Finest recognized for engaged on the writer’s WWE and NBA video games, Visible Ideas discovered itself behind the wheel of 2K’s newest licensed expertise. Lego 2K Drive is a high-octane aggressive racing recreation stuffed with destructible brick environments to traverse and a kid-friendly narrative filled with fourth-wall-breaking enjoyable.
The sport’s finest characteristic is Bricklandia, the playful Lego panorama through which 2K Drive is ready. It is a world simply ready to be dismantled beneath the burden of screeching tires and customized boat masts. Accelerating via the open-world playmat (which a human would by no means need to stroll on) is an thrilling expertise, made higher by the fastidiously animated auto-morphing capability. As you traverse totally different terrains, from street to off-road and on water, gamers mechanically change between automobiles to swimsuit the context.
Tires and water noodles body the vistas of the world and act as charming obstacles, and it is this mixture of real-world objects with Lego constructions that amps up the pleasant toy field ambiance. As a budding racer falls on this gripping open world, you face an onslaught of revheads, claiming their flags to journey within the Sky Cup champion’s honor. The self-absorbed Mohawk Shadow Z is your rival on this enterprise, popping up every so often to remind you ways petty he’s.
To get near him, you could discover Bricklandia in quest of rival speedsters, every with their very own distinctive driving expertise which they wield in instanced Mario Kart-style races. From an actual horse to an alien in costume, they make a beautiful bundle and supply new automobiles and perks to play with, in addition to Brickbux, with which you should purchase new machines and elements. You may as well construct your individual automobiles brick-by-brick within the storage, permitting me to create some actually cursed rides. Whereas the constructing system is not probably the most intuitive, it looks as if a becoming nod to Lego’s humble brick constructing origins.
Throughout Bricklandia’s assorted biomes, you additionally encounter on-the-go occasions, ambient missions you’ll be able to pop out and in of for pockets of absurd enjoyable, like leaping over homes or drifting via a minefield. Conquering the benchmarks to earn XP and sources is like getting your license in Gran Turismo on a excessive sugar cane within the schoolyard.
Lego 2K Drive’s fixed barrage of dialogue stored me laughing all through, although the depth of some missions, just like the much less fascinating Wave Protection or NPC Rescue Expeditions, stored me concentrating. about jokes. It was nonetheless underwhelming, given the plain expertise of the scriptwriters and voice actors, who present efficient satire on standard racing video games.
Preventing your approach throughout the map is simple junk meals enjoyable, however unmissable runs may be punishing attributable to some devastating pickups and a tough slowdown whenever you swerve off the monitor. A few of the open-world missions require you to drive with dexterity and try deft strikes whereas gathering rockets or smashing tiny invading robots, which might result in frustration, the place I typically felt too quick for my very own good . As I savored the way in which it made my coronary heart race, I let myself be sucked right into a extra low-key strategy to exploration.
Though it is somewhat buggy, one other pleasant shock was Lego 2K Drive’s sofa co-op, which helps you to and a companion roam the open world collectively, pooling XP at regularly. I discovered myself getting in the way in which of bombs or smashing targets for my companion to ensure certainly one of us received first place. Notably, this characteristic made dreary protection and rescue missions rather more fulfilling due to the collaborative nature of the gameplay.
Sadly, the elephant within the room, or on this case, a monkey, is the showcase of the sport, Unkie’s Emporium, launched through the tutorial by its eponymous primate mechanic. Right here you should purchase premium currencies with actual cash which may be redeemed for entry to automobiles and characters beforehand locked behind an costly Brickbux wall. Positive, you might earn all of these objects by grinding, however the temptation persists, which is troubling for a recreation so clearly aimed toward youthful audiences.
Lego 2K Drive builds an extremely inviting world the place velocity and silliness reign supreme as you race and remodel in its delightfully destructible setting. Regardless of a irritating mission design and a handful of bugs, Lego 2K Drive rapidly received me over with its absurd narrative filled with irreverent dialogue and extra difficult open-world challenges. If solely the specter of microtransactions did not seem so giant on this kid-friendly recreation, it will make driving even smoother.