Lego City Undercover

Game Title: Lego City Undercover
Released: April 4, 2017
Game Length: 50 Hours
Grade: A+

Backstory

Original Wii U Exclusive: Traveler's Tales made a big hit with their Lego video games. It became so successful that they decided to acquire another studio back in January 4th, 2007. This studio was founded originally with 20 people as Embryonic Studios by Nick Elms and renamed as TT Fusion. Since many people were working on other games at the time, the drafting phase of Lego City lasted a whole year in 2010. So when Nintendo approached them with their new Wii U hardware in 2011, they felt it was the perfect opportunity to implement some of their ideas. There was quite a bit of freedom to what they could include in the game without a license tying them down, and the only major issue that had to be addressed was the removal of "lethal take-downs" (to which they included knock-outs and arrests). Too bad the idea of having an ability to turn every minifigure into a zombie was too much for the Lego company even after reassuring them that they wouldn't interact with the player. Permission was given to include many Nintendo references (with many needing to be removed for the other platforms). They were able to add the map interface and other features to the gamepad. They implemented a miniature officer gamepad into the game whenever a policeman entered detective mode. You can also still see a disc spinning whenever the game is loading or saving. So in essence, the original game was released March 2013. The major difference was that it was a single-player game. So many of the Lego standards of having at least two mini-figures on the screen at once and being able to complete complex puzzles were removed.

The Prequel: The other thing they decided to do was adapt the console version to the Nintendo 3DS by establishing a storyline that gets referenced quite a lot in the main game and release it a month later in April 2013. The city remains intact and the campaign still follows the same template of unlocking disguises while still establishing different level designs. However, the port is vastly inferior in almost every respect. The graphics are understandably lower while creating some sort of mystical fog that keeps the environmental loading time down. Without voices, all the dialogue is tied to conceptual boxes that fill the bottom half of the screen. Not only did this dull quite a bit of the charming humor, but it also felt like the team didn't develop as many good jokes as they did in their other version. Not many viewed Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins as a game to try out when there was a much better version available for the public on the Wii U.

Marketing: It took the team a few years before releasing the game on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 on April 2017. This time, the game allowed split screen cooperative play where two players could explore the city on their own terms. There were still no online gameplay as to this day it seems Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga and Lego Indiana Jones 2 were the only ones with that feature made available. But there might be a way to play games with other people using Parsec. The game contains two bonus missions that can now be unlocked after finishing the game, instead of requiring you to use a code from the High speed chase Lego set. The pre-order bonus was an actual Chase McCain mini-figure. The developers also added the ability to unlock "special" playable characters with their own idle animation (more about that down below) that included almost every mini-figure available from the Collectable Minifigures sets from Series 1 to 6.

Lego City Show

Lego City Adventures: Other than the Lego City mini-series, there was another television series that started a few years ago. While it may not have any connection with the video game and not necessarily the best show to watch out there, there are a lot of charming qualities when spending an episode introducing one of its members. The show premiered on Nickelodeon and carries 12-minute episodes. Each episode subtly builds on the previous one. Season One runs fast with the characters until the final four episodes follows a weird story in outer space. Season Two continues the trend by introducing new characters and locations such as a man from the desert, a racer mechanic, an old man in the junkyard, and a captain at the docks.

Continuation: Season Three is placed on Netflix and slows down the story quite a bit. It works with the current characters in unusual situations that changes their personality. This includes a recycler who becomes an investigator, a cop who becomes a painter, an explosive expert becoming a business woman, and a chief becoming a student. We are also introduced to a new stunt group that gets shown off quite a bit in the later half of the season. Season Four was brought about from Canada and can be found on Youtube. The show becomes very meta as it tends to poke fun of real life events. They will constantly come up with the weirdest make-believe buildings and groups such as "the people that fear helicopters" when one is coming dangerously close. Criminals are generally friendly and get captured all the time - perhaps because their punishments can be as light as writing a sentence on the chalkboard hundreds of times - to the more extreme cases of being behind bars for 8 hours. While the quality of the series might have declined over the years, there are still a few redeeming episodes worth watching.

A Good Game

Settings: Before I go into details of what the game has to offer, I'd like to first mention some concerns I had when playing the game. For some reason, beginning the game always took the same 25 seconds to load. The same unskippable billboard cut-outs of the city would always display before the main menu appeared. Missions, or any teleportation between locations, took at least 10 seconds to 30 seconds to load. They had a cute little environment Lego sculpture you could move around and a funny tip, sometimes extremely helpful, from one of your fellow officers. Considering that there were no loading screens in the city, I would take that as a win. Unfortunately, something didn't work well when I was trying to increase the resolution of the game. So, I had to deal with moderately less pristine graphics than I hoped for.

Interface: The Police Station acts as a central hub for everything. You can purchase vehicles, gold bricks, red bricks, and characters. You can apply red bricks, custom characters, or set your character wheel. In the lobby area, you are able to see the amount of hours played and percentage completed. For your curiosity, I was able to reach 23% completion with no outside help at Chapter 12 in about 10 hours. I was about 48% completion in around 22 hours and 65% completion in around 30 hours. By the time I completed the story and satisfied my playthrough, I was sitting at 87.3% completion; 401/450 Gold Bricks; 31/39 Red Bricks; 249/305 characters; 99/120 vehicles at around 40 hours. You can check your map and see what specific puzzles are still available, how many tokens each region has available, and the whole amount by pausing the game. Each major territory is color-coded and borders drawn-out with the exception of the connecting routes. Even the missions and the Police Station have their own map! Whenever you are in possession of a puzzle object like dynamite or riding a pig, the game will point you to the designated spot to use it. They used the seaweed trick from Lego: Pirates of the Caribbean to draw out borders to make it easier not to be eaten by a shark in the ocean. You are also given the option like every other previous Lego game to apply red bricks from the Extra Menu and change disguises at any of the built stations in each area or before entering a mission. Any "purple" upgrade that applies to your investigation tool will stay on regardless if you close the game. You can also change the ringtone to one of various unlockable sound effects - my favorite is the belch. Otherwise, many of the red brick powers will increase your power, shorten the time on puzzles, or make your life easier. If you do manage to hit 100% completion, Super Minifigure can be extremely fun!

Story: Perhaps the biggest highlight of the game is its story. With a proper blend of moving around each region, discovering new disguises within missions, and performing major functions in the city was nearly flawless. A person would radio in - complete with a talking Lego head - and chat with you every step of the way. The ghost studs would always guide you to your next destination. Color-coding each of the disguises was a brilliant touch as well. There was always enough super bricks inside the missions and in each region to complete the Super Builds, even without the 2x brick multiplier that automatically applies after completing the final chapter. There is no need for save points in missions as the game automatically saves the game. The only catch is that the game will set you back at the Police Station when you boot the game up. You can interact with various objects in the world that don't reward you anything except a fun little animation from your character. They implemented three "free-fall" sessions that are all exhilarating. The most surprising part is the number of pop culture references. You will have recreations of Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption, famous police officers, the Matrix, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making a list of movie puns at a construction site. The jokes are extremely hilarious! My favorite one: "I thought they would be more restrictive when assigning their equipment to us miners, but the foreman told me to take my pick."

Vehicles

Unlocking: When it came to other Lego games, vehicles were generally unlocked after you collected a series of items or completing specific levels. Lego: Batman allowed you to switch between land, sea, and air. Lego City Undercover does something different. You are able to collect vehicle tokens the same way you can collect character tokens. The vast majority of these will allow you to ride a wide-range of automobiles. You may also unlock a good selection of planes. Calling forth any of those unlocked will most of the time include the option of a bunch of different color schemes to choose from. The unusual thing is the inability to unlock different types of boats. There will be designated areas you can ferry across to the various islands or occasionally find a random boat you can... borrow by the docks. None of these are collectable. There is also the unique privilege of riding or driving the train around on the circular train track. Once you open up all 14 stations, the old-fashioned green train then becomes available.

Functions: This is perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the game: some vehicles contain special abilities. Both the extender and the fire truck have the ability to raise you high in the air while riding in the back. The tow truck allows you to pull up cars simply by backing up into them. Several vehicles have a "shotgun" seat where a second person can hop in for a ride. The limo, bus, and taxi all can be hopped into and take you to your custom destination marked on the map. Pressing the left bumper or the left stick will initiate the vehicle's sound effects. Most will have their own unique horn sound to a varying degree depending on their model - performance cars have a high pitch, heavy trucks have a low pitch, the pizza truck and ice cream truck both have a little jingle, old cars have an old-timey horn, police cars have a standard siren, and the ambulance has a muffled siren. The skateboard might not be able to sound their horn, but you will "scoot" with your character's feet and ride it like a normal person. Pressing the right bumper will allow you to initiate your own little hop. The break lights will glow each time you break as well. Each vehicle has their own type of maneuverability.

Gameplay: There are three types of mini-games you can initiate: Vehicle Robbery, Robbery Arrest, and Time Trials. Vehicle Robbery provides you with a vehicle and asks you to take it across the city to "lock-up" without completely demolishing it while the police chase after you. Robbery Arrest has you pinpoint a location where a car is being stolen and provides you with an emergency vehicle to chase and destroy his vehicle before he makes it across the city. Time Trials ask you to drive a vehicle through checkpoints around the region within a given time frame. These usually become available after you super build stunt ramps. Whatever you drive will become available after completing the route. You are able to "Retry Challenge" at any time through the main menu. You may steal a vehicle, drive over a person, and destroy as much as you want without any penalties or repercussions - the police will not chase after you. You may super build one station per region to call forth any vehicle you unlocked. There is an Extra option to press the right stick for Instant Vehicles anywhere inside the city (while not moving) when you collect the special red brick. Vehicles will slowly fall apart as they receive damage but will continue to function as normally as they would with a fresh coat of paint. You may build one helicopter pad per city to call forth mobile air units and additional "crash sites" where you can jump out of a moving plane. This is the only way you can hop out of the sky without first landing on a pad. Although you can jump on top of moving vehicles for a ride-along, you are unable to jump off them to reach some place higher.

Navigation: The guide system is similar to previous Lego games - little hollow studs appear that guide you to your destination. These can lead you to a future story level, event, or custom-made on the big map. Whenever people talk about a certain location, both the main map and the mini-map will pan over to where you need to go. There is one big thing you need to consider: the path it builds will always take you through the quickest way both legally and without going off-road. This means that you are completely liable in remembering any sort of "shortcuts" you might be able to take along the way. Thankfully, the system will also recalculate the route if you do miss a turn or wind-up somewhere off the beaten path. You are able to access the train station and fast travel to any other build station, or you can use the red brick ability and click on the station from anywhere using Super Fast Travel.

Abilities

Protagonist: Instead of swapping to another character, this game builds on the idea that you are applying new disguises. Anytime your mouth moves to speak, you will still be hearing Chase McCain. None of these figures have any exclusive abilities outside their character type. You won't be able to shoot an arrow, throw a spear, or use a whip despite what appearance you choose to move with. What you can do is apply color-coded archetypes that allow you interact with certain puzzle elements. Since each one has a list of functions, I've decided to list them each individually:

• Casual: Any civilian, service, or special character is lumped in this generic category with no abilities to speak of.
• Police: A police officer has perhaps the most functionality. They can listen into miscellaneous feeds, sometimes funny, and find out where to fight and Arrest Gangs. You will gain the Grappling Hook that allows you to pull up or down blue hooks. This also allows you to easily stun enemies when capturing aliens or crooks on the loose. Further, you can use this to destroy objects from a far and take down a vehicle when its getting away. You will gain the ability to take screenshots using the Steam or console functions (no in-game screenshot folder). You can use your little gamepad (or magnifying glass for certain characters) in detective mode to follow footsteps to various hidden objects and caches. You can use the camera feed to find robbers stealing vehicles or identify hidden clues inside the city. Although some of these abilities can technically be used with any character, they are story-wise built on the police officer's tool. Contrary to how combat might lead you to believe, you may use handcuffs with any character as well.
• Robber: With this character, you can now break down doors with a crowbar or crack open safes with a handy stethoscope. Eventually you will obtain a color gun that allows you to "deposit" your current color and "withdraw" a new color. These colors will allow you to splash color on anything for a few seconds. But mostly you will be using it to complete puzzles where a certain color must be applied to a number of objects. This can get pretty technical when gold looks like yellow, brown barely shows, and silver is required to reflect lasers. Thankfully, inspecting the dispenser will display what the proper color is before you absorb it. There are also specific areas with lots of colors available if you can't find one locally. Or you can always choose the Super Color Gun red brick ability that automatically applies the right color when you fire it. These colors continue to remain if you are unable to find the other objects before moving on. When you aren't withdrawing studs from your bank account, make sure to smash ATMs when you get a chance. There is one more function only available after you complete the game: by choosing to be Rex Fury, you can use your super strength to pull orange handles. Not only does this allow you to obtain all of Rex Fury's vehicles and outfits, but it is the only way to unlock public access to the Statue of Liberty.
• Miner: Aw yes, the only guy that can destroy rocks and boulders with a giant pickaxe. Most of the time you will be using this character to pick-up dynamite from a vending machine and throw it into small wooden barrels around the world. This is the only way to destroy those nasty Rex silver statues. The explosive counts as an "item" that gets equipped on the side of your waist once you obtain one. In story mode, trying to obtain a second dynamite will cause you to duck-and-cover as it explodes. It is usually a good idea to always have one handy before going up on buildings. Or you can get the Infinite Dynamite red brick ability that automatically throws one out of thin air.
• Astronaut: The interesting thing about this character is that his ray gun isn't required for any puzzles. It can be used to paralyze anything that moves for a few seconds. Instead, an astronaut can decode a color crate consisting of red, yellow, green, and blue. Once the crate opens and radios in a teleport, you will either gain material to build something or an alien trying to flee. An astronaut is the only character that can use teleporting pads that normally warp you some place you can't normally reach. You can also conquer territories by placing down a flag. Although I explored much of the city late in the game, you don't get equipped with a red jetpack until after completing Chapter 13. This allows you to reach all those places just out of reach by jumping higher, hovering over gaps, or extending yourself through rings to reach other areas. There is a small meter shown on the back of the jetpack that informs you how long you can stay in the air.
• Farmer: A simple life with so much to do. You can water flowers, grow tall plants that let's you climb up areas, launch any pigs you may find scattered about, or fall with style while hanging onto a chicken. You are given about 20 seconds before the chicken tires out or extend your flight-plan at any marked chicken locations. As a last resort, you can always wield your chicken like a weapon and launch eggs at things.
• Firefighter: This might confuse a lot of people, but there is a distinction between what requires a red crowbar and a red axe. A firefighter will be able to use their handy sharp tool to tear down any boarded up passageways. Your hose can be used to take-down fires or fill-up various containers. Although you can use it to destroy objects from a distance, it will merely push people away from you when using them on the public. The only other thing they can do is pull a fish out of their hat and catch meowing cats.
• Construction worker: This is perhaps the last disguise you will find before wanting to do some puzzles in the city. These guys are needed to fix electric boxes that stops broken wires, opens up doorways, or allow you to press on a red button. Do that, and a Thrill Drill Ride will require you to tear down sections of the road in a given time span. Speaking of drilling, there will be areas where you can drill a hole to find hidden items or break the water line to launch you higher in the air. Oh, and the union says that we should all take coffee breaks when they are available.

Animations: With 290 characters available, there comes a bit of expectation that not all the characters will move completely unique to the rest. I was pleasantly surprised that there was some flexibility when it comes to disguise types. For example, each character will use a tool when gliding down some blue rope - fireman uses axe, astronaut uses flag, miner uses pickaxe, policeman uses handcuffs, and robber uses the end of his crowbar similar to the Riddler's staff in Lego: Batman 2. Though I was caught off-guard to see the number of idle animations added. There are a series of arch-types that will adjust their tie, take their hat off, flex their muscles, or scratch their arms. Females will generally fling their hair, clean their nails, or check their feet. Studious characters won't animate at all. Some of the more generic disguises will all act in the same manner: firefighter will perform a circus act with their axe and squirt themselves with water and farmer will do stretches and play around with their chicken. The thing is that the vast majority of "special" characters will have some sort unique animation befitting of their vocation. This means that the surfer will pretend to surf and pull out a surfboard, the skateboarder will pull out a skateboard, and the cheerleader will pull out pom poms. A series of them will dance the way you expect: disco man will do the disco and the robot will do the robot. Characters can even be diverse in how they stand, pose, sneak, walk, and run. Natalie in disguise runs like she does without one while the Ninja will "fly" with one of his hands behind his back. I won't list all of them individually, but a few other things I noticed were:

• Highland Battler's facial expressions are completely different where he is excited when tiptoeing, smiling with his eyes closed when strolling, and caught in a surprise with his mouth open when running.
• Alien spontaneously flips forward with his head first when jumping.
• Ninja pulls out a sword and hovers slightly when standing still.
• A couple of the police officers will pretend to pull out a gun and fire, laughing a couple seconds later.
• A couple of the clown characters will play with a green apple until they accidentally drop it directly into their mouth and swallow it.
• A couple of the officers, or robbers in disguise, will try to direct traffic and "do the wave" after pointing in two directions.
• Natalie, regardless of the disguise, pulls out a med kit and accidentally drops the needle onto the top of her shoe moments later.
• Farm Worker Bill is perhaps the only farmer that will proudly stand there and dance moments later.
• Zombie will sit down at try to eat his foot.
• Deep Sea Diver will blow through his hose and pull out a starfish from his tank.
• Karate Master follows the story of The Karate Kid by doing the wax on/wax off, crane stance, and pulling out a trophy.

Summary

Review: With a dedicated group of people able to work out the concepts and designs ahead of time, without an intellectual property to tie the game down, and the opportunity to add one of their games on a new console, Tt Fusion did a magnificent job getting this Lego game together. The personality of their new original characters mixed in with their story design really made this entire city stand out from the other games. On top of that, they added multiplayer support onto their Steam version. Their vehicles and exploration of the various parts of the city made this an enjoyable experience over all others. I highly recommend this game.

 

3-5-2023