Lego has announced a partnership with Nintendo to finally bring Mario to its brick building franchise, but he's hardly the first games character to have received the honor.

Lego and several other brick building toy companies, such as Mega Bloks, have been releasing sets based on big-name games for years.

Here are a few of our favourites...

Lego Super Mario

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Lego / Nintendo

We'll start with the latest, which is due to hit stores later this year. Lego Super Mario sets look to be a bit different in that, rather than just create minifigs of Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and the rest of the gang, there is an interactive, tech element built it. Mario himself incorporates LED screens - as his eyes and on his shirt. These interact with the scenery blocks to create games with sounds.

Lego Minecraft

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Lego

One of the first game tie-ins, the Minecraft range started as a Lego Ideas project but has grown into a mighty collection of playsets for young and old. One of its beauties is that the game itself is loosely based on brick building to begin with, so the theme matches perfectly.

Lego Overwatch

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Lego

Based on the hugely popular online multiplayer game, the Lego Overwatch sets are some of the most inventive around. They're not cheap, with our favourite - the Junkrat & Roadhog set being £45 in the UK - but they are avery accurate to the in-game characters. And you can't beat the dedicated minifigs to add to any proper Lego collection.

Mega Construx Halo

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Mega Construx

One of the ranges from Mega Bloks/Mega Construx that is still going strong today, Halo makes for interesting sets thanks to the cool Warthog vehicles and Spartan/Master Chief figures. We suspect even more sets will be announced later this year, likely to tie-in with the launch of the next game in the series, Halo: Infinite.

Mega Bloks World of Warcraft

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Mega Bloks

Although hard to come by today, the Mega Bloks World of Warcraft range were excellently detailed - perhaps too much in some cases as they weren't that hard to put together. We're not sure why they fell from grace a bit, although it's possible that the awful big screen outing could have been contributory. However, maybe we'll see the franchise return now that the game is back to being highly popular again.

Mega Construx Call of Duty

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Mega Contrux

Perhaps one of the weirdest tie-ins with a kids toy considering the subject matter, the Call of Duty range is fairly expansive, offering helicopters, motorbikes and all sorts of battle vehicles. There's even a grinning soldier wielding a flamethrower. Still, we remember our old plastic toy soldiers and these are definite a step up from them. Just wait until little Johnny gets to transform his brick building fun to Modern Warfare on the Xbox - it'll blow his tiny little mind.

Crash Bandicoot and Spyro Micro Blocks

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Activision / GameStop

Released to coincide with the launch of Activision's remastered editions of both the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane and Spyro Reignited trilogies, these mini sets offered tiny bricks to build both of the main characters. Sadly though, they were never widely available, having been offered as exclusive bonuses for pre-orders of the games from US retailer GameStop. You can find one or two on ebay these days though, normally shipping from the States.

 

Kubros Destiny

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Mega Construx

Even though it doesn't list them as ongoing, Mega Construx has several full Destiny sets available, with mini-figures and vehicles on offer. Our favourite though (and currently gracing our own office) is the Kobrus Destiny Hunter kit. Like Lego's BrickHeadz, these oversized figures are easy to put together and work nicely as ornaments and collectables afterwards. You can also get models in the range for Assassin's Creed and Halo.