Lego Hero Factory For iOS

The Lego brand has, over recent years, expanded its range far beyond the building blocks you may remember from your childhood. Lego has been behind some very good PS3 and XBox titles in the past and even some much loved iOS titles such as Lego Harry Potter: Years 1 to 4 and Lego Batman: Gotham City Games. Lego's latest offering, Lego Hero Factory (FREE), was released yesterday as a universal app. Lego Hero Factory features a very long winded background story, though it essentially breaks down to: "Villains have escaped from a maximum security prison, you must stop them." Lego Hero Factory is a dual stick shooter, featuring many of the expected facets from the genre, such as weapon power ups etc. As with Lego Harry Potter before it, the game world is littered with small collectable items, that look like small wrenches. These items must be collected in order to open various doors throughout the map. Whereas Lego Harry Potter was a reasonably fast paced title, Lego Hero Factory feels extremely slow and sluggish. When firing your character's weapon you can slowly follow the projectile as it crawls across the screen. This slow pace, combined with a poor auto-targeting mechanism, really detracts from the game. Lego Hero Factory appears to be a glorified demo title for the main Lego Hero Factory: Breakout, a Web based title. Codes can be found throughout the iOS version that can be used with this main title. This integration with the browser game may make this title worth playing, for some, though this isn't a hugely redeeming feature to me. While the slow pace may appeal to a younger audience, there are far better, and equally as free, dual stick shooters available on iOS that should be winning your time. Does Lego Hero Factory have the building blocks of a great game? For me, no. I think I'll stick with Age of Zombies for now.