LEGO released its new video game "LEGO Dimensions" Sunday.
I've been playing through a review copy of the game, and it's a lot of fun.
"Dimensions" is LEGO's version of the popular toy-to-life games popularized by Activision's "Skylanders" and Disney's "Infinity" series.
The game allows you to play as a number of characters from different TV shows, movies, video games and more who can all interact with each other on screen. (Imagine Batman meeting Doctor Who for the first time, and you start to get the idea.)
You start off with Batman, Wyldstyle ("The LEGO Movie"), and Gandalf ("The Lord of the Rings"). While you can finish the entire game with those three characters, you can also purchase more LEGO characters to play with in game and join the trio ranging from Scooby Doo to Chris Pratt's "Jurassic World" character, Owen.
The best level I've checked out so far is a "Doctor Who"-themed one, the first time the BBC series will be appear in LEGO form.
While you won't be able to play as the Doctor until November, when his "LEGO Dimensions" playset will be released, you will be able to get a taste of "Doctor Who."
One of the game's early levels finds you on a planet filled with "Doctor Who" characters ranging from Cybermen to Daleks. You'll even get to see the Doctor himself, voiced by Peter Capaldi.
While fans of the series will appreciate the well-thought-out level — there's a nod to Billie Piper's fan-favorite character Rose — that's not even the best part.
Half-way through the level, you come across a few harmless-looking angelic statues in a cemetery.
If you're a fan of "Doctor Who," you know those are anything but harmless, they're Weeping Angels.
In one of the current series best episodes, 2007's "Blink," you're introduced to the statues.
If you see one, you're not supposed to look away or blink when around it, hence the title of the episode.
If you do, the angels will move and close in on you. The moment you look at them again, they’ll look like statues. If an angel gets close enough to touch you, it sends you back in time to a random date and place.
Why?
The angels feed off the energy of the years a person would have lived in their present timeline.
They're frightening — the kind of stuff you're not expecting to see in a children's LEGO game.
With this in mind, you can understand why I was incredibly excited and nervous when seeing the angels appear on screen. LEGO couldn't actually be putting real Weeping Angels in its game, right?
I went up to them numerous times baiting them, but they didn't budge. When I moved off screen and returned to them, I noticed they sometimes changed their stance when I moved off screen and returned to them; however, you usually need a power outage or a moment of complete darkness for them to move.
I figured this was the end of the angels — a nice little nod to a fan favorite.
Then, I moved onto the next room in the game.
It was dimly lit and there were even more angels.
At first nothing happened.
It was the same as before. The angels changed their poses when I walked up to them and moved away.
Then, things started to get weird.
After going back and forth a few times, I noticed the angel looked a bit different.
Scarier, to be exact.
Not so nice anymore, huh?
Still, the angels weren't moving, so that was a good thing.
To get to the next room, I needed to put a few energy cells into a generator of sorts.
That's when the real fun began.
Each time I inserted a fuel cell into its chamber, the lights started flickering, and it was game on for the angels.
Whenever the lights went out, the angels were one step closer to my three characters.
The first time it happened was probably the scariest moment in the game so far.
Then they started chasing me all over the room!
Let's just take a moment to look at a few shots of the Weeping Angels in all their demonic glory, shall we?
If the angels got too close, they couldn't send me back in time. Instead, this terrifying sequence happened.
The stuff of nightmares.
(For the record, there was a way to prevent the angels from killing you, but I wanted to know what happened if I didn't save myself.)
So, how did I make it stop?
I had to hook up a makeshift battery into a generator across the room to restore the power.
If you were zipping through this part of the level, it only took a few minutes to figure out the puzzle. (This is a kid's game after all.)
After I successfully made it across the room, almost unscathed, Gandalf, Wyldstyle, and Batman couldn't wait to high tail it out of there. No really, that's them running on their own.
Once safely on the other side, we were, naturally, met by more Weeping Angels.
Here we go again!
