island 2: The Brickster's Revenge rectified this issue, with release on the Playstation and Game Boy.

As the above images show, the graphics of LEGO Island are somewhat dated. Which is to be expected for a game that's over ten years old. LEGO Island 2 was released four years after the original, a couple of screenshots are provided below for it,

As you can see, the graphics are significantly improved. And the genesis of recent LEGO games is more clearly shown. The final game in the LEGO Island series was Island Xtreme Stunts. Released in 2002, it dropped the 'LEGO Island' title, but was a continuation of the theme and characters of the previous two games. However, there was no continuation of the LEGO Island story, and the game is probably more of an offshoot from the series, rather than a sequel.

The obvious appeal and success of LEGO Island was it's family orientated design. With many video games coming under fire for their wanton violence, LEGO Island was a safe alternative for parents worried about the negative impact of video game violence on younger children. LEGO Island won many awards from family magazines and the "Family Game of the Year 1998" at the Interactive Achievement Awards.

LEGO Island: What's It About?

LEGO Island is hard to pinpoint as a genre. There is no clear objective to the game, and players are free to build whatever they like, just like with real world LEGO sets. There are missions to complete, but a player can choose to ignore these and instead focus on custmoising the island.

The primary character in the game is named 'Pepper'. The first mission involves delivering a pizza to a jail, which in turn let's loose the Brickster. The Brickster could be described as the game's 'bad' character, who sets about dismantling LEGO Island. Pepper will be required to complete tasks to send Brickster back to jail.

Alongside Pepper, players can also use the character's Nick and Laura, both of whom can change different things around the Island. Vehicles play a part in the game, you can build your own and also ride a jet ski.

The game is only played on LEGO Island, which is a small self sufficient island. The island consists of an information centre, pizzeria, residential area, police station, jail, hospital, petrol station, bank, beach, post office, shop and a race track.

Other sites,

LEGO: Official site, Global community for LEGO fans