The first Mission Impossible movie came out way back in 1996.  I remember watching it, and it was a decent action flick, but it didn’t compel me to watch any of the sequels.  Plus, even though the TV show it was based on was a little before my time, I seem to remember it focusing more on teamwork between the agents, while the movie was just “Tom Cruise Does Everything.”  But the movie was certainly popular enough to spawn sequels.  And now, your mission, if you choose to build it, is to check out the Mission Impossible Level Pack for LEGO Dimensions.  The game is available for nearly all current game consoles, but reviewed on Wii U here.

LEGO Dimensions is essentially like Skylanders except you build and play with LEGO figures and vehicles in the game.  I even wrote a big article about it a while back.  Here is a closer shot of the box for the Mission Impossible Level Pack.

Three figures are included for you to build.  You get Tom Cruise’s character Ethan Hunt.  As a playable character, he has all sorts of spy gear at his disposal.  You have a stealth skill, grappling hook, explosives, and a gun for attacking long distances.  What’s interesting is that the LEGO figure has two faces: just his regular face and on the back is his ‘hacker’ face which has a headset.  So you can switch to whatever face you want, and it kind of reminded me of Good Cop/Bad Cop from The LEGO Movie.  As you play through the included level, you’ll be prompted to build two vehicles.  One is a motorcycle that is used mostly for jumping up ramps and crashing into windows.  You can also jump while riding it.  The other one you build is a car, which can pull certain three-pronged hooks like most other LEGO vehicles in this game can do.  Here is a closer shot of what you can build.

The pack comes with a full level for you to play based on the movie.  It plays like any other LEGO game, complete with the humor we’ve all come to expect.  There’s even a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” Top Gun reference!  The level is actually pretty long (maybe a little too long).  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to finish the level because a bug kept me from solving a puzzle to open an elevator. I would restart, try playing with just one player, but nothing worked.  I even watch videos of people playing through the level to see if I missed anything.  Nope.  I guess it really was Mission Impossible!  It wasn’t a very interesting level to me anyway and felt like it was geared toward single player only.  Also, like most other LEGO Dimensions levels, using the portal pedestal is not very intuitive most of the time.

You also get to explore a hub world to earn more gold bricks and other goodies by completing missions.  But the hub world just looks like a generic city, and as you walk around it it’ll say that you’re in places like Prague, then Rome, Sydney, etc.  But they all look the same and only are about a block apart.  It’s a small world after all, I guess. Because of the uninteresting level design and bugs, I’d have to say this was one of the weaker LEGO Dimensions expansions for me.  I think only die-hard fans of the movie will enjoy this one.

Kid Factor:

LEGO Dimensions is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Cartoon Violence and Crude Humor. Even though you can shoot enemies with guns and attack with explosives, bad guys just fall apart since they’re made of LEGOs.  If you’re OK with your kids watching the show and movie, they’ll definitely be OK with this game, too.  While I would recommend most LEGO games to all ages, I think LEGO Dimensions is best for older kids.  One, the things you build are pretty complicated sometimes, so they would need to be experienced LEGO handlers.  And like other LEGO toys, the sets are pretty expensive so kids would need to know how to keep up with and take care of their toys, as the game is useless without them.  And plus using the pedestal is not very intuitive.  Also don’t forget the whole choking hazard thing with small LEGOs!

Tags: Game Reviews, Movies with Children, Television