LEGO Rock Raiders

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

LEGO Rock Raiders was a 1999 LEGO theme based around mining on an alien planet for Power Crystals, sporting fifteen sets featuring mining vehicles, other craft, minifigure packs, and a large base set. What it is best remembered for, though, is its two very different tie-in games, one for the PC and one for the PlayStation. Accompanying the games and toys were nine mini-comics, several other comic appearances in LEGO-related magazines, and three young reader books.

The L.M.S. Explorer, a Cool Starship tasked with observing and exploring uncharted planets, was damaged by an asteroid field and caught by a wormhole on its voyage back to Earth, and was warped into another galaxy and left crippled and low on fuel. The ship's scanners were still operational, and picked up a nearby planet in the solar system, dubbed Planet U, that was rich in Energy Crystals which could be used to restore power to the L.M.S. Explorer and get them back to the Milky Way. However, Planet U proved to be a hostile place with high volcanic activity, frequent cave-ins, little breathable air, and populated with hostile wildlife, including the powerful Rock Monsters, whose diet consists solely of the Energy Crystals that the L.M.S. Explorer so dearly needs.

Tropes used in LEGO Rock Raiders include:

The PC game provided examples of:

  • Alliteration: The levels Frozen Frenzy, Water Works and Lava Laughter, and the Support Station building.
  • Almost Out of Oxygen: Most of the later caverns have a limited oxygen supply, and Sparks will continually warn: "Your air supply is running out!" until you build enough Support Stations to maintain the oxygen levels. The actual Almost Out of Oxygen point is when he starts saying, "Your air supply is running low." and you can hear a heartbeat over the background music.
  • Artificial Stupidity: Oh, where to begin?
    • Rock Raiders will sometimes cut corners over the lava. Or in rare examples (notably on Lava Laughter), Raiders with guns will sometimes chase Lava Monsters right into the lava lake!
      • Most (or all) of the time, Rock Raiders won't get the message that the lava erosion has already turned into lava, and they will continue trying to repair it. So they just casually stroll onto a square of lava, grunt in pain, and drop a piece of ore into the lava. And usually get teleported out (read: die painfully).
    • Rock Raiders have an insatiable hunger, and have a tendency to eat, rather than, say, defend against the very Rock Monsters that are attacking their food station! This can however be prevented by outfitting them with Blaster and then pushing the alert button. All armed Raiders will now move towards any monsters or slugs, or stay where they are if none are around.
    • When a truck puts too much ore on a building. Then more raiders will put ore on not accounting for the 2-5 extra pieces the truck set down. The building won't teleport until that ore is removed. However, they somehow can't figure out which ore to remove, and even when you directly order them to, they will walk over to the ore and then walk away!
      • Use Building Studs, since trucks can't carry that. Of course, then they will the throw too much ore into the refinery. Oh, did I mention that the refinery can be overloaded even without trucks? Yes, the Ore Refinery is terribly designed. Often you'll end up with something like two trucks and a Raider throwing ore in, and a Stud that should cost 2 ore will use up 7. Interestingly, this never happens with the Power Station, which means someone on the programming team purposely used a horribly wrong method instead of one that was known to work. Fortunataly, all the extra ore goes to the Tool Store. Unfortunataly, if you use up all your Building Studs, you can't access any of the ore until you turn off the Ore Refinery. Which means that you won't be able to access any of the Building Studs until you turn it on.
    • When you teleport out the Raider going to a vehicle, no one will get in it ever again. And sometimes you don't even have to have the Raider die.
    • When multiple units are going for a piece of ore, often the others who don't get it... will follow the guy who got it with the activity "collecting ore". And the crowd grows. You could have 5 Raiders, 2 Trucks and a Loader Dozer.
    • If you're trying to build something, the Tool Store will usually decide to dump out some ore and Energy Crystals that can be used for building automatically. However, the next Rock Raider who happens to pick up some piece of ore 20 miles away from your base decides that his ore has to go into that building, even if it takes an hour and even if that building is desperately needed to provide breathable air.
    • Loader Dozers will frequently drive right over rubble instead of cleaning it up. Apparently there was some rubble on the other side of the map that got higher priority.
      • Usualy it's rubble near an active landslide.
    • Rock Raiders are only afraid of lit dynamite if it's going to explode in 3 seconds, so occasionally a Raider will set some dynamite, run away a little, then turn and run towards it, then become scared and run away again, but not quite far enough to avoid damage.
    • Even if you have a fleet of Transport Trucks to move ore, Raiders will still insist on carrying ore themselves, even though an upgraded truck can carry 6 pieces of ore and drive perhaps 4 times faster than a Rock Raider, without stopping to catch their breath every 100 feet or so.
    • Rock Raiders aren't the only stupid ones. Many people don't know that Rock Hard has Slimey Slugs, because often they either continually appear from their holes and immediately burrow back into it, or don't emerge at all. Even if your base is right next to them.
  • Asteroids Monster: Upon their health reaching zero, Rock Monsters crumble into three small Rock Monsters and run away. Ice Monsters crumble into three small Ice Monsters. And then Lava Monsters crumble into three small...Rock Monsters?
  • Awesome but Impractical: Vehicle-mounted laser weapons are ineffective at digging, weak against monsters and drain Energy Crystals. And on most levels, you can't even recharge crystals at all.
    • The Mining Laser is even worse. It's a building, which means you have to build a Power Path up to the wall you want to drill, build it (which can easily take a minute), and then tear it down once you're done drilling. (Because the lasers only have an effective range of a few squares, at best)
    • As for vehicles, the Granite Grinder. It's a huge bipedal mecha armed with a chrome drill like that of the Chrome Crusher, and it has some sort of purple glowing jet engines on the back. Sounds awesome? Wrong. It takes a minute and a half to drill through Hard Rock. Half the time of the Small Digger, but when compaired to the Chrome Crusher, it might be worth saying the Granite Grinder is just a slower Small Digger.
    • To be honest, pretty much every vehicle aside from the Small Transport Truck, Tunnel Scout, Chrome Crusher and maybe the Loader Dozer, if there's a lot of rubble around, are really just a waste of space. Every drilling vehicle aside from the Chrome Crusher is so slow when it comes to hard rock you might as well just use dynamite until you can get the Crusher. Both water based vehicles may be able to carry cargo, but it's unlikely you'll ever need to cross water and find yourself unable to procure new resources, so you may as well just stick with the Tunnel Scout. And nothing hauls cargo around faster than the Transport Truck.
    • Many vehicle upgrades aren't particularly useful either. Some are good, such as doubling the Transport Truck's carrying capability and speeding up the Chrome Crusher, but why bother upgrading the Crusher's drilling power when it already goes through hard rock in mere seconds?
  • Badass Normal: When fully trained, Rock Raiders can actually be pretty badass... but they retain their stupidity.
  • Construct Additional Pylons: You are only allowed to teleport in 9 Rock Raiders before you have to construct a Support Station. After that, you get ten additional worker spaces for each Support Station constructed.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: The lava doesn't harm items very quickly, and then only if they somehow get pushed into the lava or it erodes under their feet. And you can undo erosion if it hasn't fully eroded yet (and they aren't harmed by it until it does).
  • Critical Annoyance: The heartbeat sound effect whenever the air supply runs low.
  • Dummied Out: Hoo boy. Where to begin? A little community dedicated to this game found massive amounts of unused data (and re-activated some), including but not limited to:
    • Giant spiders that spit webs, scorpions and snakes (all were able to be re-activated).
    • Leftover code for a mobile Teleport Pad and a canteen.
    • Various animations for the Rock Raiders (including saxaphone playing), and a different face resembling Sparks.
    • Different animations for the Rock Monster, such as running in fear, a different eating animation, and... a cross between a Rock Monster and an Ice Monster farting and giggling.
    • Icons for various unmade vehicles, buildings and animations, such as a tool store resembling that from the 4910 Hover Scout, buildings resembling those from the 4990 Rock Raiders HQ, a Power Station resembling the Docks, blue Energy Crystals, etc.
    • The Tunnel Transport. It appeared as an object in Frozen Frenzy, yes, but code to make it into a proper, fully-functioning playable vehicle was found and reimplemented.
    • Unused test levels and an unused wall type.
    • Some unused sounds and voices that are rather curious.
    • An In-Game Level Editor.
    • And too many other things to list.
    • Continuity Nod: Early concepts for mission objectives refered to things from previous levels.
  • Frickin' Laser Beams: Laser beam powercells look more like bolts of plasma. Then there are the big "lasers", which can even blow up walls (also they are worthless).
  • Game Breaking Oversight: It is impossible to get over 50% on Run the Gauntlet. Research has discovered that the reason is becuase the rewards section for that level is programed to need 40 Energy Crystals. Despite the fact that that level doesn't even have a crystal/ore map. Because of this, it is impossible to get the 100% Completion ending (not that some of the insane level requirements for that score didn't make it impossible already).
  • Game Mod: A nice little overhaul called Baz's Mod has been released. It makes all the levels MUCH HARDER. Many other overhauls are in progress as well. That aside, this game has been modded more than any other LEGO game.
  • Guide Dang It: The third-to-last mission, Back to Basics, has Slimy Slugs respawn endlessly until you either complete or fail the level, which of course makes your mission of collecting forty-five energy crystal nigh-impossible. What the game doesn't tell you is that the slugs don't start spawning until you've collected about eleven crystals, which means all you have to do is disable the "collect crystals" priority before you get too many, wait until you find a large collection of crystals in one area, build a Tool Store next to them and turning the crystal collectiong back on.
    • In the whole game, Chief only tells you three times about the monsters in that mission, the other times leaving them to be a nasty surprise. Oh, and one of those three times is a blatant lie.
  • Hailfire Peaks: The ice level Air Raiders has a nasty hot surprise in one cavern.
  • Hammerspace: Sandwiches, shovels and drills can apparently fit in Rock Raiders' pockets.
  • 100% Completion: To get to the last level, you have to play through only the levels on the left side. So to beat the game, you only need to play 13 of the 25 missions. If you do beat all 25 missions, a special outro movie is played where the L.M.S. Explorer warps back home...except that you need to get 100% scoring on every level, which is impossible.
  • I Fell for Hours: Docs and Axle in a cutscene, after getting on the wrong end of a lava flow.
  • Inexplicably Identical Individuals: The standard Rock Raiders: orange uniform, bald head, and a happy smile.
  • Informed Ability: An unintentional case. In one of the training levels, the chief claims that "your Rock Raiders are very clever". But see Artificial Stupidity above...
  • Kill It with Ice: The Freezer Beam.
  • Lethal Lava Land: A lot. Most notably Lake of Fire.
  • Non-Lethal KO: Rock Raiders never die; they are safely teleported to the L.M.S. Explorer.
    • Also, monsters always split into smaller ones that run away.
  • Obvious Beta: The impossible requirements for 100% Completion makes people wonder: did anybody playtest this thing before release?
  • Oxygen Meter: The game starts off with unlimited air, but as levels go on you run into this danger more and more. Appears on the fourth level and then again on the eigth and ninth. Then it re-appears on the eleventh and stays until the last level (exept for level 16, Split Down the Middle, just to be nice). And despite the level named Air Raiders, the last level has the worse air suppply. And a pre-built base so you hardly notice.
  • Phlebotinum Muncher: Rock/Ice/Lava Monsters eat Energy Crystals, and will destroy your buildings to get at them. If destroyed the crystals they have eaten can be recovered. Slimy slugs are similar, except they suck the energy out of them instead.
  • Ridiculously-Fast Construction: The foundations are instantly laid. Just add barriers, ore and crystals! And then they're teleported in or...something.
  • RPG Elements: Rock Raiders can be trained as drivers, pilots, sailors, demolition experts etc., and their experience carries over between missions. They can even be named, but if their energy shields are depleted they are Lost Forever until you finish that mission and start another.
  • Schmuck Bait: Lava Laughter. Drill the wall at the top of your cave and... oh look, a cavern with a crystal cache! How wonderful! Of course, your Rock Raiders will run straight for it, ignoring all the Lava Monsters they're disturbing...
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: A number of levels take place in an ice biome, which means all the walls and floor use ice textures instead of rock or lava.
    • Contrary to the trope name, however, your Raiders will not slip and slide on the ice. Indeed, gameplay-wise ice caverns are no different to anywhere else.
  • Eager Young Space Cadet: The training missions usualy start with something along "Hello, Rock Raider cadet!"
  • Speaking Simlish: During the cutscenes. Averted during actual gameplay, however.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: In accordance with LEGO's (claimed) nonviolence policy, Rock Raiders will stop shooting at monsters and slugs when their health gets down to 15%, letting them retreat back into their walls and holes. Of course, with a laser beam, Rock and Ice Monsters die instantly, and sometimes when using a pusher beam the monster glitches and gets stuck, letting the Raider kill it. But when either of these happens, you realize that monsters can't die and just reform into baby monsters that run away. Slugs can rarely be killed without game hacking, but even then they just burrow underground.
  • Too Dumb to Live: The Rock Raiders are plagued with Artificial Stupidity. Just read the entry for that above.
  • Underground Level: All of it.
  • Unexplained Recovery: If a Rock Raider's shield reaches zero, he is teleported out, and that individual Rock Raider will not be teleported down for the rest of the mission (noticed more if you upgraded, trained and named your raiders). However, by the next mission you play he's all better! Except there might be two of him.
  • Urban Legend of Zelda: Three alleged cheat codes (lrrwarp for all levels, lrrmonty to turn Rock Raiders into Rock Monsters, lrrve to unlock all vehicles) have been spread around the internet and it's rare to find a game hints site which doesn't mention them, even though they are completely false and do nothing.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: Take care of your Rock Raiders, and you'll have a cadre of elite miners by the end.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: It's quite easy to abandon a Rock Raider near some fast-eroding lava, or send him into a landslide zone, or just teleport him out yourself.
  • Walk, Don't Swim: Rock Raiders will sometimes wade out into the water for various reasons, where it's only waist high. Modding to allow them to cross water shows that the game treats water tiles similarly to rubble.
  • What Could Have Been: Modding .wad files reveals that an in-game editor was planned, but sadly not implemented.
    • It has also revealed several monsters, buildings, and numerous other ideas that were scrapped. Fortunataly, the monsters were recoverable; DDI was to lazy to remove the files when they scrapped it. See Dummied Out above for details.
      • On the note of removing files, some of the unused sound clips are rather... interesting.
  • Wizard Needs Food Badly: The Rock Raiders have quartered sandwiches above their head that indicate how hungry they are. The more the sandwich depletes, the more often they will have to put down whatever they're carrying to pant for a few seconds. Earlier on in levels, Raiders have to be fed manually via the select menu, but once a Support Station is constructed, they will return there automatically if they aren't carrying or driving anything and feed themselves once they get down to a quarter of a sandwich.
    • Unfortunately, getting food overrides any other commands they have been given, meaning that getting a Rock Raider any further than his hunger meter will allow requires you to follow his progress manually, stop him and feed him when he becomes hungry, and reassign his goal until he reaches it. One solution is to put the unit in a vehicle, where hunger won't bother him.
    • In addition, depletion of a Rock Raider's health lowers his maximum food capacity. Thus, any units with below 25% health become essentially useless, constantly stopping to catch their breath and returning to the base for food, and usually must either be placed in a vehicle or euthanized teleported out.
  • You All Look Familiar: See Inexplicably Identical Individuals above.
  • You Require More Vespene Gas: Mining through cavern walls to collect Energy Crystals and ore is the main purpose of the game, as well as how to build up bases.

The PlayStation game provided examples of:[1]

  • Convection, Schmonvection: More averted than the PC game. Though it still won't hurt you until you get close, touching it lowers your health at about 250% per second, instantly screwing your game.
  • Frickin' Laser Beams: So now, not only are the handheld laser guns firing (slightly) more realistic "lasers", but now they can blow up any wall in one shot (far superior to the PC game lasers).
    • There are also some green scorpions that shoot plasma balls out of somewhere on their front. You will grow to hate them, except when their aim deteriorates as it usually does.
  • Hailfire Peaks: In the NTSC game, the ice levels actually have more lava in them than the lava levels, which are full of...water.
  • 100% Completion: Getting Gold on all 18 missions. In the PAL version, you then get 3 bonus levels.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer for the PlayStation game showed blue Energy Crystals, unused teleport pads, and other things not in the game. To add insult to injury, it also contained modified versions of the clips in the PC game as well as parts of the Rock Raiders clip from LEGOLAND.
  • Regional Bonus: More like Regional Different Game. The PAL version has eighteen completely different levels with much more creative (and difficult) objectives, as well as no respawning tools and nasty Lava Monsters. Also, three bonus levels are unlocked when gold medals are gotten for every level, and there are eighteen two-player levels instead of six (though only six are new, the other twelve are recycled one-player levels).
  • Too Dumb to Live: The only weakness of a Rockwhale is water, which (in large amounts) causes them to get soggy and melt into the ground. Almost all the ones that aren't running around... are standing next to water. Waiting for someone to come along with a pusher beam. Which every level they appear in has.
  • Walk, Don't Swim: Bandit, and everyone else (though they die in water). Rockwhales, on the other hand, have Super Drowning Skills (and make good bridges).

The books, comics and other various media provided examples of:

  1. ↑ Tropes from the PC Game are not mentioned unless different
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