LEGO Doctor Who Is Exactly What The Doctor Ordered
Doctor Who is an intellectual property that, by all rights, should have a banging video game by now. But it just hasn't happened.
The British sci-fi icon has been going strong for almost 60 years now, and in that time, it has dipped its toes into interactivity once or twice - card games relegated to the Nintendo DS, underloved adventure titles buried on the official Doctor Who websites, a new bizarre found-phone mystery title - the franchise's video game exports have been pretty unfocused, and there aren't many defining games that detail the Doctor's fantastical adventures. But that could all be about to change.
Rumour has it that TT Games, previously Traveler's Tales, are already working on their newest LEGO game to follow the upcoming LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and supposedly, it'll be a game that follows many various Doctors on a brand new adventure that also highlights many defining adventures from each era of the iconic TV series.
This sounds incredible for a myriad of reasons, but the leading one is this - we've never had a truly amazing Doctor Who game. And we, the long-neglected nerds, deserve one. This could be the one we've been waiting for.
What's Wrong With Doctor Who Video Games?
Click to enlargeThe trouble with a lot of Doctor Who games in the past is that they forget a lot of what makes Doctor Who special, and they struggle to make true on some of the impossible tonal juggling acts that a lot of the show's best episodes can manage. To be fair, it's not something that's particularly easy to do - the sci-fi series has a very specific brand of hide-behind-the-sofa scariness for younger fans who grew up with the show, with just enough whimsical humour to de-escalate the threats. The likes of Blink wouldn't be as effective or memorable without The Doctor's wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey speech, and it's exemplary of how exactly Doctor Who is able to walk the line of fancifulness and horror-lite with such incredible effectiveness.
Many of the existing games that are based on the franchise are either too inconsequential to really mean anything (we're looking at you, Doctor Who Top Trumps, you weirdo), or they'll put all of the pressure of the universe on your shoulders. If you don't do this right, entire galaxies will crumble around you and you will be entirely responsible. It's a bit intense, especially as with the show, at least the pressure falls to a Time Lord with nigh-on infinite wisdom and thousands of years under their belt. It needs the silliness to go hand-in-hand with it - the wink to camera that says, "we know we're showing you an Ood, what might as well be an egg stuffed with spaghetti. Isn't that daft?".
And a LEGO game could be that very wink incarnate.
Why Is LEGO Perfect For Doctor Who?
Click to enlargeAs we've seen with every LEGO game we played as children, and with some of the more modern titles, LEGO games are made with whimsy baked in. Silliness has no choice but to be a part of the experience when you're looking down the barrel of a Dalek made of plastic bricks, really, but it's guided by easily-translated slapstick humour that makes the daft completely inescapable.
The LEGO games are known for having a huge roster of playable characters too, and as rumours suggest that this supposed Doctor Who game is set to span the whole franchise's life, it means we'll be able to pair whichever Doctor with whichever companion we like, and then some. Finally, our dreams of pairing The War Doctor up with James Corden's Craig can become a reality.
The same can be said of the planet-hopping we've already seen in the gameplay trailer of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga - the potential of seeing the likes of Gallifrey, The Library, and Canary Wharf rendered in blocky goodness is too good to resist. Not would all of space be in the palm of your hands, but all of time too, giving you the opportunity to discover 1700's England just as easily as the very end of the universe. A real adventure could be had here, and of such a scale that's been missing from Doctor Who games that even the most staunch and serious fans would forget that the game would likely be made with children in mind.
LEGO Doctor Who Could Be The Perfect Doctor Who Game
Click to enlargeThere's a lot to see and explore in a Doctor Who game, and a lot of it has gone as of yet undiscovered. A LEGO game taking us through space and time could be the perfect vessel to bring the ever-expanding universe, and as the game is rumoured to also include the upcoming, as-yet-unannounced Doctor, it could be a magnificent marketing tool that could give the new series hosting returning showrunner Russell T Davies a huge push.
The future of Doctor Who might remain to be seen, as many long-term fans struggled to connect with the writing of recent seasons - but this could be what knocks fan hopes back into place. It'd be mutually beneficial for the whole franchise, and it'd mean that we could finally, finally, get the interactive galaxy-hopping sci-fi romp that Doctor Who has been needing for decades. TT, we need you. Please come through for us. We'll beg if we have to.