Nerd News for Your Inner Geek
Lego has made the tough decision to close down the game on January 31st of next year. The company says they will focus on the licensed games developed by 3rd parties, which makes sense given their success.
However, this is a sad day for fans of the game and the brand. It really was an innovative and engaging project, and I hope that the developers give the game the proper send-off before they shut off the lights.
I've been enjoying this game since the beta phase, and with it now free to try out, there is no reason you shouldn't join in on the fun and give it a go. You can download the game for Mac or PC here.
Today is the last day you can preorder the Lego Universe MMO in order to gain early access. The game opens to the public on October 26th, but if you preorder today, you'll get let in on October 12th.
I've been lucky enough to be in the beta test, and trust me when I say that not only will the game be worth every penny, but you'll regret not having this game in your mitts as soon as you can if you miss this offer. Plus, they are shipping a special minifig to those that preorder, so what do you have to lose?
You can buy the game here.
I'm lucky enough to be in the closed beta of the upcoming Lego Universe MMO. I've been playing it on a PC at home, since it launched without a Mac client. Recently they did bring it to my platform of choice, and I've been excited to play it on my brand new Mac Mini I have hooked up to a monitor with serious real estate.
I recently patched the game with a new update, and was greeted by this confirmation screen. It seems that the developers, NetDevil, are using a code translation technology called "Cider" to help port the game to the Mac. The developer of the engine, TransGaming, describes the platform as a wrapper for PC API calls that doesn't require the developer to modify the game's source code.
This means that the game isn't running truly natively on the Mac platform. The real questions is whether or not this will cause a performance hit. There is a possibility that Cider could make a similar argument to Wine and claim that the advantages of the platform make up for a potential speed tax that the extra layer causes. Ultimately, the only way to be sure is to play the game extensively on both platforms and run some benchmarks, which is a task I'm more than happy to do.
However, the Lego MMO, being developed by NetDevil, may be the game that finally entices me into the genre. "Lego Universe" will encourage users to explore an online world that leverages what has always made the toys fun: free-form building. Legos were a key part of my childhood; pushing my imagination and creativity as I enjoyed building whatever I could think of. My brother and I spent countless hours sifting through bins of Legos just to find that perfect piece for our creations. Now, in "Lego Universe", not only can you build online, you can actually have those digital Lego structures sent to you as real Lego sets. How cool is that?
This game could be a crossover smash hit, and I agree with the "Wired" blog post which suggests that this could be the Wii of MMO's. Check out the trailer below for an idea of what is in store.
