Toys / LEGO Alpha Team

Ready for your next mission?^note Clockwise from top left: Flex, Radia, Dash Justice, Cam Attaway, Crunch, Tee Vee, Charge.

LEGO Alpha Team is a LEGO Theme first released in 2001 and discontinued in 2005, revolving around a team of secret agents who foil the dastardly plans of Evil Ogel, who wants to Take Over the World.

Unlike all other LEGO Themes, LEGO Alpha Team is unique in that its videogame adaptation was actually released in 2000, a full year prior to the first wave of sets. Developed by effects house Digital Domain and released for PC and Gameboy Color, LEGO Alpha Team is a Puzzle Platformer with the premise that, in the search for Ogel's secret bases, the entire Alpha Team has been captured, and it's up to you to move Alpha Team equipment around Ogel's bases to help Dash Justice, the last remaining agent, open doors and rescue his teammates before foiling Ogel's latest plot.

The first wave of sets, closest in premise to the videogame, revolved around Alpha Team's efforts to locate the Ogel Control Center and stop Ogel's production of Mind-Control Orbs, which he uses to turn innocent people into mindless zombie minions. The second wave of sets, with the subtitle Mission Deep Sea, moved the action to deep beneath the ocean as Alpha Team battled Ogel's army of mutant sea creatures in search of the Ogel Underwater Base.

The third and final wave of sets was a Retool of the Alpha Team theme, with much of the cast receiving dramatic makeovers and Alpha Team's color scheme changing from yellow to blue. This time, Ogel plans to freeze time itself by spreading Ice Orbs across the globe, and Alpha Team must race against time to locate Ogel's Mountain Headquarters before it is too late.

In 2008, LEGO Alpha Team received a Spiritual Successor called LEGO Agents. In 2016, LEGO Alpha Team received a Continuity Nod from LEGO Minifigures, which featured a Spy minifigure in Series 16.

Not to be confused with that other LEGO Alpha Team or The A-Team (which appeared in LEGO Dimensions).

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LEGO Alpha Team provides examples of:

• Added Alliterative Appeal: This theme loves alliterative names including Trouble Train, Sea Colony Seven Science Center, Tundra Tracker, Solar Speeder, and Blizzard Blaster.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Dash uses an air vent to sneak around Ogel's greenhouses in the intro cutscene of the PC game.
• All Deserts Have Cacti: The frozen desert depicted in the online Mission Deep Freeze games is populated by cacti, although the desert's location is not specified.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Alpha Team, from Ogel's point of view according to the Minifigure Handbook:
  Evil Ogel: They may have foiled my plans to use music to control the world’s weather, and they may have destroyed my beautiful orb machine, freed the mutant sea creatures, and saved the ocean, and most annoyingly rented the last DVD copy of JAWS, but my next plan is the most wickedly brilliant of all!
• The Bad Guy Wins: At the end of the November/December 2004 LEGO Magazine comic, the entire Alpha Team has been turned into Human Popsicles by Ogel's Ice Orbs, and Ogel fires his Time Freeze Ray, completely freezing World City and grinding time itself to a halt. The comic ends on a cliffhanger, as Zed receives Dash's emergency beacon. A contest was announced for readers to submit their own short story saying who would win in the battle of Zed versus Ogel, but the winning entry was never published.
• Base on Wheels: The Mobile Command Center, as described in its name, is a large truck serving as Alpha Team's base during Mission Deep Freeze.
• Big Red Button: A large red button activates the Self-Destruct Mechanism the Arctic Command Base. Ogel accidentally pushed this button during his Villainous Breakdown.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Whether it's humans, dinosaurs, or sea creatures, the Mind-Control Orbs turn their victims into Ogel's evil minions.
• Cave Behind the Falls: Radia discovered a secret entrance to the Ogel Control Center in a tunnel hidden behind a waterfall.
• Chainsaw Good: One of the Ice Drones in Ogel's Mountain Fortress carries an ice saw. In Drones' Menace and Ogel's Fortress, each Ice Drone patrolling Ogel's bases is armed with one of these ice saws, which apparently electrocute Alpha Team agents.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Cam Attaway and Crunch were both inexplicably removed from the cast during Mission Deep Freeze.
• Container Maze: The Ogel Island greenhouses tend to be full of crates that Alpha Team agents must either navigate around or destroy with explosives.
• Continuity Nod: An article in LEGO BrickMaster Magazine featured Evil Ogel giving facts about Antarctica. When discussing the orca, Ogel mentions that he is quite familiar with this species, having turned them into Mutant Killer Whales during the previous mission.
• Convection, Schmonvection:
  • Some rooms in the Goo Caverns consist entirely of catwalks above lakes of lava. If Dash, Crunch, or Radia ever fall in, they just jump back out again while yelling in pain.
  • In Dash Justice's online training mission, he has to fly the Alpha Team Helicopter over a volcano which is constantly erupting. So long as he doesn't actually get hit by any of the fireballs, he's safe.
• Cool Boat: The Trouble Sub and most of Alpha Team's Mission Deep Sea vehicles serve as impressive submarines.
• Cool Car: The Tundra Tracker, a car that can track down missing Alpha Team agents and transform into a Drill Tank.
• Cool Plane: The Blue Eagle, a jet that can transform into the Ice Glider.
• Crossover:
  • In the November/December 2001 LEGO Mania, Alpha Team joins forces with the LEGO Studios crew and LEGO Life on Mars team to stop Ogel from brainwashing the LEGO Dinosaurs.
  • In the November/December 2002 LEGO Magazine, Alpha Team teams up with the LEGO Island cast to rescue two LEGO Soccer teams from Ogel.
  • In the November/December 2004 LEGO Magazine, time portals inadvertently created by Ogel's Ice Orbs cause dinosaurs and Titan XP from LEGO Creator to appear in World City, Morcia, and the jungle moon of Yavin 4.
  • Radia is a networker on My LEGO Network and plays a vital role in the central story campaign, along with Dr. Kilroy, Shadow, Viper, and Digger.
• Death Mountain: Ogel Island, as depicted in the comics included in the LEGO sets, features a lot of dangerous mountains and cliffs.
• Did You Actually Believe...?: When Dash tries to shut down the D.O.O.M. machine in the PC game, Evil Ogel says the following:
  Evil Ogel: Do you really think you've stopped me? You didn't turn off the D.O.O.M. machine at all! You kicked it into high gear!
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: Everything in the videogame builds up to shutting down the D.O.O.M. machine in the Deep Sea Orb Factory, but then you learn that there's actually a fourth headquarters, the Arctic Command Base.
• Ditching the Dub Names: For the video game and early 2001 catalogs, certain Alpha Team agents had different names in German: Crunch was Tanxx, Charge was Lexon, Cam was Cosma, Flex was Migh, and Tee Vee was AT-1 (Dash, Radia, and Ogel's names were consistent). By the end of 2001, these were replaced with their English names.
• Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: An unexpected tornado tears up a beach resort in Evil Music.
• Don't Explain the Joke: Evil Ogel in the Goo Caverns makes a play on the phrase "make yourselves comfortable", laughs at his own joke, and then proceeds to explain what he did:
  Evil Ogel: Now that you're here, make yourselves uncomfortable! [evil laughter] You get it? I-I said "uncomfortable" instead of "comfortable" like people always say! Heh, heh. I changed it.
• Drill Tank: The Tundra Tracker's Alpha Mode, the Magma Drill, is a powerful drilling vehicle.
• Elaborate Underground Base: The Goo Caverns serves as the Evil OGEL Empire's underground base with Green Goo mining operations.
• Evil Plan: In the videogame and the first wave of sets, Evil Ogel planned to Take Over the World by turning everyone into Skeleton Drones with his Mind-Control Orbs. In Evil Music, Evil Ogel planned to use his Weather-Control Machine to destroy all the world's crops and force everyone to be dependent on him for food. In Mission Deep Sea, Evil Ogel planned to take over the world by turning marine life into mutant monsters and (revealed in the LEGO Mania comics) draining all water sources from the cities. In the LEGO Mania comics, Ogel planned to destroy major cities with lasers, brainwash dinosaurs into his minions, and kidnap a pair of soccer teams so he could watch them play in his personal undersea dome. In Mission Deep Freeze, Ogel planned to freeze time itself.
• Freeze Ray: The Time Freeze Ray is an upgraded freeze ray that, when powered by enough Ice Orbs, can literally freeze time itself.
• Fully Absorbed Finale: Since the line never received a direct conclusion, the Spy bio years later summarized that Dash finally defeated Ogel for good and freed his mind controlled victims.
• Fun with Acronyms: The D.O.O.M. machine, as explained by Ogel himself:
  Evil Ogel: I call it the Device for Ominous Orb Manufacturing. That's D.O.O.M. Spells "doom"! Ingenious, no? Yes!
• Game-Breaking Bug: The Repetitive Audio Glitch is bad enough to listen to, but unless you turn off dialogue in the setting menu, the game will freeze after the "Trouble Train Depot" level because Tee Vee's speech will keep looping and the game will not progress.^note If you turn dialogue back on afterwards, this bug also applies to "Trouble Sub Rescue" and "The D.O.O.M. Room" for the same reasons.
• Garden of Evil: The Ogel Island greenhouses, which grow Evil Plants used in the manufacturing of Evil Orbs, are an indoors variant of this trope.
• Harmless Freezing: Whenever Alpha Team agents are frozen in a block of ice by an Ice Orb, they are always just fine once thawed or broken free.
• Hollywood Hacking: In Drones' Menace and Ogel's Fortress, an Alpha Team agent can hack into one of Ogel's computers just by typing really quickly, and when they're finished, the computer screens display the word "HACKED". Only Dash Justice can hack computers with blue screens and only Arrow can hack computers with yellow screens.
• Humongous Mecha: The Blizzard Blaster is a massive two-legged mech used by Alpha Team special agent Zed.
• Ice Palace: The Arctic Command Base appears to have been fashioned out of ice.
• Insecurity System: It seems that Ogel created every lock in his bases to be specifically opened by each Alpha Team agent's specialty.
• Instant Ice: Just Add Cold!: Or rather, just add an Ice Orb and watch as snow instantly covers a desert.
• Island Base: Ogel Island serves as Ogel's Supervillain Lair during the first area of the video game and during the sets' first line.
• Kaizo Trap: Averted in the PC game. As shown in this video, a level is registered as successfully completed as soon as the door is unlocked, even if an Alpha Team agent is knocked out during the "door opening" animation.
• Override Command: In the online Mission Deep Freeze games, Alpha Team agents can easily hack into Ogel's computers to disable security cameras or open doors.
• Mini-Mecha: The Alpha Team Robotic Diver, Aquatic Mech, and X-1 Snowbot Defender are mechs piloted by Alpha Team during Mission Deep Sea and Mission Deep Freeze. They're both larger than a standard human minifigure, but considerably smaller than the humongous Blizzard Blaster.
• Misplaced Wildlife: Discussed. In a LEGO BrickMaster Magazine article, Ogel mentions that he had a plan to parachute polar bears onto Alpha Team headquarters, but did not go through with the plan because he remembered that there are no polar bears in Antarctica.
• Mission Briefing: Before every level in the videogame, Tee Vee explains the mission's objective and often gives a hint for solving the level's puzzle.
• Monumental Theft: After freezing time itself, Ogel sends his drones across the world to steal major landmarks. This includes the Eiffel Tower and a statue of Pepper Roni.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Dash pulls a switch on the D.O.O.M. machine, hoping to turn it off and end Evil Orb production. Instead, he inadvertently kicks it into high gear.
• No Ending: The January/February 2005 LEGO Magazine comic ended with the final showdown between Zed's Blizzard Blaster and Ogel's Scorpion Orb Launcher beginning... and that's it. There was a submit-a-story contest challenge to determine how the battle ended, but for some reason, while the contest winners' names were published in a later LEGO Magazine, the winning entries themselves were never published anywhere.
• Our Presidents Are Different: Dash Justice addresses the speaker of the World Council as "Madame President", though it's unclear whether she's president of a nation or president of the council. Either way, though, it falls under the President Minority category.
• Pain-Powered Leap: Dash, Crunch, and Radia will do this if they fall in the lava during the Goo Caverns levels.
• The Paralyzer: Cam Attaway used a stun gun to put several mutant sea creatures to sleep, saving a group of scientists and allowing them to bring in the monsters for study.
• Player Headquarters: Orbiting Satellite Headquarters in the PC game, albeit it's not actually a level and just the backdrop of the main menu. However, training missions appear to take place in the Orbiting Satellite Headquarters.
• Prehistoria: In the November/December 2001 LEGO Mania crossover comic, Alpha Team's mission takes place on Dinosaur Island.
• Production Throwback: Crunch's explosives in the 2000 PC game use the same design as the explosives in the 1999 Rock Raiders theme.
• Puzzle Platformer: The videogame adaptation can be best classified as this genre. You don't actually control any of the Alpha Team agents, but you place down tiles telling them where to go, and you set up equipment to help them get past obstacles or open locked doors.
• Retool: Mission Deep Freeze gave a complete makeover to most of the cast, changed the color scheme, added a transforming feature to most Alpha Team vehicles, and gave an arachnid motif to Ogel's vehicles.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: The red/black color scheme of Ogel's bases, vehicles, and Skeleton Drone uniforms helps convey that they are Obviously Evil.
• Repetitive Audio Glitch: A rather infamous case for the PC game. When ran on Windows XP, all dialogue and music would loop over and over again.
• Sapient Cetaceans: In Into The Deep, if you don't stun enough mutant sea creatures before the timer runs out, a dolphin will start Animal Talking, with a provided translation telling players to try again and advising them not to shoot any dolphins.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: Ogel accidentally activated the Arctic Command Base's mechanism in a fit of rage. He later intentionally self-destructed the Sector 5 headquarters.
• Shark Pool: The second half of the Ogel Island levels and the Arctic Command Base levels in the PC game are filled with shark-infested waters.
  Evil Ogel: I must say, it looks like you're in rare form. Excellent. That is how my sharks like their meals. Rare! Very rare!
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the levels in the Goo Caverns is titled "Mirror Mirror".
  • Mr. Whiskers is an Expy of Ernst Stavro Blofeld's Right-Hand Cat.
  • In the Alpha Team Intelligence Database, Crunch is going to rent a DVD of Jaws, Tee Vee tries to convince him to rent Lost in Space instead, and Ogel is furious that Crunch already rented the last copy of Jaws.
• Sinister Surveillance: In the online games Drones' Menace and Ogel's Fortress, Ogel's bases are filled with security cameras that will shoot lasers at Alpha Team agents on sight.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World:
  • The Arctic Command Base in the PC game is located in the Arctic, although fortunately it averted any annoying ice physics puzzle.
  • The entire setting of Mission Deep Freeze as Ogel uses Ice Orbs to freeze over entire portions of the globe. In the online games, large patches of ice made it difficult to control grounded vehicles.
• Snow Means Cold: During Mission Deep Freeze, a few Ice Orbs could completely blanket an entire desert in snow.
  Radia: Hard to believe this was a desert an hour ago!
• Sonic Stunner: As shown in Flex's Mission Deep Sea training mission, the Alpha Team Sub-Surface Scooter is equipped with one of these. It doesn't actually stun the mutant sea creatures, but it breaks Ogel's control over them, reverting them to their natural, peaceful state.
• Space Station: Alpha Team Orbiting Satellite Headquarters is a base located in orbit of the Earth.
• Spider Tank: The Scorpion Orb Launcher is an enormous mech modeled after a scorpion.
• Spiritual Successor: LEGO Agents, which is also Spy Fiction with the premise of a team of secret agents trying to stop an Evil Genius from taking over the world.

• Stupidity Is the Only Option: Even if you already know that Dash's attempt to turn off the D.O.O.M. machine will only kick it into high gear, you cannot continue the game without doing so.
• Sub Story: Mission Deep Sea takes place largely underwater, with Alpha Team and the Evil OGEL Empire employing submarines and sea creatures in combat with one another.
• Supervillain Lair: The villainous Ogel's bases include Ogel Island (complete with greenhouses and the Ogel Control Center), the Goo Caverns, Deep-Sea Orb Factory and Ogel Underwater Base, Arctic Command Base, Volcano Island, Ogel's Sector 5 base, and Ogel's Mountain Fortress.
• Take Over the World: Each of Ogel's Evil Plans ultimately have world domination as the end goal.
• This Is a Drill: Alpha Team's Drill Tank, the Magma Drill, can use its drill in close quarters against Snow Crawlers in the online games. It's risky and leaves the Magma Drill vulnerable to enemy laser fire, but it can very quickly defeat Snow Crawlers.
• Threatening Shark: In the videogame, some of Ogel's bases have shark-infested waters, and the mission is automatically failed if any agent falls in. In Mission Deep Sea, Ogel's forces included the Ogel Shark Sub, evoking the shark's iconic threatening shape in the form of a submarine.
• Time Bomb: In Charge's training mission on the Alpha Team website, he must defuse a bomb before its timer runs out.
• Time Traveler's Dinosaur: In the LEGO Magazine November/December 2004 crossover comic between LEGO Alpha Team, LEGO Designer, LEGO World City, Knights' Kingdom, and Star Wars, the Prehistoric Creatures from LEGO Designer appear in the other themes as the result of time portals created by Evil Ogel's tampering with time. This also includes a mastodon and sabertooth tiger that interrupt Ogel when he is just about to fire the time freeze ray.
• Tracking Device: In the online game Ogel's Fortress, a Satellite Tracking Bug was attached to Ogel's Sky Spider to reveal the location of his real Mountain Fortress.
• Transformation Sequence: In the online Mission Deep Freeze games, the first time the player initiates a particular vehicle's Alpha Mode, it will undergo a Transformation Sequence.
• Under the Sea: The Deep Sea Orb Factory is an Underwater Base serving as the third area in the video game. The various Mission Deep Sea online games likewise take place underwater.
• Underground Level: The Goo Caverns are an Elaborate Underground Base serving as the second area in the video game.
• Underwater Base: The Ogel Underwater Base and the Sea Colony 7 Science Center are both located underwater.
• Voice Grunting: Played straight in the intro cutscene of the PC game, in which the characters only "speak" through grunts, but otherwise completely averted in the game itself by Tee Vee and Evil Ogel, as well as Into The Deep and the commercial for Mission Deep Freeze.
• Volcano Lair:
  • According to one of the LEGO Shop@Home catalogs, the Ogel Control Center is located inside a volcano.
  • Ogel's Weather-Control Machine in Evil Music was located inside a secret base inside the titular geographical feature of Volcano Island.
• We Need a Distraction:
  • In the "Dash's Decoy" level of the PC game, the only way to get around a Lurcher is by using Flex as a decoy to distract the Lurcher from Dash.
  • In Into The Deep, Dash and Cam know that they cannot get to the orb machine with Ogel in the room, so Cam offers to go distract him with her "irresistible charms".
• Weather-Control Machine: Ogel's pipe organ in Evil Music, which caused Weather Dissonance whenever played.
• Weather Dissonance: In Evil Music, a sunny day on the beach was unexpectedly interrupted by a thunderstorm, a blizzard, and a tornado, all in quick succession.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Ogel's Right-Hand Cat Mr. Whiskers only appeared in The Return of Ogel, and was never seen or even mentioned again. We don't even know if Mr. Whiskers survived the self-destruct mechanism of Ogel's base.
• Wire Dilemma: In Charge's online training mission, the player must memorize the correct order of colors presented on a blackboard, then defuse a Time Bomb by cutting only those colored wires in that order.
• You Fool!: Evil Ogel calls Dash Justice a fool at the start of the PC game.
  Evil Ogel: Fool! You'll never get past my security doors! Your rescue efforts will be futile!

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