There isn’t a scarcity of LEGO racing video games. Heck, there aren’t any scarcity of LEGO racing video games playable on the Xbox Collection X|S in the event you rely the Forza Horizon 4 LEGO Pace Champions DLC. However with a brand new partnership introduced between the Danish brick builders and 2K Video games, LEGO 2K Drive marks one thing of a momentum shift. Will or not it’s sufficient to face toe-to-toe with among the different nice LEGO video games?
As is to be anticipated in racing video games now, LEGO 2K Drive is open-world, full to the brim of LEGO objects to smash into smithereens. By way of a sequence of large-ish maps, you begin in Turbo Acres the place you meet Clutch Racington, your mentor by means of this journey. The grand prize on the finish of the Story mode is the Sky Cup Trophy. However earlier than you may enter that you want to win the Grand Brick Enviornment races in Massive Butte County, Prospecto Valley and Hauntsborough respectively.
The Story mode in LEGO 2K Drive will solely take round ten hours to finish, however there is no such thing as a scarcity of issues to do. Every race awards a chequered flag, and these are your foreign money to unlock the varied Grand Brick Enviornment races. Scattered in amongst these are numerous different occasions that can have you ever rescuing minifigures from skeletons all the way in which to defending mills from waves of robotic aliens. All normal LEGO stuff, completed with the same old humour that each children and adults alike will recognize.
Successful a race usually unlocks a brand new trip for you, however there needs to be no scarcity of them in your storage as a result of LEGO 2K Drive takes the most effective a part of real-life LEGO and means that you can construct and create your personal rides. Channelling Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts and now The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, you may head into any storage on the earth and start assembling autos from an enormous vary of obtainable brick sorts. You may even unlock distinctive bricks and objects to brighten your rides with and provides them some additional character.
This stage of freedom could sound daunting at first however there’s a suite of tutorials to information you each step of the way in which. You can begin off easy by following the Go-Kart construct tutorial or take a deep dive into the Grasp Class part. It gained’t be lengthy earlier than your creativeness is the one factor holding you again.
And it wouldn’t be an open-world racer with out loads of collectibles to collect up. Every sort is themed across the space they are often present in. For instance, Prospecto Valley has you looking for golden nuggets, and in Hauntsborough one of many collectibles there’s a glowing pumpkin.
Others additionally increase throughout all areas with one among these being the weed patches. After you unlock the Weed Chopper 5000 you may mow down these pace sapping areas. As soon as eliminated, they’re changed with shiny flowers that provide a pace increase as a substitute. These will stay through the races as nicely, so could be fruitful to seek out.
There’s a slight loading time when transitioning from the open-world to a race setup however that’s right down to the big variety of new property that want bringing in for the race. It isn’t merely a case of zooming across the map both; tons of recent gadgets and obstacles are added in to suit with the theme of that specific race. Count on to see tracks based mostly on every part from donuts to aliens, cats to spiders and every part in-between.
Being an out and out LEGO recreation and never a LEGO recreation inside the framework of a Forza Horizon recreation signifies that the racing is chaotic. In a great way. Every race has eight drivers, and the variety of laps varies relying on the size. It’s all the time finest to verify earlier than a untimely celebration. They usually can happen on numerous observe sorts; because of a neat function your automobile will immediately rework whether or not it’s on the highway, off-road and even in water. As such, you may have loadouts of the varied automobile sorts to seek out which mixture is finest for every race.
You can even flip the instantaneous transformation function off in the event you like.
You may be required to battle till the top in every race although, because of some blatantly apparent rubber banding happening. Even being miles clear from the chasing pack doesn’t imply you’re residence and dry, as your opponents will make a comeback sooner or later. Positive, it retains the racing entertaining, however there may be greater than a touch of unfairness too, notably if you need to be away from the remaining.
Rubber banding is fortunately absent from the web multiplayer portion of LEGO 2K Drive. Just like the welcome native split-screen choices, on-line multiplayer can take the type of numerous completely different race modes. There’s the usual racing in single races or a cup format. For those who fancy among the wackier occasions, split-screen means that you can play among the story modes minigames.
There’s extra to come back too. This can be a LEGO recreation, however it’s a LEGO 2K recreation. In addition to having the audacity to cost over £100 for one of many variations of the sport, there’s a post-release schedule so long as your arm, all hallmarks of recent day 2K. This consists of 4 battle passes, however like Halo Infinite, there is no such thing as a time-pressure to those and you’ll unlock gadgets from them as you please. New tracks, bricks, drivers, vehicles and even a brand new biome are deliberate for launch throughout 12 months 1, and you’ll guess your backside greenback {that a} 12 months 2 is being prepped for as nicely. Whether or not there may be sufficient content material to maintain you invested by means of 4 100-level battle passes is uncertain in the mean time.
Inside the myriad of LEGO racing video games, LEGO 2K Drive does nearly sufficient to carve an id for itself. All of the LEGO hallmarks are right here with destruction, creativity and humour entrance and centre of most of what goes on. The racing is strong sufficient, if reliant on an excessive amount of rubber banding. What’s right here is sweet enjoyable however there must be much more content material added to maintain gamers invested within the upcoming live-service portion.
