LEGO Universe

In addition to fighting, missions include plenty of building too, and some impressive physics. An early mission sees you navigating your way to the top of a mountain while being pushed back by a series of fans. You can build switches to stop them, build around them, or break through walls to avoid them completely. "We want to offer multiple paths through every mission," says Seabury. Completed missions can be replayed as racecourses, with completion times being recorded on searchable leaderboards.

Interestingly, the game's levelling system is less WOW and more Zelda. There are no RPG levels as such, and progress is instead marked by your health and items. Like the Zelda games, it will make exploration less about juicing your stat porn, and more about, well, exploring.

In the last, pirate-infested area we see, the spooky Gnarled Forest, we get a glimpse of the pets system. Animals like dogs, elephants and buffaloes are all trainable, and can be summoned from your backpack once trained. Pets can dig up buried treasure chests, step on switches, and ward off enemies, as Seabury demonstrates by gifting a banana to a gun-toting monkey, just in time for it to deal with a bunch of scurvy-riddled zombie pirates. You can even mix and match animal parts to create your own deadly Croco-lion mash-ups.

The action is chaotically exciting, and the silent pantomime humour now synonymous with the LEGO titles is in full effect. Extinguish a flaming Tiki head for example, and the it will spit the water back in your face. Environments feel extremely interactive: organs can be played, pirate cannons launch shooting gallery mini-games, and binoculars can be used to spy out hidden areas.

Plenty of effort has gone into the baddies too. We liked the Pirates who had an anchor for one arm and a cannon for the other, firing the anchor into the ground to steady themselves from the cannon's recoil. Much of the laughter is generated by the incongruity of some of the weapons - one character who looked suspiciously like Anchorman Ron Burgundy brandished a fish on a stick menacingly.

If it all gets too much, you can always retreat to your own patch of land and build to your heart's content. NetDevil has modelled well over 2000 unique bricks, which is a lot when you consider that from six identical eight-studded LEGO bricks you can get 915,103,765 possible combinations. All MMORPGs suffer from a lack of content in the early days, and these Second Life-style building areas may go some way to extending the game's longevity during this teething period. While you will be able to show off your creations to the public, all models will have to be vetted first, using a complex series of algorithms and human moderation. Communication freedom can be tweaked by parents, and NetDevil is confident that these tools will minimise any potential risk to children.

Your patch of land can be expanded by completing certain missions, and NetDevil has already stated that it won't be charging extra for larger chunks of land, preferring to keep everything included in the basic subscription. While Seabury hints that some objects will be transferable between the private spaces and the game space, the two will remain largely separate. "We don't want people suddenly plonking huge castles in the middle of our carefully designed areas," he says. NetDevil has already enlisted a team of expert LEGO builders, who have been busy creating some exceptionally cool-sounding non-game areas for players to explore, including… well, we swore we wouldn't tell. But let's just say that fans of seventies Space LEGO are in for a treat.

LEGO Universe has a great deal of potential as the game that could bridge the gap between Club Penguin and World of Warcraft. It's slick, clean presentation is unlike anything else out there, and all signs point to an extremely polished title. There are still questions of course: NetDevil is being cagey about the inclusion of MMO tropes like player economies and raiding parties. But there's still time for them to build on what they already have – a cracking good start.