*NOTE: Pictures used are not of actual gameplay. The actual gameplay does not look as vibrant.

I just got Bionicle Heroes in the mail the other day and was enthusiastic to have a new Gamecube game to play, seeing as how I haven’t played any Cube games in some time. I looked at the box, front and back, and it seemed impressive enough. Read the back and apparently you can play through various environments as over 50 Bionicle characters, so needless to say, I was pretty excited. Needless to say, I want to get right into the game and see what it has to offer, seeing as how I’ve never really played through a Lego game before, except little demos of Lego Star Wars. Let’s see what’s in this puppy.

To my surprise, I was thrown right into the game. There was not any story or tutorial or anything of the sort. When you start a new file, you are on this island type place and can walk around. You are not told or shown where to go, which seems to be the theme throughout the game as there is no dialogue or actual story telling, aside from level-specific events such as showing you the boss of the level and where he is. This makes for an awkward experience as the player will find him or herself simply playing through levels without any real idea of what his or her goal is, aside from completing the levels objective.

After walking around a bit and trying out the controls to figure out how to move and shoot and such, I walked into a cave where apparently the levels are housed. There are six areas, some of which are locked from the beginning and unlocked later on, which have four levels each. In each level, it is your goal to either get an object at the end of the level, or beat the main enemy, also at the end of a semi-long level. Throughout each level, you go around killing enemies and destroying objects in order to collect Lego pieces, which are the currency in the game. Bionicle Heroes is fairly simplistic in this way. You just walk around each level and collect a ton of Lego pieces until you reach the end at which point you usually fight a boss-like enemy. The levels themselves are fairly colorful and varied and contain multiple secret areas and such.

Lush environments with lego pieces all over the place.

The reason a person would play this game is the ability to control around 50 Bionicle characters. During each level, you can collect Bionicle masks, and once you get one of these masks, you can switch to that character and use his weapon and ability. The nice thing about the game is that you can switch from about ten of these characters at any given time by simply pressing the L or R button. Like I mentioned, each character has a different weapon, of which you will probably find a favorite or a nice combo, from switching from one character to another. Some cool weapons to note are the rocket launcher, electricity gun, and a sniper rifle-type weapon. Also, some of the Bionicles have special abilities, such as constructing Lego pieces into needed objects, walking on water, or walking on walls to name a few. A nice touch is that if you need to use one of these abilities, an icon will pop up on-screen to tell you to press the Y button to instantly change into the Bionicle that is to be used. Then you simply have to press the X button to perform the ability.

As far as the other controls go, you can strafe by holding the Z button, and shoot using the A button. You walk around with the control stick and use the C-stick to move the firing reticule. The camera is set up on the right shoulder of the Bionicle, putting your character to the left side of the screen, which is an decent angle, but I personally prefer a first-person view, or at least straight up third-person view with the character in the middle. Here is the main problem with the controls. You have to keep moving unless you want to die, which makes the C-stick completely useless, so aiming is a problem, as you do not have a dual-analog system like you do in most FPS games. Basically, this makes targeting and destroying enemies a problem, to an extent. Luckily, the developers allow you to more or less lock on to the closest enemy so you can easily target them. When targeted, a green, easily identifiable laser shows up and goes to the enemy or object that is being targeted so you know what you are aiming at. However, when there are multiple enemies around you, you cannot choose who to target, nor can you avoid incoming attacks. This is particularly irritating during boss battles when the main boss is running around the stage with little enemies scurrying about, so you end up targeting the little enemies that do not matter instead of the boss, so you cannot do damage to the boss because you cannot target him; very frustrating.

As you can see, a green laser appears to show you what you are targeting for ease.

To ease some frustration is that there is a map in the lower left hand corner of the screen to show you where to go, so you should not get lost in any level. However, sometimes there are a few things you need to do before you can progress. For instance, sometimes you must go into Hero Mode to operate a special robot to open a new path for you. To enter Hero Mode, you must accumulate enough Lego pieces, which will then turn your character gold. I’m not sure what else happens in Hero Mode, but you MAY become invincible as well, seeing as how your heart/health meter turns gold as well, and when the bosses health meter is done similarly, you cannot do damage to him.

Like I just mentioned, you do have a health meter which is comprised of five or so hearts. When your health gets low, a red aura appears on the edges of the screen to alert you of your condition. When you do run out of hearts, you lose the mask/character you were using at the time so I would simply switch characters right before you die to one that you do not use or like.

A good thing about the game is that there are hundreds of accomplishments and items and bonuses to unlock. These things can be unlocked either by performing special acts in levels, such as collecting five silver or blue pieces, or by buying the unlockables from the game’s shop. You can make these purchases using the Lego pieces you have collected. From this shop, you can get hints, upgrades for characters, or other things, such as bonus levels and areas.

The entrance to a new area.

What Bionicle Heroes lacks though, is originality and things that keep the game fresh level after level. Unfortunately, like so many others before it, Bionicle Heroes suffers from repetitive gameplay. You just go through every level, collecting literally thousands of Lego pieces until you reach the end. Luckily, most levels are diverse and different from one another, with different environments and a few mechanics and special features, but it is all the same in the end. Boss fights are inventive to a degree, but they are usually the same; you simply fight little enemies until the boss’s shield goes away so you can deal a little damage; rinse, wash, repeat.

While Bionicle Heroes does have more than fifty unique characters and weapons, and a variety of environments and levels, with hundreds of unlockables and achievements to gain, it suffers from repetitiveness and rather bland gameplay, which is a huge detriment. The gameplay is rather simple as well, so there may not be much for hardcore gamers to like, however, for a younger audience, this may very well be a perfect game that can be enjoyed.