Lego City succeeds
Name: Lego City Undercover
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Wii U
Genre: Open-world action game
Rating: All ages
Lego City Undercover forgoes the wizardry of big-budget franchises for something much simpler — a good old-fashioned police romp set in sprawling Lego City, a diverse metropolis where cars are made out of colourful plastic bricks and residents have interchangeable heads.
COOL CHARACTER
As undercover officer Chase McCain, players must switch between multiple disguises with different abilities to hunt down Lego City lawbreakers. For example, when dressed as a farmer, McCain can water plants that blossom into vines that can be climbed. If he’s imitating a burglar, his crowbar can crack open doors. There’s even an astronaut suit.
FUN PURSUITS
The game’s zany writing and voice acting alternate between corny and hilarious. While young players might enjoy Lego City the most, there’s plenty here for adults who grew up with games like Grand Theft Auto.
McCain can get behind the wheel of more than 100 vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats and helicopters. He can also ride horses, pigs and, at one point, a dinosaur.
Outside of the story missions that take McCain inside such Lego City locales as the museum and prison, there are enough side pursuits for even the most obsessive gamers, from capturing aliens to painting bricks. There are also lots and lots of bricks to pick up.
NICE TOUCH
Lego City employs the touch screen of the Wii U GamePad as a police scanner and communicator. It’s mostly used to pinpoint locations on the interactive map, but it can also do stuff like spot bad guys through walls, listen in on conversations and snap photos of crimes. It’s a neat touch, but it’s not integral to the overall experience.
GREAT GAME
The game’s biggest flaw is the mind-numbingly long loading screens that feature nothing more than a spinning police badge and some funky background music. It was a bad decision not to extend the game’s charms with some title cards, images or anything other than just a rotating graphic.
Despite that annoyance, and a complete lack of any multiplayer mode, there’s still loads of fun to be had with Lego City. It’s a must-own for Wii U owners and Lego fans. The developers at TT Games have created a fantastical toy world that proves there’s really no place like home.
By Derrik J Lang
AP
Vocabulary
- forgo (v): to decide not to have to do something
interchangeable (adj): that can be exchanged, especially without affecting that way in which something works
zany (adj): strange or unusual in an amusing way
pinpoint (v): to find and show the exact position of something
integral (adj): being an essential part of something
flaw (n): a weakness or fault in something
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