The LEGO games have been around for a while, but of late they’ve been quite content to play in other people’s toyboxes. Jedis and Pirates, Wizards and Superheroes have all been transformed into chunky little figures inhabiting dinky worlds of coloured plastic. Over the years, a certain reassuring pattern has emerged, and the LEGO games have become comfort gaming at their very best – when other games become too difficult, it’s been reassuring to escape into a friendly world where it’s about bashing everything in sight, finding every collectible and the joy of unlocking new areas, characters, and abilities. They’ve always been refreshingly unpretentious, and blessed with a wonderfully mischievous sense of humour. They pay homage to their source material and yet are still capable of poking fun at it, too.
But for much of its history, LEGO the toy came without a licence or a blueprint. There were no characters and no set-pieces; no collectibles or blockbuster licences to speak of. Its original charm came from something quite different: it gave children the chance to build cathedrals, entire cities, and things that could never exist in reality. It turned out that the building blocks of a child’s imagination were tiny plastic bricks from Denmark.
With LEGO City: Undercover, the series is turning away from the licenses that have contributed to so much of their recent success; it’s going back to basics, back to those little brightly-coloured blocks. And it might be a smart move, since the most successful line of LEGO toys isn’t Star Wars or Harry Potter, it’s something much more mundane and universal: the company’s City range of toys.
It turned out that the building blocks of a child’s imagination were tiny plastic bricks from Denmark.
It turns out that what kids really want to build – no matter where they’re from – is police stations and fire trucks, bridges and boats. And so TT’s new sister studio, TT Fusion, has done just that – it’s given you an entire city to play with.
At first that might sound a tad bland – no spells, no Force, no Batarang to wield, after all – but right from the beginning, it’s evident that the series’ trademark sense of humour is still very much present. You play as Chase McCain – a slick undercover cop, and one of LEGO city’s finest. And he’s recently closed the biggest case of his life, taking down the notorious criminal Rex Fury. In the process, Chase’s love Natalia Kowalski has been placed in witness relocation, but Chase blows her cover, plunging her back into danger once more.
To the Police Station! This serves as the hub for the game, and you’re able to explore all parts of it, from the upper offices to the very useful basement, where Chase can access to a range of outfits and car. These are gradually unlocked over the course of the game, with little open to Chase at the start.
Despite early comparisons with Grand Theft Auto, LEGO City: Undercover is something quite different. It has more in common with crime movies, and it's fluent in the genre it obviously loves. All the hallmarks are there right from the beginning. Right after Chase exposes Natalia, the belligerent, mustachioed police chief calls you into a briefing, along with LEGO City’s other star detectives. The doors burst open, and a procession of familiar faces strut in: Starsky and Hutch, with their distinctive seventies haircuts and fashionably-chunky cardigans; the grizzled face and squinting eyes of Harry Callahan; Columbo wearing his beige raincoat; there was even room for a LEGO Sherlock Holmes, looking dapper in a suit of Harris tweed and matching deerstalker.
Gameplay, unsurprisingly, revolves around the fundamentals of being a detective: it’s all about finding clues, following leads, and taking down the scum of LEGO City. And it’s that first part that works particularly well on Wii U, since the GamePad doubles up as Chase’s communicator and scanner. You can also toggle between various outfits, each of which grant Chase special abilities. Put on his Police Blues, for instance, and you’ll be able to access the GamePad’s scanning function. When prompted, Chase can pull out his scanner – which looks very much like a GamePad – and cast a UV glow onto the ground beneath his feet, allowing his to pick up clues. And sometimes you’ll have to hold the GamePad up and search for criminals or special building blocks hiding from view by looking around the room. Later on, you acquire a grappling hook, allowing you to access new areas, and a Thief outfit which lets you break into safes and locked areas.
Despite early comparisons with Grand Theft Auto, LEGO City: Undercover is something quite different. It has more in common with crime movies, and it's fluent in the genre it obviously loves.
Clues usually lead somewhere, and to get there Chase can commandeer any vehicle he sees, from nippy sportscars to lumbering trucks. Driving is simple. Cars feel a bit slow, but handle in a very distinctive way; it’s hard to explain, but they feel like toys. When you slide around a corner, it feels like you’re manoeuvring a stack of plastic bricks.
When you finally track down a perp, gameplay shifts up a gear, becoming much more action-orientated. Patches of blue-and-white tiles dotted about the environment are ‘action’ tiles, and let Chase McCain display his super-cop credentials. They make him much more agile, quick, and strong. In one sequence, I was pursuing a robber across a skyscraper rooftop, and Chase was sliding under obstacles and vaulting platforms and ziplining between buildings with grace. When you come face-to-face with the offender, Chase becomes more direct – you take them down with a single punch or a well-timed throw, handcuffing them with a swift button mash.
During my time with the game, this seemed to be the dominant rhythm: find, follow, foil. Yes, there were still those LEGO mainstays of smashing up objects and collecting coins, unlocking characters and constructing items to solve simple yet often frustrating puzzles, but they were much more diluted in the open-world setting of LEGO City.
But that’s no bad thing, especially for those who have grown weary of those familiar riffs. What hasn’t been watered-down, however, is the game’s irreverent humour and love of playful allusion. This was showcased rather wonderfully when I visited Albatross Island, LEGO City’s equivalent to Alcatraz. Here, I met ‘Blue’, a long-time inmate of the facility with a voice uncannily like that of Morgan Freeman's dulcet tones. Eventually, the trail led me into the warden’s office, and the mission ended with Chase building a record player and broadcasting the uplifting sound of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro to the inmates in what quickly became a charmingly spot-on parody of The Shawshank Redemption.
The game still suffers from some technical bugs that hopefully will be weeded out before release. The draw-distance has improved since E3, but there’s still some pop-in, with trees and lampposts still appearing from nowhere. But one thing that is extremely polished is the charismatic voice acting, from brash, gum-chewing receptionists to the lovely Southern drawl of Ellie Phillips, who frequently contacts you on the GamePad while you’re roaming around the city.
Although initially it looked like a weakness, not being tied to a single franchise could actually turn out to be something of a strength. LEGO City: Undercover isn’t LEGO GTA, nor is it trying to be. It’s trying to be LEGO, creating its own story. Unshackled from the licences of its recent titles, it is free to imagine entirely new scenarios and character, but hopefully this imagination will find its way into the gameplay, too.
Daniel is IGN's UK Staff Writer, and desperately wants to own a LEGO Haunted House. You can be part of the world's worst cult by following him on IGN and Twitter.
Source : ign[dot]com
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