Block heads

A quick straw poll reveals that the entire office spent chunks of our younger years grubbing about on the floor, building impossibly elaborate Lego fortresses just to dismantle them in miniature war games. Lego Battles, the latest Lego game franchise, capitalises on this shared experience by bringing it to the small screen of the Nintendo DS.

It's a Real Time Strategy game (RTS) that combines familiar Lego characters with compelling globe-conquering gameplay. The themes include pirates, castles, space stations and ninjas, and you stampede across the map building an empire that connects with your inner child as strongly as it does with your inner despot.

Child's play?

But it's not all about being a kid. The graphics are cutesy and the landscapes are colourful, but the action's pretty intense. Also, for a game on the small screen, Lego Battles is massive. There are six storylines you can play and more than 90 levels - not to mention a multi-player mode featuring 30 maps and landscapes to colonise with little yellow people.

The storyline games are probably the best starting point for learning the ropes. Each storyline presents a hero unit from a different Lego theme, and you control them and guide their empire through a series of increasingly difficult quests. These involve building fortresses, finding treasures and smiting your enemies in the name of building an empire.

These quests are compelling and the variety will keep you coming back for more - also, the 3D cut sequences are an entertaining aside and they display all the humour you would expect from a Lego franchise. As much as anything, it's shocking how much expression can be gained from a featureless Lego man.

World domination

When you're at ease with the controls and looking to move on to a more general/megalomaniacal game, the freeplay option comes into its own. In this version of Lego Battles, there are no quests - you just have to propagate your empire and take over the world. It might not be too much of a challenge for experienced RTS fans, but, as ever with Lego, the fun is in the building. Freeplay lets you build your army from across the Lego series, so knights fight alongside ninjas, while alien spaceships attack pirates' galleons. It's this hotchpotch quirkiness that makes Lego Battles so compelling - and, come to think of it, it's what made Lego such a brilliant war tool when we were kids.

The DS proves more than capable of running a smooth and fast RTS game. The top screen is filled with constantly changing maps and information, while the bottom screen constantly displays the battlefield. And as ever, this is where the action happens. The touch screen makes it easy to select characters and battalions, and the simple controls mean it's easy to play emperor and instruct them to build, attack or explore. A whole world of Lego men and women are poised to do your bidding.

But before you let the power go to your head, all empires have their rivals and you'll have a fight on your hands to take over the world. As an added level of fun, you can wirelessly connect the DS and battle with friends for ownership of the map - just like the battles from our childhood, but this way no one goes home crying and you don't have to spend hours separating the blocks.

This is more than a kids' game or an introduction to RTS. Lego Battles has loads to offer, from quirky Lego armies to genuine, heart racing, palm-sweating gameplay. While Lego blocks made us kings of the bedroom floor, Lego Battles takes us even further and makes us Gods of entire nations.

GAME's Verdict

• Great multiplayer mode
• You can build the craziest armies ever known
• Bags of quests, levels and extras

• It's not very difficult
• Armies can be a bit stupid
• It can be difficult to distinguish your buildings from another player's

Review by: Simon 'The Merciless' Kirrane
Version Tested: Nintendo DS
Review Published: 26.06.09