TIMEsink REVIEW: Spybotics: The Nightfall Incident

Tie-in games made by big companies to sell other games are an interesting beast, but tie-in games made by big companies to sell toys are another entirely. Their gameplay is often simplistic, shallow and not worth pursuing for very long. But there are, again, some exceptions to this sort of behaviour, and an offering by Lego to sell their Spybotics sets is a surprisingly hardy contender.

Made during the years when Shockwave was king and Flash was a twinkle in a Macromedia developer's eye, Spybotics: The Nightfall Incident is a surprisingly robust turn-based strategy game, that actually manages to fit an entire story into its limited scope. Though it's not without its glitches, its gameplay holds up even today, about a decade onwards, and its later levels boast an absolutely fiendish difficulty which will appeal to the more masochistic of gamers out there.

Alun's Timesink Rating: 4. The length and breadth of this game suggests that it was a pet project of a Lego developer - and you get the benefit of an interesting, long-lasting little pasttime.

Click here to play Spybotics: The Nightfall Incident.