Have You Played... Lego Island 2: The Brickster’s Revenge?

The first mission of Lego Island 2: The Brickster’s Revenge has you giving pizzas to townsfolk as Pepper Roni, the slick talkin’, skate boardin’ delivery boy. Each person you deliver to gives you bricks (?) for your new house (?), all put together by Bill Ding the, uh, builder.

At least, that’s what you’re meant to do. As a youngster though, I distinctly remember being completely unaware that the whole keyboard could be used to play video games on PCs. Thus, I ran around the sprawling metropolis of Lego Island using only the space bar, which greatly confused me back in the day as it makes Pepper throw entire pizzas at a lightning pace, whichever way he’s facing. I used to run around piling pizza into the faces of everyone in town before realising you need to press Shift to actually deliver them and progress the story. I often wonder what the town felt about a wild child chucking doughy goodness all over the gaff.

When you finally do work out what you’re doing, Pepper is told to deliver one final pizza by the Brickolinis, who the Lego Island wiki tells me are Pepper’s adoptive parents, which I don’t remember being mentioned in-game. This last pizza must go to the Brickster, the island’s only criminal, apparently, with his Sopranos accent. It turns out he’s been saving spicy chilli peppers, eats them all at once, and does a giant fiery burp to break his jail bars, escapes, and then promptly destroys Lego Island with a magic book. Righto.

From there, you’re taken with Pepper on a series of bizarre escapades across all kinds of worlds, from medieval castles to space, to stop the Brickster’s evil plans. It’s a trip.

Honestly, Lego Island 2: The Brickster’s Revenge has a lot of stuff going on and in many cases bites off more than it can chew. However, I admire the game’s efforts, and what it also does is flesh out that Lego game charm you’ve probably experienced countless times. Whack on Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, or any other title featuring that enchanting twist on the original property’s formula, and there’ll be plenty of good stuff there you can trace back to the Lego Island games.