Lego Dimensions keeps the real bricks front and centre

The games in the Lego series have always been fun enough puzzle games, but the problem is they've never really captured what it's like to play with Lego pieces. Games like Lego Harry Potter or Lego Lord of the Rings made do with retelling the plots of those films with an all-Lego cast, coming off more like loose parodies with a distinctly bricky flavour. That's all changing with Lego Dimensions.

I had some hands-on time with a demo version of Lego Dimensions, and it's no exaggeration to say that it's the most fun I've ever had with a Lego game.

TT Games and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have built on the "toys-to-life" formula popularised by Activision's Skylanders and Disney Infinity, meaning that the new Lego game incorporates real, physical Lego pieces into the gameplay. It still embraces the slapstick tone and puzzle-solving of the previous games in the series, but it never lets you forget that you're also here to play with real Lego. And it works well: jumping from the controller to the physical bricks is a smooth experience.

The "toys-to-life" concept is all about bringing a physical and collectible aspect to video games, and it's a match made in heaven for Lego. The basic idea is that by placing figurines with an RFID chip in the base on the compatible reader device, players can use those characters in the game world. Stand your Lego Gandalf minifig on the Toy Pad, play as the wizard in the game.

Speaking of Gandalf, he comes in the core set, along with Batman, Wyldstyle from "The Lego Movie" and the Batmobile. The first stage drops these characters in Oz (as in flying monkeys, not state prison). Right off the starting blocks, the game is about worlds colliding.

It's part of what makes Lego Dimensions stand out. There are no less than 14 different universes worth of characters to draw from. In addition to the core set, there are dozens of other characters and vehicles coming out in separate packs both at launch and in later planned releases. Expect to see characters from "Back to the Future," "Ghostbusters," "The Simpsons," DC Comics, "Doctor Who," "Jurassic World" and more. At one point, my party consisted of Batman, Portal's Chell, Wyldstyle, Scooby-Doo and Marty McFly. This intrepid band obviously needed a way to get from A to B, so I rounded things out with the TARDIS. As you do.

The levels themselves are based on these universes too, from following the Yellow Brick Road to surviving GLaDOS' test chambers from the Portal game series.

Every character has a particular set of skills, like Gandalf's magic or Batman's grappling hook, that you'll use to navigate around the various stages and solve puzzles. If you've ever played a Lego game, you'll be familiar with the setup.

The Toy Pad is where things get interesting. It's already central to the whole experience, as players will need to swap new characters in by dropping the minifig or vehicle on the Toy Pad. Lego Dimensions builds on this idea by having the pad function as a kind of second controller.

You'll need to build the Toy Pad yourself out of Lego, naturally. You'll also need to piece together the Batmobile. Problem is, there aren't any assembly instructions in the box. You'll need to find them in the game itself with Batman, and then place the finished vehicle on the pad.

Placing the Lego minifigs or vehicles on the Toy Pad makes them usable in game, but you'll also need to get creative with the pad to solve puzzles in order to progress. One kind of puzzle spawns three portals, all different colours, and the three sections of the Toy Pad will light up in blue, yellow and red to match. Placing one of the real minifigs on the blue section of the pad will teleport that character through the blue portal in the game, letting you access previously unreachable areas.

In another section, I was caught out by the Wicked Witch of the West. She managed to ensnare Gandalf in a paralysing spell. Frantically mashing buttons (my usual solution to boss fights) was no good. Instead, I had to pick up the Gandalf minifig and pop him down on a different section of the Toy Pad to free him from the curse.

Lines are blurred in a brilliant way here. The Toy Pad added new a breadth to the puzzles that makes them far more difficult and satisfying, and the physical presence of minifigs and Lego kits gives you a real sense of playing a game about Lego, rather than a game that's been given a Lego-ish coat of paint.

Even only playing the game for a short time, it was easy to notice the developers' incredible attention to detail. Take what was one of the most elaborate Easter eggs I've ever seen in a video game. I was playing as the Doctor (specifically, the 12th Doctor, as played by Peter Capaldi), and I fell off a ledge. He respawned, complete with a classic Doctor Who Regeneration. But he didn't come back as the Doctor I was currently using -- now I was looking at the original Doctor from the 1960s, played by William Hartnell. He'll cycle through all 13 portrayals of the Doctor in this game.

But Dimensions wasn't done yet. I set foot inside the Doctor's TARDIS. The screen, like Hartnell's 1963-1966 tenure on "Doctor Who," was suddenly in grainy black and white. The interior of the time machine will change to match whichever Doctor is currently active. And that Doctor's theme song will play.

While previous Lego games like Lego Star Wars might have dabbled in nostalgia, Lego Dimensions is a master class. It's clever, inventive and, if you haven't guessed already, it's a blast to play. If Dimensions lives up to its promise, it'll be keeping players happy for a long time.

The core set and the rest of the wave one releases will be out on September 27 in the US, September 28 in Australia and September 29 in the UK for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Wii U, but you can expect more characters and vehicles to be released in the future.