LEGO Island

LEGO Island is a trilogy of video games based upon LEGO, the first title of which was the first of many video games to be based upon the LEGO licence. The main character is Pepper Roni, a pizza delivery boy who manages to get mixed up in all sorts of off-the-wall shenanigans because of The Brickster, a criminal mastermind who loves anchovies and hot peppers.

The first game is the most "realistic": The player, as one of five different characters, goes around delivering pizzas, participating in races, and playing the occasional minigame. Woe to he who chooses the "Pizza/Brickster" combination assignment, though... Aside from the main plot with Pepper, the player can also control the police officers, Nick and Laura Brick, and Pepper's employers/adoptive parents Mama and Papa Brickolini.

The second game is more outlandish. Once again, you unwittingly allow the Brickster to escape, and he scatters pages of the Constructopedia across several dimensions. You have to travel through these dimensions, including Medieval Dimension and Dinosaur Island Dimension, and track down both Brickster and the pages. Pepper is the only playable character, but gameplay is more "varied".

In the third game, Island Xtreme Kool Letterz Stunts, Pepper is starring in a movie where the Brickster is the villain and the Infomaniac gets kidnapped. For the first time, the game was released alongside a wave of actual LEGO sets based upon its characters, vehicles and locations.

These games provide examples of:
"Pepper: I nearly split a brick when he hits that note!"
 * Adaptation Explanation Extrication: The Fishing Minigame was removed in the PS 1 version of LEGO Island 2, but even so, the pond at the end of Desert Speedster is still intact, and Pepper still tells Johnny, Miss Reed and Dr. Kilroy he caught a big fish.
 * Advancing Wall of Doom: There is a boulder at the end of Matching Mummies in the second game.
 * Alien Sky: The top of the information center in the first game allowed you to change the color of the sky from day to night... to green and purple.
 * All There in the Manual: A bonus comic that came along with the first game explained the backstory behind LEGO Island, the Infomaniac, and the Brickster. It even mentions the Brickster going off on his own and making Ogel Island, which doesn't actually appear until LEGO Island 2.
 * Alternate Continuity: Each port of LEGO Island 2 had a different story then the other versions. While the PS 1 and PC versions had somewhat similar stories, the GBA and GBC versions had completely different plots, leaving it questionable which one of the three story variations is canon.
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The manual for the first LEGO Island features a Wanted Poster for the Brickster. He is wanted for "Felony deconstruction, misdemeanor bad jokes, stealing bricks and worst of all: insulting Mama."
 * A Worldwide Punomenon: Essentially all the characters names are a pun of some kind, mostly about LEGO or computers.
 * Bigger on the Inside: Just about every single building in the original, but the most egregious example is the jetski building by the beach.
 * Catch Phrase: Pepper: "Way cool!"
 * Card-Carrying Villain: The Brickster.
 * Chronic Hero Syndrome: The player (in the first game), regardless of which character they're playing. Need a pizza delivered? No problem! Short on ambulance drivers? Consider it done!
 * Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Quite a few characters have had this such as Captain D. Rom and Captain Click.
 * Dem Bones: LEGO Island is filled with skeletons and ghosts.
 * Developer's Room: LEGO Island 2 had one of these in the form of a cheat. Once you beat the game, go to the secret cave on the other side of the mountain, type "sdreams" and a portal will open. When you enter it, you'll end up in a room with a bunch of minifigures, and talking to them shows a developer name at the bottom.
 * Disappeared Dad: Pepper's father in the first game, Bologna Roni, was an explorer that vanished.
 * Donut Mess with a Cop
 * Dummied Out:
 * LEGO Island 1: The instruction manual claims that scoring red blocks in every minigame unlocks another set of missions, like a challenge mode. Although the Information Center appears to include a few remnants of the GUI for this, the feature no longer exists.
 * LEGO Island 2: A small tomb-like area near a pyramid was removed from the game, but all the developers did was block off the entrance. It's still possible to get inside with a game modification.
 * In the Game Boy Advance version of Lego Island 2, there is a girl who is complaining that she lost her towel but she thinks she sees it "in the bushes". Pepper responds to her by saying that he'll go look for it. There's a small hedge maze of bushes nearby, but there's no towel anywhere.
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin: It's an island made of LEGO.
 * Fishing Minigame: LEGO Island 2.
 * Funny Foreigner: Papa Brickolini
 * Game Breaking Bug:
 * In LEGO Island 2, the pterodacytl is unlocked in the jungle part of Adventure Island. If you use the pterodacytl to fly to the desert part of the island, though, it respawns itself in the jungle... and leaves you trapped with no way home.
 * In the Game Boy Advance version, Space Mountain can't be entered after you beat the game. If you get off of the train after defeating the Brickster, you will be stuck there.
 * Some re-releases of Xtreme Stunts (namely the ones from Encore) have a glitch on them, where if you overwrite a save file too many times, it gets corrupted.
 * Geographic Flexibility: It seems like the developers were unable to make up their minds regarding the design of the island from game to game. More specifically, LEGO Island 2 does use the same basic design, but very modified and another island attatched to it. Some things were moved around a bit, but everything was in the same general location. Island Xtreme Stunts, on the other hand, completely disregarded the design of the island altogether, and the whole thing was made from scratch. The handheld iterations aren't much more faithful in terms of geography.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Apparently Papa Brickolini thinks he can sing but really can't. Which prompts Pepper to say this to the player:

""I have a bad feeling about this, I can feel it in my knees!" "Papa, you are just imagining things!" "Imagining knees? ... You're probably right." *throws leg into ocean*"
 * Guide Dang It: The Fishing Minigame in LEGO Island 2 is rather poorly explained and extremely boring. Learning how to play it becomes a tedious process of trial-and-error, unless you take a quick look on the internet.
 * Improbable Weapon User: Pepper's primary attack in LEGO Island 2 is pizza throwing, and it's deadly.
 * It's a Wonderful Failure: What happens if you lose the Pizza/Brickster mission in the first game. The Brickster rules the island and takes everything apart. Quite scary for many a young player, despite the fact that the Infomaniac says it's ok and that they can rebuild the island.
 * LEGO: Doy.
 * Literal Minded: When Mama Brickolini is asked what brought her to LEGO Island, she replies, "The boat, silly."
 * Loads and Loads of Characters
 * Loads and Loads of Loading: LEGO Island 2.
 * The explanation behind this is that, if you extract the files using a fan made explorer by Legomoe, you'll discover that a lot of files are put in the wrong places and unorganized. So, it'll often load things that don't even need to be loaded.
 * Lost in Translation: In the German version of the original game, Mama is asked why she came to LEGO Island rather than what brought her there. Her reply is still the same, so the joke makes little sense now.
 * Mini Game: In all three games.
 * Missing Secret:
 * The red mountain car in some of the official screenshots that nevertheless never appeared in the first game.
 * The locked door in the pirate's cave can't be opened, to the chagrin of many children. This was supposed to open to something, as were many of the buildings being "remodeled". It was also a teaser for the only other game in the six part series to be named. It was supposed to be called Beneath the Phanta Sea. This was the only other game that had stuff planned out for it before the whole six-part series concept was axed.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Mr. Hates in LEGO Island 2 (who is similarly named Sam Sinister in some of the "Adventurers" LEGO sets).
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
 * You accidentally break Brickster out of the jail in the first game by delivering him a pizza that smells so powerfullly that the fumes pick the lock. In LEGO Island 2, you accidentally break him out of jail again by delivering him a pizza that's so spicy he gains fire breath and melts the door down.
 * Comes with a bit of Fridge Brilliance, as well (at least in the first game). You can only get the "Deliver Pizza to the Brickster" mission as Pepper, who is established to not be all that great at reading. There's a sign in front of the Brickster's cell that says "No Pizza" when you're playing as someone else, but says "No Pizaz" instead when you're playing as Pepper. The poor kid was set up!
 * No Knees: Naturally, since all the characters are LEGO minfigs. The Brickolinis lampshade it at one point.

"Brickster: It's mine! All mine! Hahaha! All mine! ...Mine?"
 * No Plot, No Problem:
 * The main purpose of the first game was just to explore the island, build things, drive vehicles, perform missions and tasks, interact with people, and have fun.
 * The Brickster mission is a relatively longer mission and can be considered the plot of the game, though doing this mission is not required in order to play any other parts of the game.
 * Obvious Beta: The second game lost a lot of dedicated people in its development, and the non-dedicated just wanted to ship the game and be done with it.
 * Punny Name: Pepper Roni, Rhoda Hogg (a race car driver), Buck Pounds (a banker), Bill Ding (a builder), Red Greenbase (a man with a red shirt and green pants), Jack O'Trades (a storekeeper), Rob Banks, Captain D. Rom (a bad pun on CD-ROM), Ed Mail (a pun on email), Mac Roni (Pepper's grandfather) -- the list goes on.
 * Really 700 Years Old: The Infomaniac says he was on the Island for "A zillion years".
 * Rule of Fun
 * Stopped Numbering Sequels: The third game (LEGO Island Xtreme Stunts) is unnumbered.
 * Sugar Apocalypse: LEGO Island is a peaceful society, where everyone is happy and the biggest problems involve not having someone to deliver pizza... up until The Brickster starts wreaking havoc.
 * Transplant: Super Station Master from LEGO Loco in LEGO Island 2.
 * Universal Driver's License: Pepper seems to be able to pilot anything he comes across without any training, up until Xtreme Stunts; you need licenses to drive vehicles (outside of the film sets), and there are (separate) tests for cars, (boats, and air vehicles). This also had to be done in the GBA version of LEGO Island 2; in order to drive a vehicle (any vehicle, including police cars and the ambulance), you have to complete a driving test.
 * Victory Is Boring: The "bad" ending of the first game.


 * If you listen hard enough, you can even hear him cry a little.
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential:
 * In LEGO Island 2 and Xtreme Stunts, you can attack civilians as well as bad guys. The result's hilarious, but still...
 * In the first game, it can be rather amusing to ram into people and watch them explode and rebuild in front of you.
 * The Voice: Several radio announcers and Captain Click.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?:
 * In the ending FMV of LEGO Island 2, a girl randomly walks up and kisses Pepper and dances with him. She was never seen anywhere else in the series, and nothing is known about why she was there in the first place.
 * Many characters from all the games.

See you later, Brickulator