Lego Island: 3D Action Adventure CD-ROM Game Released in 1997 for windows Developed and published by Mindscape

Lego Island is the first official Lego video game and really set the standard for all future lego games. It captures the feeling of living in a lego world as a lego character, which is something that only a video game can achieve. The gameplay is quite simple, and most of your time will consist of driving, building, and exploring the lively and serene lego island.

Lego Island plays more like an open sandbox, then a game with a set story with levels and a definitive beginning and end. Aside from capturing the Brickster, the rest of the game is more just exploring and completing mini-games. You start at the Info Center and the owner, known as the infomaniac, talks to you explaining how to play. Then when you're ready, you hop into whichever activity you want and you're ready to go. This makes the game really easy to pick up and play, which is something most Lego games seem to have in common.

The Info Center interior

The island is packed with different NPCs going about their day, walking and driving around. You can click on a character and they will react in goofy animated ways. Their Lego body will spin around and a new hat of some random description will appear on their head. When entering a building, you will be greeted with one of the main characters who will introduce you to one of the main or side activities. These characters are fully voice acted with quality voice acting. They are also animated in a very playful and legoish style. These cutscenes can also play out when you approach different locations. For example, when you go to the police station, a police officer will invite you in to build a helicopter, after a funny little interaction where he almost arrests you.

Sharks have gotten loose on the island

When you're outside on the island, the game plays in real-time 3D. You can travel along the roads and trails, but can't go off road unfortunately. You can walk and ride in various vehicles such as a skateboard, race car, tow truck, helicopter, and so on. When inside of a building, the environments are pre-rendered. You navigate these interiors through a point-and-click interface. You can click on different objects and different rooms to navigate.

The indoor pre-rendered areas have a very similar vibe to Myst. Especially the police station and the Info center. When inside the Info Center: There are 3 rooms on the first floor, an elevator, and 3 screens on the observation deck. The elevator to the deck really reminds me of the elevator in the original Myst game. You go inside and get a view outside through the windows. You can then click the button which floor to go to, then hear the machine humming and gears turning as the elevator ascends or descends. Once on the roof, you can view each different screen. There's nothing really notable to do up here and there are no puzzles or riddles to solve so any non important rooms are just for show. At the roof however, you can listen to the radio and adjust the time of day of the island.

The police station

The elevator

The view from the observation deck

The soundtrack to Lego Island really surprised me. It is insanely good with a large variety of tracks. For such a small kids game, you wouldn't expect much, but they really put a lot of effort in. Different music plays when you're in different districts on the island, inside the various buildings, during activities, and on the radio. The radio is especially impressive with news channels and music that plays. Hearing the Lego Island news and DJs really helps make the game world feel alive and gives it personality. The music and radio combined with all of the NPCs and little cutscenes, helps create such a great atmosphere and vibe.

There's a fun little secret cave you can find in the mountain region of the island. If you go to the observation deck in the Info center and click on one of the drawers, you'll hear a voice from a pirate. The pirate will give you some tips and secrets on the game. If you click on the drawer enough times, he will hint at a secret cave on the northwestern side of the island. If you then travel over there, you may find a trail that leads down into a cave. There is a door inside that you can click on, and the pirate will tell you more secrets. Unfortunately you can't go in, but it's still a cool little place to find. It's possible there was supposed to be more to this pirate cave, and maybe even a whole activity related to it that you could play, but I'm just speculating. It would have been cool though.

Secret pirate cave

A little suprise if you open the chest

As for the story? Well there is not much of a story to Lego Island. Most of the game consists of completing tasks that are isolated from each other and have no lasting effect on the island. If you play as Pepper, who is the canonical main character, and do the pizza delivery mission, that leads to the one and only story mission of the game.

The main story mission of the game is the pizza delivery. It starts as a normal activity like the others, you're told to deliver the pizza to the jailhouse. When you arrive, it's the Brickster, the criminal of lego island. Turns out the pizza delivery was a scheme by the Brickster to escape. His cell is conveniently isolated from the police station and completely unguarded. In fact the top of the cell door easily opens, so I don't know how he hasn't escaped already. There is also a helicopter parked right in front of his cell too. Right next to his cell is a sign that is supposed to say no pizza, but when playing as Pepper, it is spelled as no pizaz. It's implied that Pepper can't read, so he doesn't know not to give the pizza to the Brickster. So poor Pepper unknowingly gives the Brickster a means to escape. He then breaks out of jail and gets in the helicopter, but doesn't actually leave the island for some reason. Maybe the island is too far from the mainland to fly there, I don't know. Well he flies to the other side of the island and breaks apart the helicopter. What ensues is chasing the brickster, trying to collect the helicopter parts and rebuilding it, then flying it while throwing pizzas and donuts to lead the cops to the brickster and catch him. With the Brickster captured, lego island is saved and everyone is happy, hurray! That's really the whole story of the game. The rest of the missions or activities, aren't related to the story are just there for fun and to work towards 100% completion.

The Brickster in a small cell left unguarded

Good Ending cutscene

There is however a bad ending that can be achieved, if you fail to capture the Brickster in time. The bad ending will play a rather disturbing cutscene where you see the whole island is destroyed, while the Brickster is revelling in his glory before realizing finally, the damage that he has done. It was considered too dark for kids because the original version of the cutscene was cut to be less frightening. You can watch the full version of the cutscene on youtube here.

While I didn't grow up with this game, it was still an enjoyable experience and nostalgic in a way. The sequel however, was the game I played growing up and so it's interesting to finally play the original. Thanks to the decompilation project, it's really easy to play the game these days. I was able to run the game straight through the web browser, and it played great. I highly recommend giving the game a shot since it's so easy to get running and I think most people will appreciate its simplicity and good vibes.

Lego Links

Get access to the web version of Lego Island here

Complete Lego Island soundtrack

Vote for Lego Island on the GOG dreamlist