I don't know that there are exactly 1001 games on this cart - but there is definitely a lot of stuff to play around with. How do you organize that many games in a way that makes sense and is navigable?
Well, the games are grouped by theme (of sorts) with action-based games separated from boardgame/cardgames and puzzle games. It's actually a pretty good collection, I played more than a few (hello Mahjong! Word search! Hello terrible unplayable minigolf, hello puzzloop knockoff, hello weird driving game where you only steer). It turns out that many of these have different levels - and each level is counted as a separate game. As for distinct games (not levels) I still think there's easily 30 different games to play around with.
I guess if I only had this game and a DS and was stuck on a long roadtrip, I'd definitely get my money's worth. But, it's kind of surprising to me that I think I'd get the most value/time/interest from the non-action games. So, the puzzle, board, card games...there's quite a few variations of solitarie for example (I wonder if each level is it's own seed/layout so once you've played it it's the same the next time?)
So, it's exactly like Rock Band (on handhelds, was the PSP version really the last one I played) - but with lego characters. I'm not sure I've really understood what is supposed to make it special/different OTHER than the visuals...it's Lego.
Perhaps for some people it's fun to see the Lego version of favorite artists? (Blur, etc.) I don't know, it's not for me really - so I think it'll go back on the shelf. I've played through parts of the campaign, unlocked some venues and such.
I guess what I'm most impressed by is the quality of the audio and the variety of songs. I wouldn't have thought they could fit all of that on the cartridge! THere must be some clever technical thing I'm not aware of?
Yesterday I only played the prologue - which is a really well done tutorial for each of the four characters (and character types?) you can control in the game. I was a bit confused at first because the tutorials are incremental - when you start the 2nd one, the first character is on the board taking their turn! (I had somehow not registered that this was a multiplayer boardgame)
I think one of the things I enjoyed the most about the tutorial is that it slowly opens up - in the beginning you have to really do exactly what you're told, but towards the end (3d and 4th character), you're given much more open-ended (feeling) objectives that you might take a few turns to address and go about them almost in your own way.
So, it felt really natural as a way to learn the game and begin to make your own independent choices. We'll see how it all pans out once I played a full "real" match.
I'm also curious if this is a game I'll play regularly? Try the different characters? Play online? I don't think there's a campaign or anything like that, but the world seems to rich in stuff that it feels like a real shame if the amazing setup turns out to be just that - an amazing setup for a fantasy boardgame...
