‘LEGO City: Undercover’ Review Roundup
LEGO City: Undercover has been released for the Wii U. Here’s what the critics said.
LEGO videogames started as a novel idea to give the Star Wars series a fresh new look, breathing life into the franchise that, since the Super NES, hadn’t seen a break. Since then we’ve seen Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Harry Potter, Lego Batman, and several other movie license tie-ins that made it where the straight tie-ins failed.
The typical formula is to take the characters and ideas we love, convert them into LEGO format, and recreate the movie while giving the player the ability to switch characters if they so choose.
LEGO City: Undercover was made for LEGO nerds. Developer TT Fusion has thrown out the movie licenses and brought the LEGO franchise back to its roots. Everything in the game is reminiscent of the classic constructs that LEGO sold in buckets and provided the pre-videogame crowd hours of entertainment. You collect bricks as you play and use them to build bridges, roller-coasters and such to explore the virtual city further. This game serves as a genius form of cross-promotion, making kids who play it want to buy LEGO sets and build their own structures, cars, etc., in real life.
This game is basically a kid-friendly Grand Theft Auto, a sandbox title that lets you go anywhere and do anything. The story of LEGO City: Undercover follows protagonist Chase McCain, a hero cop who was transferred away from LEGO City after accidentally blowing the cover of a key witness in a case against the game’s villain, Rex Fury. Fury (no relation to Nick Fury, so Avengers fans can chill) escapes from prison and McCain is brought back to stop him.
The load time is a hiccup in the enjoyment of the game, but that’s been a regular factor of the hobby since the PlayStation. The lack of Wii U‘s processing power really shows here.
LEGO City: Undercover focuses on the comedy, distracting enough from the loading times to make the game fun anyway. The laughs come thick and fast, and before you’ve even got the hang of driving around the city, you’re smack-dab in the middle of film parodies and buddy cop-movie routines that will keep you laughing and rooting for the hero anyway.
What do you think of LEGO City: Undercover?
