The Toys-to-Life video game genre is a huge business.

Kids and adults alike can't get enough of this ingenious mixture of video games and real-world toys. First came Skylanders, Activision's behemoth of a franchise that kicked off the genre. Next, Disney threw its hat in the ring with Disney Infinity, smartly leveraging its rich history of characters and settings. Nintendo jumped on the bandwagon with its Amiibo figures, which in a unique twist, play in numerous Nintendo-made games.

The next big entrant is LEGO, everybody's favorite building block toy. And if there's any one brand in the world that can truly compete with Activision, Disney and Nintendo, it's this juggernaut of the toy industry.

LEGO is bringing a wide variety of its licensed properties (though none from Disney, for obvious reasons) into a single game that combines toys with gaming in clever ways that leverage what makes LEGO unique. Developed by TT Games, the folks behind all your favorite LEGO video games, it incorporates real LEGO building blocks, those ever-popular Minifigures, and the toy brand's trademark sense of whimsy into an intoxicating concoction that kids (and adults) are going to lose their minds over.

This is LEGO Dimensions.

Worlds Collide

In LEGO Dimensions, you are introduced to a concept called the LEGO Multiverse. In this universe, many of your favorite media franchises from our world exist in LEGO form, in their own dimensions. The LEGO Movie inhabits one such dimension, with all of its unique worlds, characters and LEGO-based constructions. DC Comics makes up another dimension, which is basically a LEGO-ized version of Gotham, Metropolis and all of the DC superheroes and villains you know and love.

And so it goes, with a total of fourteen dimensions, aka fourteen popular media properties from our world. A villain named Lord Vortech (voiced by Gary Oldman) wants to control the Multiverse, so he opens vortexes to recruit other villains to help him. But unintentionally, Robin, Frodo Baggins and Metalbeard are pulled into the vortexes, prompting their friends Batman, Gandalf and Wyldstyle to give chase. Our three heroes find themselves on Vortech's homeworld and decide to team up, traveling from dimension to dimension to put an end to Vortech's scheme.

The fourteen franchises/dimensions are:

Starter Pack

If you want to play LEGO Dimensions, you have to start with the Starter Pack. Nothing else will work without it.

The Starter Pack, available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Wii U, is the most expensive in the Toys-to-Life genre. LEGO Dimensions' entry point is going to cost you $100. It comes with the full game, which is comprised of all 14 franchises.

This Starter Pack wisely leans on the strengths of the LEGO brand by allowing you to build the "LEGO Gateway," the Stargate portal through which all the action in the game takes place. It's a detailed build, too, at 269 pieces, and it attaches to the top of the "LEGO Toy Pad" — the traditional Toys-to-Life portal that zaps your real-world character into the game.

Three Minifigure characters come with the Starter Pack: Wyldstyle from The LEGO Movie, Batman from DC Comics (important distinction: this one is not Wyldstyle's ex-boyfriend, though that Batman also shows up in the game), and Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings.

While Skylanders is just getting around to adding Toys-to-Life vehicle figures to its game, LEGO Dimensions is starting with vehicles and other tools right out of the gate. The Starter Pack comes with the Batmobile — and yes, you get to build it. In fact, it can be built in three different variations, and the game will task you with doing exactly that at different points.

Another way that LEGO Dimensions differentiates itself is by making better use of its portal device than any other Toys-to-Life game. Dimensions creatively uses its portal as a controller, requiring you to move your characters around on it to escape certain puzzles in the game. (Here's hoping the portal comes with a long USB cord.)

In addition to the 14 levels of the main game, every franchise also has a hub world that you can freely roam and explore and play minigames throughout. You unlock a hub world by using any playable character from that world.

Level Packs

Add-on levels are sold separately in the form of themed Level Packs. So far six such packs are known, and they come with not just new levels to play but real-world minifigures and vehicles or tools from their worlds that you can put together and play with.

1. Back to the Future - comes with LEGO Marty McFly minifigure, DeLorean time machine and hoverboard
Available September 27, 2015.

2. Portal - comes with Chell minifigure, Companion Cube and sentry turret
Available September 27, 2015.

3. The Simpsons - includes Homer Simpson, Homer's car, and "Taunt-o-Vision" TV set
Available September 27, 2015.

4. Doctor Who - includes Peter Capaldi's Doctor, the TARDIS and K-9
Available November 3, 2015.

5. Ghostbusters - comes with Peter Venkman, ECTO-1 ambulance and a ghost trap
Available January 16, 2016.

6. Midway Arcade - includes Midway Gamer Kid, arcade machine and G-1655 sports car from Spy Hunter
Available March 15, 2016.

Team Packs & Fun Packs

Fun Packs are the equivalent of buying a character figure for Skylanders or Disney Infinity. In this case, you get a Minifigure and some kind of themed item from their world, like a vehicle or weapon. Every franchise will have at least one Fun Pack available to buy. The chart below shows all that have been announced so far, and when you can expect them.

Team Packs are basically two Fun Packs in one. So you get two Minifigures and two items, all four originating from the same franchise. Team Packs will be available for DC Comics, Jurassic World, Ninjago and Scooby-Doo.

One especially nice feature to LEGO Dimensions is that every character, regardless of franchise or Pack they came from, is playable in every part of the game. Every level, every add-on, every hub world: every single character will work.

Two-player co-op is also supported.

That LEGO Charm

Travelers Tales, aka TT Games, really poured its heart into this game, putting its trademark humor and attention to detail into every facet of every level. Here are a few noteworthy TT Games twists in LEGO Dimensions.

• The Doctor from Doctor Who, regenerates when he dies, just as he does on the TV show. So when Peter Capaldi (the current TV Doctor) dies in the game, he regenerates into the first Doctor, William Hartnell. Hartnell dies, and regenerates into Patrick Troughton, and so on, all the way up to more recent Doctors like David Tennant and Matt Smith. TT Games must be a huge fan of the show, because when the Doctor regenerates, the interior of his TARDIS changes its appearance to match the Doctor who used it, and each Doctor carries his correct sonic screwdriver. The music in the game likewise cycles through themes from past to present.

• The vast majority of characters that appear in the game, playable or not, are voiced by the actors who originally made them famous. Michael J. Fox reprises Marty McFly for the first time in decades. Chris Pratt lends his voice to both Emmet and Owen Grady from Jurassic World. Dan Aykroyd appears as Ghostbusters' Ray Stantz. The entire casts of The Simpsons, The LEGO Movie, Jurassic World and more lend their voices to the game as well.

• When the game brings you to Scooby-Doo's world, the graphics become cel-shaded 2D, to match the cartoon's style. Likewise, when Scooby and Shaggy leave their world and enter another, they become 3D.

• At one point in the game, the Batman from DC Comics meets the Batman from The LEGO Movie. How's this for an awesome little detail: The LEGO Movie Batman is voiced by Will Arnett, just as he was in the film. But the DC Batman is voiced by prolific voice actor Troy Baker!

• In the Portal dimension, Ellen McLain returns as the voice of wicked A.I. GLaDOS, Stephen Merchant is back as clueless A.I. Wheatley, and J.K. Simmons even turns up as Cave Johnson. For the first time ever, protagonist Chell will actually speak! With no Portal 3 on the horizon, the Portal Level Pack might be the next best thing.

• Joel McHale turns up as a new robotic character named X-PO, your guide to LEGO Dimensions.

LEGO Dimensions arrives on September 27, 2015.

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