I swear when LEGO Dimensions first came out, the makers did everything they could to get me to want to buy it! LEGO Dimensions plays like other LEGO titles, but incorporates the ‘toys to life’ gaming concepts brought about by Skylanders and Disney Infinity by giving you LEGO characters, vehicles, and items you can use in the game by building them and placing them on a special pedestal.  I wrote a big article about it that you can read here.  Anyway, like I said, they did everything they could to tempt me to get LEGO Dimensions.  They must’ve read my mind and knew I liked Portal, so they put that in the game.  I also like 80’s movies like Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, as well as TV shows like The Simpsons, and those are in here, too.  But the icing on the cake was the recently released Midway Arcade Level Pack.  I’m a huge fan of classic arcade games, so you know I had to get this.  But it’s not what I first expected!

You get three figures to build in the LEGO Dimensions Midway Arcade Level Pack. A playable character simply called Gamer Kid, a Spy Hunter car vehicle, and a Defender arcade cabinet.  With the level pack you also unlock a new stage and the Midway hub world as well.  Here is a closer shot of the front of the box.

I also included a shot of the back of the box that shows you how you can rebuild and upgrade your vehicle and item in the pack. I never really did this in the game, but I thought it was cool that you could rebuild the Spy Hunter car to a boat and flying vehicle, since the car can change into those in the games as well (at least the boat anyway).

Like with other LEGO Dimensions sets, you must build the figures first. Start with the Gamer Kid figure. One thing I don’t like about this game is that they don’t give you any paper instructions on how to build the figures, so that’s why I recommend building the Gamer Kid figure first since it’s the easiest one to build.  You must also use the playable character in the game to unlock the secret Midway level.   Once you start the level, they give you instructions on how to build the other two items in the game fairly quickly.

The Gamer Kid has the power to play the arcade cabinets in the levels, and he also can change his shirt. When you make him change his shirt by tapping the button, you can then hold down the same button to activate a temporary power-up.  You can cycle through invisibility, super strength, invincibility, laser vision, and super speed!  He’s your one-stop-shop for unlocking a lot of the hidden stuff in the levels!  The Spy Hunter car is a little disappointing.  It can use a tow cable like The Simpsons car, but I couldn’t get it to fire machine guns or release oil slick or anything like that.  Which is a shame because that’s what the Spy Hunter car is known for!  The Defender arcade cabinet you can ride around like the turrets from Portal, which is kind of weird.  While riding, you can also direct the cabinet to special pedestals where you can play a game on them, but more on that later.  Here is a picture of all three LEGO figures fully built.  I especially liked how the arcade cabinet has a screen and a marquee and side art on it.  Oh man, wouldn’t it be cool if LEGO made an arcade set with actual cabinets you could build?  I would totally buy that!

In the original LEGO Dimensions story mode, there is a Midway level that you play. It has LEGO versions of classic arcade games like Defender, Robotron, Gauntlet, Super Sprint, and many more!  You can read more about it by checking out my original LEGO Dimensions article.  But the unlockable Midway Arcade level is totally different than what I expected!  I thought it would have more LEGO versions of arcade games like Spy Hunter and such, but that’s not what it is.  The extra level looks like an abandoned arcade with rooms you can go into, and each room has a simple puzzle featuring characters from classic arcade games.  You’ll then find a pedestal that you can put the arcade cabinet on, and when you do, you can play emulated versions of the original classic arcade games!  The ones in the level include Spy Hunter, Joust, Gauntlet and its sequel, Super Sprint, Robotron, and Rampage.  When you play these games and reach a certain score or pass a level, you can earn a medal.  Earning these medals nets you tons of studs when you leave the game, so if you need to get a bunch of studs quickly; the Midway pack is the way to go!  Plus it’s pretty easy to get most of the medals, at least for me, it was.  But then, I’ve played many of these games lots of times in my life!  When you play the games, you’ll power-up an elevator that’ll take you to the top of the building and the end of the level.  Each area also has a wizard you can talk to who will spout facts on each of the games you’re playing.  And that’s pretty much it!

The hub world that you unlock starts out with a lobby with a bunch of pedestals where you can play the arcade games. Some of them are unlocked, and some are locked.  I wish it was more clear how to unlock the ones you can’t play yet, but I imagine you may have to go through the other levels in the main game and find those pedestals.  But I’m not one hundred percent sure.  The hub world also has 3-D areas you can tromp around in based on classic arcade games.  You can go through a city from Rampage, a race track from Super Sprint, a football field from Cyberbots, a Gauntlet maze, a tall structure from Marble Madness, a futuristic area from Vindicators, and a dock house from Toobin’!  There are missions in these areas that you can tackle that earn you gold bricks, like protecting George the giant gorilla while he goes on a “Rampage” bashing buildings!  Like the other LEGO hub worlds, you’ll need to spend studs at certain spots to have these areas built first.  But it was still pretty cool to see 3-D versions of some of my arcade favorites.

And that’s what you get with the Midway Level Pack. If you don’t have a Midway arcade classic collection game, this works as that, too.  So it’s like two games in one!  Here is a full list of the games you can play, taken straight from the official press release:

720, Badlands, Blasteroids, Championship Sprint, Defender, Defender II, Gauntlet, Gauntlet II, KLAX, Joust, Joust 2, Marble Madness, Paperboy, Rampage, RoadBlasters, Robotron, Spy Hunter, Super Sprint, Timber, Toobin’, Cyberball, Vindicators and Xybots.

So if you like classic arcade games and have LEGO Dimensions, you’ll definitely want to pick up this level pack!

Kid Factor:

LEGO Dimensions is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Cartoon Violence and Crude Humor. While the arcade games you play here may have you shooting cars or eating people or blasting alien robots in space, the limited visuals of these 80’s arcade games keep everything from being too graphically violent.  In fact, I’d be OK with any age playing the Midway Arcade Level Pack.  I grew up on these games as a kid and I think I turned out OK.  I also recommend classic arcade games for kids to play when starting out on gaming since most are very simple to figure out.  The Level Pack also has facts on each of the playable games, so it could be considered slightly educational as well.  And it’s a great game for parents to share with their kids to show them the kinds of games we played when we were little!

Tags: Game Reviews