A great game built brick by brick.
LEGO City: Undercover arrived toward the end of the Wii U’s launch window. While the Wii U’s lacking Q1 lineup may have caused owners of the system to demand an earlier release, I wholeheartedly believe the wait was worth it. I eagerly anticipated the game, viewing it as a spiritual successor to a childhood favorite, LEGO Island. While the relationship between these two games is not necessarily that strong, LEGO City: Undercover has, on its own merits, earned the spot as my favorite LEGO game to date.
LEGO City: Undercover sets you off on a mission to infiltrate the gangs of LEGO city in order to bust criminal Rex Fury. While this premise may sound serious, things get silly very quickly. No sooner after you find yourself amongst the criminal underground you begin doing everything from riding a T-Rex to launching pigs out of a cannon. The humor emanating from both the environment and characters is genuinely funny and should manage a laugh out of all ages.
Roaming the city itself is just as enjoyable as the story. While you are limited in what you can do toward the beginning of the game, everything opens up as you progress. With each disguise found, new parts of the city become unlocked allowing you to be easily sidetracked, never really moving the story forward. The city is vast and overflowing with things to do. Wherever you look you should be able to find buildings to climb, objects to destroy, and items to collect.
When not exploring on your own, the game puts you in missions that are isolated from the sprawling city. Each of these missions follow the same formula, but remain fun regardless. With the numerous costumes, there are plenty of variations on puzzles which LEGO City explores. These puzzles remain on the simpler side, but are still engaging enough not to bore you.
The game’s visuals are similarly something to behold. LEGO City looks gorgeous while you are driving from point A to point B. When you scale the side of a building and look out over the ocean to a distant island the game appears even more impressive. The game pulls off all of these jaw dropping moments while still remaining true to the idea that everything is built of LEGO’s. This attention to detail may be what makes the game so visually impressive.
As a Wii U title, the game takes advantage of the GamePad just fine. The GamePad plays the role of your telephone, map, camera, and general information screen. The ability to access these features on the fly is extremely useful, but not the best use of GamePad I’ve seen so far. The way the GamePad’s speakers are used during telephone calls is a fun way to listen to a conversation and may be the Pad’s best use in the game.
LEGO City: Undercover came during a time when everyone needed something to play on their Wii U. The game’s story and open world city are the perfect combination of game elements to provide hours upon hours of joy. LEGO City: Undercover’s fun, playful spirit is its strongest ally and easily makes it one of the top 5 Wii U launch window titles.