I was posting from my phone while playing Lego City when I first posted this, so I feel like I should elaborate. As I said, this game is amazing.
The game world is fantastic. Lego City and its surrounding area are impressive both in size and diversity. I haven't even finished exploring and so far I've found a mine, docks, multiple beaches, a power station, and a national park. There's also a sizeable harbor, which I can only assume will be used for a speedboat chase at some point. There are also tons of different cars and people to be seen on the streets of Lego City.
This game has been compared to a kid-friendly version of GTA, and that's not unfair comparison. But it's an idea that also works surprising well. While you play as a cop, you can still play the game essentially like GTA. You can commandeer any vehicle you see randomly driving down the streets of Lego City, from your basic cars to motorcycles and emergency vehicles. You can also commandeer another car while it's passing you. There's some extremely satisfying about yelling "Official police business!" and shoving a hapless driver out of their car, only to see a nicer car seconds later and switch to that. You're also encouraged to smash the shit out of everything to collect bricks, which you then use to build your own structures later on. So driving like an asshole, knocking over trees and lamp posts is actually encouraged. The only real difference between this and GTA is that your missions are more along the lines of "stop the guys who stole money from the bank" instead of "kill the guys who stole money from the mob boss you work for".
Penny Arcade compared to the game to a Pixar affair, in that it's a "kid thing" that's filled with references that only adults will get. I don't think that's a good comparison. Maybe it's just that I haven't watched any Pixar stuff in awhile, but I don't remember pop culture references being a big thing with them. While Pixar makes intelligent products that can be enjoyed by all age groups, I think the more apt comparison would be something like Disney's Aladdin or any of the Dreamworks stuff. Or going back even further, the old Looney Tunes cartoons where they used to do caricatures of Peter Lorre and shit. Before the first chapter of the game starts, you have references to Titanic, Dirty Harry, and Columbo, none of which a ten-year-old are going to get. And they're all done well. The writing in this game is pretty fantastic. There's a great mix of dumb jokes that kids will like and clever jokes that older gamers will appreciate. The game both basks in and mocks a ton of tropes. If you enjoy cop movies and cop shows, and cheesy action movies in general, you'll love this game.
I'm only a couple chapters in, and it's pretty fun. The second chase sequence was a lot of fun. The game controls are pretty basic, which is to be expected as this is an E10 game, but it doesn't diminish the fun. Press B to slide under the bar! Press B to climb the roof! Press B to swing on the flagpole! I know that sounds boring, but it's fun to watch your guy fly through the air. When you make an especially long jump, the game even goes into DRAMATIC ACTION MOVIE SLOW MOTION.
I cannot stress enough how awesome this game is. It's a shame it had to come out the same year as Bioshock Infinite, because I would consider it a serious contender for GOTY otherwise.
I have only two complaints with this game:
1. The load times are brutal. Hopefully the long-promised Wii U OS update will fix this.
2. There's no soundtrack. Obviously the designers wanted you to focus on the often hilarious chatter of the citizens of Lego City, but it would be nice if the game had at least one radio station you could listen to. Music licensing is expensive though, and this game was somewhat of a risk. Maybe in Lego City 2.
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