Finest identified for engaged on the writer’s WWE and NBA video games, Visible Ideas has discovered itself behind the wheel of 2K’s newest licensed experiment. Lego 2K Drive is a high-octane aggressive racer filled with destructible brick-y environments to crash by means of and a kid-friendly narrative filled with fourth-wall-breaking enjoyable.
The sport’s finest characteristic is Bricklandia, the playful Lego panorama wherein 2K Drive is ready. It’s a world begging to be dismantled by the brunt of your screeching tires and customized boat masts. Accelerating throughout the open-world playmat ({that a} human would by no means need to step on) is an exciting expertise, made higher by the fastidiously animated auto-morphing skill. As you cross totally different terrain, from street to off-road and on water, gamers routinely swap between automobiles to suit the context.
Tires and water noodles body the world’s vistas and act as charming obstacles, and it’s this mix of real-world objects with Lego constructs that amplifies the pleasant toy field environment. As a budding racer dropped into this hanging open world, you deal with an onslaught of revheads, claiming their flags to ascend to the glory of Sky Cup Champion. Mohawked egomaniac Shadow Z serves as your rival on this endeavor, popping up occasionally to remind you of how mean-spirited he’s.
To even get near taking him on, you could discover Bricklandia looking for rival speedsters, every with their very own distinctive driving expertise they train in instanced Mario Kart-style races. From an precise horse to an alien in a go well with, they make for an enthralling ensemble and supply new vehicles and perks to play with, in addition to Brickbux, with which you should buy new machines and elements. It’s also possible to construct your individual automobiles brick-by-brick on the storage, which let me create some actually cursed rides. Whereas the constructing system isn’t essentially the most intuitive, it does really feel like an applicable nod to Lego’s humble brick-building origins.
Throughout Bricklandia’s different biomes, you additionally encounter On-The-Go Occasions, ambient missions which you could drop out and in of for pockets of absurd enjoyable, resembling leaping over homes or drifting by means of a minefield. Conquering the factors to earn XP and sources looks like getting your license in Gran Turismo on a schoolyard sugar excessive.
Lego 2K Drive’s fixed barrage of dialogue saved me laughing all through, although the depth of some missions, just like the less-interesting wave-defense or NPC rescue expeditions, left me unable to deal with the jokes. This was all the time disappointing, given the evident expertise of the writers and voice actors, who present an efficient satire of standard racing video games.
Bashing and smashing your manner by means of the map is straightforward junk meals enjoyable, however the must-win races may be punishing as a consequence of some devastating pickups and brutal decelerate once you veer off monitor. A number of the open-world missions require you to drive with dexterity and try deft actions whereas herding rockets or smashing by means of tiny robotic invaders, which may result in frustration, the place I usually felt too quick for my very own good. Whereas I relished the way it bought my coronary heart pounding, I used to be left eager for a extra low-key method to exploration.
Whereas it’s a little buggy, one other pleasant shock was Lego 2K Drive’s sofa co-op, which permits you and a companion to peel by means of the open world collectively, pooling XP as you go. I discovered myself getting in the way in which of bombs or smashing into targets for my companion to ensure certainly one of us bought the highest spot. Notably, this characteristic made the dreary defend and rescue missions way more palatable due to the collaborative nature of the gameplay.
Sadly, the elephant within the room, or on this case, a monkey, is the sport’s storefront, Unkie’s Emporium, launched through the tutorial by its eponymous primate mechanic. Right here, you should buy premium forex with actual cash that may be exchanged to entry vehicles and characters beforehand locked behind a expensive Brickbux wall. In fact, you can earn all this stuff by grinding, however the temptation lingers, which is troubling for a sport so clearly geared towards youthful audiences.
Lego 2K Drive builds an extremely inviting world the place velocity and silliness reign supreme as you race and morph throughout its delightfully destructible setting. Regardless of some irritating mission design and a smattering of bugs, Lego 2K Drive shortly received me over with its absurd narrative filled with irreverent dialogue and moreish open-world challenges. If solely the specter of microtransactions didn’t loom so giant on this kid-friendly sport, it might make for an excellent smoother trip.
