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Home | Holiday Gift Guide: LEGO Games

Holiday Gift Guide: LEGO Games

LEGO Hobbit GameKids love games as holiday gifts (especially ones the entire family can play), and kids love LEGOs. Why not combine the two? LEGO games, produced by the world's favorite maker of interlocking plastic building bricks, do just that.

As you might expect, LEGO games are constructed of LEGO bricks. As with all LEGO sets, part of the fun is actually putting the games together, and part is playing them. Kids can also rebuild the games into different versions, or even make their own creations. You can even modify the included six-sided die to tweak the rules of your game.

Many of the LEGO games are German-style board games, which are designed and played differently from traditional American-style board games. These games emphasize short game play times (20 to 30 minutes, tops), repeatability, social interaction (nobody gets kicked out of the game, like in Monopoly, so everyone keeps playing), and the use of strategy to win. Because they're intended for an international audience, there are minimal reading requirements and words involved, except for the instructions. Feel free to modify the rules to your liking, too. We can vouch for the fact that LEGO games are a lot of fun!

Some of our favorite LEGO games include:

  • Creationary, which is similar to games like Pictionary, except instead of drawing you create things out of LEGO bricks
  • Ramses Pyramid, where you race to the top of an Egyptian pyramid, avoiding mummies along the way
  • The Harry Potter Hogwarts Game, where players play favorite Harry Potter characters on a race through the Hogwarts castle

Never one to miss a movie tie-in, LEGO has also released an interesting new Hobbit game, which is a buildable Tolkien-themed twist on the classic memory game. We're definitely looking forward to playing this one.

LEGO Heroica Castle FortaanWe're also getting a kick out of the Heroica series of LEGO games, which is sort of like a fast-paced LEGO Dungeons & Dragons-like role-playing game for younger kids. Players each assume a different character, like a barbarian, a knight, and a wizard, and go up against bad guys like goblins, golems, and werewolves on a quest for treasure and adventure.

There are four games in the LEGO Heroica series—Draida Bay, Waldurk Forest, Caverns Of Nathuz, and Castle Fortaan, all of which can be combined into a giant mega map. You can also use the pieces to create your own maps and adventures for even more fun. There's even a storage mat available so you keep all your Heroica games together in one place.

Look for LEGO games at your local toy store, or order them online from Amazon.com.