| LEGO → Video Games |
| LEGO Island 2: The Brickster's Revenge | |
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| LEGO Theme: |
LEGO Island
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| Developer(s): |
Silicon Dreams |
| Publisher(s): | |
| Date Released: | |
| Genre: |
Action, Adventure |
| Mode(s): |
Singleplayer |
| Rating: |
ESRB: E |
| Platforms: | |
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LEGO Island 2: The Brickster's Revenge is an action adventure video game released in 2001. It is a sequel to LEGO Island, and was followed by Island Xtreme Stunts. The main character of the game is a young pizza delivery boy named Pepper Roni. It was re-released in 2007.
Gameplay
PC and PlayStation
Similar to the first game in the series, LEGO Island, the gameplay in the PC and PlayStation versions of the game are directed by missions and sub-games. Unlike the previous game, the objectives must now be completed in a linear fashion. One difference from the previous game is that the player can now only play as the main character, Pepper Roni, unlike the previous game where multiple characters were available to choose from. Other notable changes include the switch to a third person camera and the addition of the ability to jump. Pepper can still use any vehicle he sees, and the Toy feature from the first game is also present, allowing Pepper to change the colours of vehicles, change plants and some landscape elements, and alter the hair/headgear of other minifigures.
Game Boy Color
The Game Boy Color version of LEGO Island 2 has many differences from the other three versions, likely due to the fact that it was developed by Crawfish Interactive instead of Silicon Dreams. There are no clearly defined sub-games as the player controls Pepper in the same fashion at all times, though there are segments that alter the gameplay, such as boss battles, sneaking past guards to escape an area, and mazes. The Toy feature has been removed, and there are no vehicles to control. There are also some enemies, such as Brickster-Bots, Pirate Skeletons, and Mummies, that will actively chase Pepper, though they do nothing besides knocking him away and off his skateboard on contact. Pepper can pick up Trading Cards, which are then added to his card inventory. Each card contains a picture of a character in the game, and cards can be traded between players with a link cable between Game Boys. While the game is still quite linear, there are sometimes optional side quests that give Trading Cards when completed. Pepper can also pick up and receive other items from characters, which can be used later on in the game or in side quests.
Game Boy Advance
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Gameplay on the GBA version
The full GBA LEGO Island map
The Game Boy Advance version is a mix of the PC/PlayStation and Game Boy Color versions of the game. Like the PC and PlayStation versions, there are many sub-games to play and vehicles to ride. However, the Toy feature is limited to plants only. There are also many elements from the Game Boy Color version, such as Trading Cards to find, side quests, and a heavy emphasis on items, which Pepper stores in his backpack. The game is much more open and less linear, usually giving the player more than one goal at a time. Pepper's movement is limited to paths, similar to the original LEGO Island, making it impossible to see every area of LEGO Island in-game. The full map was once uploaded to Flickr by developer Dean Roskell, but for unknown reasons, the original post has since been removed. In the description/comments, he said that despite the limitations on where Pepper could walk, the developers decided to create a full map just for their own enjoyment, including secrets mostly left off-screen such as giant paw prints and a "magic stone circle".
Story
PC and PlayStation
After the events of the previous game and the Brickster's recapture, Pepper Roni is promised a new house, on condition that he delivers pizzas around the island. Having delivered enough pizzas to earn his new house, Pepper is told to deliver one last pizza to the jail in which the Brickster lurks. The Brickster then adds additional chilies to the already spicy pizza, letting him use is "patented Brickster dragon breath" to melt the lock of the jail cell. He then escapes by stealing a police helicopter and flying to the Information Center, where he steals the Constructopedia, the book containing the blueprints for all buildings on the island. He then tears pages out of the book, causing all of the buildings on LEGO Island to deconstruct, fly up into the sky and disappear. Having summoned the Brickster-Bots, the Brickster departs for his asteroid island, Ogel Island.
The Infomaniac informs Pepper that he must destroy the Brickster-Bots and track down the missing pages of the Constructopedia. He soon begins to locate a few of the pages. With each page returned, a building is reconstructed and put back in place.
Pepper then ventures to Castle Island, where it's been reported that the Brickster has destroyed the bridge there. While diving to connect its two halves to rebuild it, he finds the bricks and a page. He then finds out that another page is up on the Bull's castle flag pole as the Lions stole the Bulls' real flag. The Bulls promise to give Pepper the flag, as long as he returns the stolen flag. The Lions agree to give Pepper the flag, as long as he defeated the Bull's Dark Knight in a joust. After defeating the Dark Knight, Pepper receives the Bull's flag from the Lions to give it to the Bulls. However, before the Bulls can give the missing page to Pepper, he has to engage in a cannon battle with Cedric the Bull, an ally of the Brickster, as he steals the page, just as the other Bulls are about to give the page to Pepper. After defeating Cedric the Bull, Pepper acquires the page, signalling his time to leave Castle Island.
Pepper then comes back to LEGO Island, collects more pages, and leaves again to fly through a portal to Adventurers Island with a helicopter. Upon landing, he meets Johnny Thunder and Pippin Reed, who agree to help him track down the pages on the island as long as he helps them. After defending the Adventurer's truck from snakes as they drive through the desert, they find Dr. Kilroy at some nearby tombs. Pepper retrieves gems from inside a sphinx, then ventures inside the mummy's tomb to get a Constructopedia page. Pepper then drives a car to the desert oasis, to get another page from a large fish that swallowed it, before meeting up again with the Adventurers. The entire team then flies to the jungle, where they learn that Mr. Hates has taken several dinosaurs captive. Pepper rides a t-rex to Mr. Hates's camp and rescues the dinosaurs with the aid of a hot air balloon, and then defeats Mr. Hates to get a page from him. Pepper then says goodbye to the Adventurers and returns to LEGO Island... again.
Upon having headed back to Pepper's homeland, Papa and Mama Brickolini are kidnapped by the Brickster and a group of his Brickster-Bots. Pepper then collects the final pages of the Constructopedia on LEGO Island and obtains a special radio from the Radio Station, which now is the only way to stun the Brickster-Bots as they became immune to pizza.
Pepper then walks to the space port and, after centrifuge and parachute training, takes a space shuttle to Ogel Island to find and rescue Mama and Papa. Pepper's initial obstacle is an asteroid belt leading to Ogel Island; however, he manages to navigate it without much hassle. Since the Brickster stole the landing gear and deconstructed the landing platform on Ogel Island, Pepper has to parachute down. On the asteroid, he makes pizzas to send the citizens to sleep while getting Mama and Papa out of their situation. He then confronts the Brickster in his palace, locking him in a jail cell at the top of the tower.
Pepper (once more), Mama and Papa fly home in a Fish Ship, and land on LEGO Island, where the Infomaniac greets them. Pepper's girlfriend (whose name is unknown and wasn't involved in the incident the whole time) tackles him and kisses him, and the scene then fades to a dance party at the Pizzaria. Suddenly, five Brickster-Bots burst out of nearby crates. The music stops, but the Brickster-Bots start to dance, and the party resumes. The camera then slowly fades and moves away from the party through a group of LEGO Island residents, and the Brickster shows up from a manhole briefly (despite being punished already), concluding the game.
Game Boy Color
The game opens with the Infomaniac giving Pepper his skateboard, and leading him to the Pizzeria. Papa Brickolini gives Pepper a pizza, and tells him to bring it to the Brickster at the jail. Pepper delivers the pizza, however The Brickster darts out of his cell when Pepper opens it. After a short skateboard chase through the park, Nick Brick gives Pepper a Pizza Chukka, which can fire pizzas. Pepper is told to go to the Information Center to talk to the Infomaniac, but can't, as Bill Ding can't finish the road without a pick axe and the gates to the only other way to the Information Center, the park roads, are locked. Pepper gets a pick axe from Nubby Stevens at the gas station and gives it to Bill Ding, and is granted access to the road. The Infomaniac explains that the Brickster has stolen the Constructopedia, and that they must recover it before any pages are torn. The Police tell Pepper that the Brickster went to Adventurers Island, and that he can get a boat at the Res-Q Center. On his way to the Res-Q Center, Pepper sees a Brickster-Bot, and then falls down a hole in the ground, a trap the Brickster-Bot had made.
Pepper finds himself inside a cave filled with Pirate Skeletons. After using his Pizza Chukka to defend himself and solving series of puzzles involving switches to open doors, he makes his way to a room where he fights the first boss of the game, a Rock Monster. Pepper defeats it, and escapes the cave as it collapses.
Pepper then goes back to the Res-Q Center and gets in a raft. He then enters the Phanta Sea, and finds a swimming minifigure being chased by a shark and pirate captain on his ship. The player can simply pass them by and continue to Adventurers Island, or talk with them and start a side quest. In the side quest, the pirate captain gives Pepper shark food, and Pepper uses it to distract the shark and let the swimming minifigure escape. A minifigure on a small island then comes closer to the shore, allowing Pepper to talk with him. He explains that he needs a shovel to dig up the treasure on the island, however, nothing more can be done at this point. Pepper then precedes to dock his boat at Adventurers Island. Nearly everybody on the island tells Pepper to talk to Señor Palomar, though Pepper can also explore, finding some areas which have hidden Trading Cards, but also spawn Mummies, which Pepper can defeat with the Pizza Chukka. Upon finding the tavern and telling Señor Palomar of the Brickster's escape, Palomar runs to the local prison, which is guarded by Imperial Soldiers and Imperial Guards. Pepper follows him, and is arrested. Pepper escapes from his cell after Pippin Reed sneaks in and unlocks it. Pepper finds Pippin's diary on a table, which mentions an expedition in which an ancient stone building and crashed helicopter were found in the jungle. Also in the corner of the jail is a shovel. After sneaking past the guards, Pepper escapes the prison, where Pippin gives him the key to the jungle gate. Here, Pepper can either go directly to the jungle through the gate, or backtrack to give the shovel to the man on the island in the Phanta Sea. If Pepper gives the shovel to man, the man will dig up the treasure and give it to Pepper; a Trading Card. However, upon returning to Adventurers Island, Pepper will be re-captured and will have to escape the prison a second time before going through the jungle gates.
Pepper enters the jungle, and is immediately attacked by insects and darts from dart guns. Pepper sees the Brickster run into the jungle ruins, and goes after him. He comes out the other side of the ruins, and notices the crashed helicopter to the side of the path. Achu then walks up to Pepper, who sends him to Castle Island.
Pepper finds himself in front of King Leo's Castle. A knight tells him that the Brickster's cohort, Cedric The Bull, has escaped. Pepper sneaks past the castle guards and makes it to the throne room. King Leo sends Pepper to find his daughter Princess Storm, who became lost in the maze, while he secured the castle. After bring Storm to the courtyard, Pepper finds out that Cedric's army has surrounded the castle, but Weezil has been captured. King Leo sends Pepper into the dungeon to Weezil's cell. Weezil thinks Cedric sent Pepper, and tells him Cedric plans to attack that very night. King Leo rewards Pepper for getting this information by granting him access to the treasure room, which contains a large amount of treasure chests holding Trading Cards. King Leo releases Weezil, to lead Pepper to the forest where Cedric is camped. After getting past the guards with the help of Majisto and receiving a Super Pizza Chukka from Rob N. Hood, Pepper reaches Cedric's hideout and battles with him. Cedric is defeated, but the Brickster, who had also been at the hideout, escapes in a space ship. However, a piece falls off of the Brickster's ship, the "Smart Brick". Majisto then teleports Pepper and the brick to the LEGO Island Space Port. After destroying Brickster-Bots with the new Pizza Chukka, Technician Bob adds the Smart Brick to the Space Shuttle, and Pepper blasts off for Ogel Island in pursuit of the Brickster. After solving a maze and defeating more Brickster-Bots, Pepper reaches the Brickster. A two-part battle follows, which ends with the Brickster being caught in a jail cell. Pepper flies the shuttle back to LEGO Island, the Brickster is locked back up.
Game Boy Advance
The game opens with the Infomaniac and Nick Brick on the TV news station, talking about the Brickster's recent escape and the theft and destruction of the Constructopedia. Later, the Infomaniac meets Pepper outside the location of his former house. The Infomaniac gives Pepper the Construcopedia page for his house, which Bill Ding uses to re-build it. From there, the player is free to explore the island, complete minigames, and find items for people. Eventually the player is able to take a ferry to Castle Island after getting a ticket from another character, and go to Adventurer's Island by talking to Johnny Thunder at the Res-Q Center. Once all the Constructopedia pages have been found and the island rebuilt, Pepper has to go to Ogel Island and battle the Brickster. After the Brickster has been defeated, the game ends with the Infomaniac giving a news report on the Brickster's capture.
Characters
- See Main Article: List of LEGO Island Characters
Unlike the first game, LEGO Island 2 only has Pepper as a playable character. Every other character on the island only gives help or serves as part of an objective.
Besides the LEGO Island characters, LEGO Island 2 also uses several other characters from LEGO themes and video games:
- Super Station Master
- King Leo
- Queen Leonora
- Princess Storm
- Richard the Strong
- Cedric the Bull
- Johnny Thunder
- Pippin Read
- Dr. Kilroy
- Mr. Hates
- Achu
- Islanders
LEGO.com Description
 This is a description taken from LEGO.com. Please do not modify it. (See an archive of the product’s page)
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Help Pepper save LEGO Island! The Brickster has escaped from jail and has stolen the Constructopedia! Now he has the power to take LEGO Island apart brick by brick, and only Pepper can stop him-but he needs your help! Explore the Mummy's Tomb and escape the gem-stealing serpents on Adventurers' Island. Pilot a space shuttle and ride a pterodactyl! Rescue trapped dinosaurs and joust with a powerful knight! It's Pepper's most exciting adventure ever- will he stop the Brickster, or will LEGO Island be destroyed? You decide! |
Development History
LEGO Island 2 has a curious development history, starting as an unrelated project ("LEGO Fantasy"[1], possibly a working title) being developed by Krisalis Software (the developers of LEGO Chess and LEGOLAND), as a tie-in for a canceled TV show with no relation to LEGO Island. A one minute demo of the TV show was found on an archive of the company that animated it, Vision-Scape.
David Upchurch, the game's original producer from August 1998 to August 1999, says the following on his website:
| This is a description taken from David Upchurch's website. Please do not modify it.
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LEGO Island was the first ever LEGO game. Its massive success proved the viability of LEGO software products, leading to the formation of LEGO Media. It also guaranteed an eventual sequel, of which I was made the Producer. Interestingly, the game started life as something quite different. LEGO Media’s remit extended beyond just software, and the game was originally intended to support a TV show being developed in collaboration with a US animation house. The proposed show was the usual bland Saturday morning filler about three human kids and their comedy dog who could ‘warp’ into LEGO world for all sorts of life-lesson-teaching adventures, and so generic that it’s no surprise it didn’t go beyond the initial concept phase. At that point, the game was still early in development – essentially little more than a 3D engine and a dog animation (my original idea was for a Mario 64-style platform adventure, where you could swap between the three human heroes and use their differing skills to solve puzzles, plus ‘use’ the dog to sniff out secrets, dig up items, attack enemies, etc – take that, Fable!). It was a shame to throw away all that work, so it was decided to repurpose it as LEGO Island 2, seeing pizza boy Pepper back in action after he accidentally releases the Brickster from prison. Unfortunately I never got to finish the game as I left LEGO Media well over a year before it closed, though it was nice to see the final game kept fairly close to my original design and storyline. |
He later provided more details in a conversation with a fan:[1]
| This is a description taken from a conversation with David Upchurch. Please do not modify it.
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As I say on the website, the original brief was for a game linked to the TV show about three children and their dog who could enter LEGO world. IIRC, the characters were a blond-haired teenage boy, a black teenage girl and a younger teen red-haired boy (complete with back-to-front baseball cap - I said it was pretty generic stuff!). The dog was a lanky labrador-like comedy hound, always getting scared and whimpering... you know the sort of thing. They had wristwatch-like devices that they could use to warp into LEGO world, whereupon the kids would stay human but the dog would turn LEGO-y.... don't ask me why. The original design was a sort of Mario 64 / Zelda-esque 3D adventure, with the characters viewed in third-person.... like, er, Mario 64 and Zelda. You could only control one character at a time but was able to swap between them, and each had different abilities that you had to use at the right time and in the right combination to solve the action puzzles you encountered. You also had indirect control over the dog, which would follow your hero. If you spotted a suspicious bit of ground you could tell it to dig and maybe discover a secret, tell it to attack baddies, sniff out hidden characters/items, that sort of thing. A lot of the game centred around finding torn pages from the Great Book Of Building, that the Brickster had stolen after his escape. He'd ripped up the pages, causing vehicles and buildings to deconstruct. By finding the lost fragments and piecing them back together, you could rebuild the smashed items and then use them to get further in the game. There was also going to be a time element (inspired by Day of the Tentacle and, yes, Zelda) - the different themes were set in different eras, so Castle theme predated City theme, and Space theme was in the future, etc. So if you saw a river you needed to cross in the City, if you travelled back to the Castle era you might see a tree that you could cut down - this would then form a wooden bridge in the future. Get the idea? I worked with a company called Krisalis in Rotherham, UK, to generate the prototype - after about 6 months all we had was the younger boy running around a test environment with the dog, and you could tell it to dig in certain areas... pretty basic stuff. Before we could really start fleshing stuff out the project was canned when it became clear the TV show wasn't going anywhere. Someone obviously saw the resemblance between the boy and Pepper, as that's when the idea of using the work as the basis of LEGO Island 2 was suggested. So we change the kid to Pepper, dropped the dog, added a skateboard (there was going to be a Tony Hawks lite element to the game, performing stunts and so on - don't think that was in the final game), changed the plot to pretty much what it is now, dropped all the time-travelling puzzle solving and added mini-games - basically made it a lot simpler. Unfortunately, that's where my involvement ended - basically with the game still at prototype stage. After I left, LEGO took the game away from Krisalis and gave it to Silicon Dreams, plus they expanded the platform range - when I was involved, it was intended just for PC and PS1. I'll be honest, I haven't played the finished game that much - just tonked around the first couple of areas. But it feels like the game I worked on - or certainly, the game I intended it to be. I don't think the cut content relates to the old game - I imagine Silicon Dreams would've dumped everything that Krisalis had done and started again; far easier than picking through other people's code. Also, no speech was recorded on my watch - tbh, it's not the sort of thing you'd do early; best to leave it until later when it's clearer what the game will contain. I suspect the reality is they ran out of time and slashed content to get the game into releasable state.. |
Notes
- The PC version of the game has been criticized for extremely long loading times and other problems it had, though the load times can be fixed with an unofficial patch to the game. Fortunately, the final game in the series, Island Xtreme Stunts fixed all these problems.
- Sam Sinister is known by the name Mr. Hates in the game. If the player gets a gold on his level, the Infomaniac will joke about how he will probably change his name again, referencing to how he had already gone through several names at this point (indeed, he did change it again, this time to Lord Sinister).
- There are many film and pop culture references in the game, such as references to Indiana Jones, the Wizard of Oz, and 2001: A Space Odyssey in the PC/PlayStation versions. A group of unused voice clips for them were references to Star Wars. At one point in the Game Boy Advance version, the Brickster says "All your bricks belong to us", a reference to a famous Internet meme based on one of the lines from the opening cutscene, "All your base are belong to us" in the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive game, "Zero Wing". In fact, the name of the game itself might be a reference to the game "Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge" by LucasArts.
- The PC and PS1 releases of the game had many locations and sub-games removed before release due to time constraints. However, much of the content cut from the PC and PS1 releases did make it into the GBA and GBC releases. Among the things removed from the PC and PS1 versions were a drum playing sub-game at Achu's camp (originally called Chief Legog in the unused script), and second fights against Cedric The Bull and Mr. Hates on Ogel Island. According to a script from Wes Jenkins site there was supposed to be a Rock Raider Island
- Some copies of the PC release include a Brickster keychain.
