NetDevil has nailed the LEGO feeling in its upcoming MMO LEGO Universe—you can tell from the character creation screen. You start with a minifig, and you get to choose the eyes, the mouth, different arms, and illustrations on the chest. As you move the pieces around, the arms and legs flail. In the screen where you choose which character to play, the other minifigs look hopeful, although they sometimes swat at the cursor. When you choose one to play, he or she celebrates, and the rest kick the ground, dejected.

"Everything is moderated," I'm told as we put our name in. We'll have a generic name until the name is given the thumbs up. The game is aimed at young boys, "but like LEGO itself, we're really shooting for kids of all ages," the representative outside the booth tells me. I begin to lope around the world with my newly created character, building things. In a game about Lego bricks, who exactly is the bad guy?

It's all a matter of imagination

Each character is filled with a "creative spark," and enemies that are fought and defeated break down into their parts. There is no blood, and certainly no death. The LEGO body is just a vessel for that spark... it's all oddly spiritual.

The world is being taken over by chaos, and it's your job to fight this dark force back by using your imagination. By defeating enemies and creating things throughout the in-game world, you increase the power of your imagination and fight the chaos. The more you work together with other people, the more imagination you spread. It sounds very similar to The Neverending Story, but there are certainly worse stories to take your cues from.

You'll see the major themes from LEGO in the game. Space, Pirates, Medieval, and of course parrots. Your minifig character gains powers by picking up accessories such as swords. The land is filled with charming details: LEGO animals roam the terrain, you can unlock more imagination by exploring. Shoot one of the torches with a squirt gun and see what happens. Bring the banana to a monkey. Build a bridge and get to a new level. Build a race car and challenge others to a race.

The idea of freedom and character absolutely fills the game. You can do a quick-create sort of thing to build bridges and other small details, while larger models such as cars and spaceships are modular—you can pick from different choices for each section to make it feel like your own. Then, as you earn bricks in your travels, you can also build things from scratch and put them into your own little world. The game is filled with tens of thousands of different types of bricks, spanning every theme and offshoot of the world. In fact, before an object could be included in the game, it had to be built, in the real world, using actual bricks. The original models from the game were on display in the booth, to show the early stage of design.

The devil is in the details

The LEGO MMO is clearly aimed at children, but it's impossible not to want to play this. The other minifigs wave, dance, and fight. The game is filled with minigames, and you'll be rewarded by solving puzzles and taking quests given by the NPCs with a group of friends. The ability to build anything out of the bricks you collect means you can make the LEGO world you always wanted but never had the space for.

What drew me in was the different approaches you can take while playing. You can focus on earning bricks and building objects to play with, and in fact there is a programming language built into the game so that you can build an animal and tell it how to react. One of the developers had a mushroom garden on a hill, and with a few clicks made them hop when players walked through. An elephant was built and taught to patrol a spire. You can focus on the minigames, such as the racing or the shooting challenges. Or, you can play the game as a straight platformer, taking challenges and fighting the chaos.

The sweet spot is probably a combination of all three, and the game makes you feel like you're putting your mark on the world. It was fun to add a flintlock pistol and parrot to a character, and then watch everyone else dance a pirate jig. You'll also deal with pirate's worst enemy: the ninja.

New areas and pets will be added, and we asked if any of the licensed sets will be seen in the game. "Not at launch," was the answer, but that leaves a lot of room for the future. The game we saw already looked amazing, but the ability to travel to a Star Wars world and fly an X-Wing would make a great paid expansion.

The game is a boxed product with a subscription fee, although you'll also be able to buy it online and download the client directly. The pricing information is still in the air, as is the release date, although we're told it's coming this year. Play feels like the current LEGO video games, simply taking place in the online world. So far though, NetDevil has nailed the feel and the charm of LEGO with a game that gives players as much freedom as they'd like, while also delivering a "game" inside the experience.

We can't wait.