Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

LEGO City Undercover Hands-On Preview for Wii U

LEGO City Undercover Hands-On Preview for Wii U

The Long Plastic Arm Of The Law

Developer Traveller’s Tales has been putting out franchised LEGO games for years now, and the company’s formula has become quite familiar. Even if the games have been slowly improving over the years, gamers can be forgiven for thinking that they probably already know how LEGO City Undercover will play. We recently had some hands-on time with the game in order to find out whether that assumption was true, or if this open-world game of cops and robbers breathes fresh air into the franchise.

We stepped into the shoes of Chase McCain, a well-meaning but goofy undercover police operative. He’s on the trail of his nemesis, criminal mastermind Rex Fury, which involves scouring LEGO City for clues. Our preview segment occurred early in the game, during which McCain is tasked with shaking down criminals on a prison island (think LEGO Alcatraz) for information.

LEGO City Undercover Screenshot

Stepping out of the police station, McCain is greeted by a shiny open-world LEGO city. This open environment replaces the hub world and individual levels found in most LEGO games. A green arrow on the interface points to the next step in the main story, but the player can ignore that story at any time in order to explore the city.

At this early point, LEGO game veterans will find a number of recognizable elements. Familiar buttons on the Wii U GamePad are mapped to attacking, jumping, and building structures out of loose LEGO bricks. Instead of featuring multiple characters with different abilities, LEGO City gives Chase multiple undercover outfits. We were able to play with a police outfit that features a grappling hook gun and the ability to search for clues, a civilian outfit that changes his attack to a punch, and a robber outfit that allows the use of a crowbar.

In one noted improvement over earlier LEGO games, the dodgy platforming challenges are gone. Instead, Chase can find or build blue-and-white parkour areas all over the city. Simply pressing B allows him to climb, hang, slide, or run up along these areas in order to get around obstacles or access new areas. This is far more flexible and entertaining than making easy jumps that are only failed when a poor vantage point or an A.I.-controlled character gets in the way.

LEGO City Undercover Screenshot

We used several of these parkour points to make our way towards the ferry docks, only to find a blank LEGO platform instead of an actual dock. That’s where we learned that LEGO City Undercover makes use of two currencies: the usual coin currency and a brick currency used to create new structures on various build points spread throughout the city. These build points are vital to opening up new areas and progressing the main story, but collecting enough brick currency to use them will require exploration.

Since we didn’t have enough brick currency to build our ferry dock, we took some time to explore what the city had to offer. In a feat of questionable city planning, there was a childrens’ playground right next door to the police station. Half the structures there were unbuilt, so Chase punched open crates in order to finish off the playground and gain currency in reward. We also took advantage of the GamePad’s scan mode: holding the GamePad up to the TV screen allows the player to scan for the plentiful hidden objects around the city. Further destruction, structure building, and exploration yielded enough bricks for the ferry dock, and we took off for the island prison.

LEGO City Undercover Screenshot

At the prison, we were able to experience the game’s lighthearted character interactions. The wordless babble of earlier LEGO games is gone, replaced by actual spoken dialogue, and plenty of it. Since this is a LEGO world, even hardened criminals are more silly than scary. The humor used in the conversations was clever and full of sly cultural references. Although humor is always highly subjective, we found it to be well-done and appealing to both kids and adults.

The prison also allowed us to practice some of Chase’s police skills. Chase takes down criminals by engaging in slow-mo combat, then pressing a button to toss some handcuffs on the miscreants. He finds clues by bringing out a gadget that looks suspiciously like a Wii U GamePad, which allows him to see and follow previously invisible footprints. His robber costume allows him to break into cells with a crowbar. All these skills and more are used to solve puzzles and progress through the prison.

LEGO City Undercover Screenshot

Our time with the demo ended before we completed the prison segment, but it was enough to give us a very positive impression of the game. The basic LEGO gameplay has been highly polished, with frustrating elements removed and many interesting activities added. The graphics are excellent, particularly the views while looking around the open city, and the frame rate is silky smooth. Along with the quality dialogue and voice acting, the cop movie-inspired music is used to excellent effect.

There were only two major downsides to the game that we could see in the demo. First, the load times when entering and leaving buildings were quite lengthy (we don’t know if this will be the case in the final game, but it’s entirely possible). Second, there is no co-op gameplay available. Since co-op has been a major feature of the LEGO series thus far, it’s somewhat disappointing that LEGO City Undercover is strictly single-player. At least it’s entertaining enough to watch somebody else play, and the game lends itself well to having player pass the GamePad around and take turns.

Those concerns aside, playing LEGO City Undercover was quite simply a ton of fun. Although it’s unlikely to be a challenging game, it evokes the simple feeling of “play” better than any previous LEGO game. The open-world design promises plenty of freeform adventure, even if player-built LEGO creations still aren’t a feature of the gameplay. With tons to explore, highly entertaining set-pieces, funny character interactions, and a ridiculous number of collectables, this game gives Wii U owners something to look forward to this spring. We don’t know if it will turn out to be a system-seller, but it’s certainly the best-looking thing to come to the Wii U in early 2013.

Game Features:

  • The Wii U GamePad is woven seamlessly into the gameplay experience. Players use it to scan for hidden clues and criminals, receive mission updates, and place waypoints on an overhead city map that displays their position in real time.
  • Experience LEGO City like never before. Players will encounter familiar play sets come to life as they explore the vast city, looking for clues to bring Rex Fury to justice.
  • Players can go undercover with a variety of disguises, including a firefighter, a construction worker, and even a robber, and use their unique abilities to solve puzzles and access new areas of the city.
  • There are more than 100 vehicles for players to collect and use to explore the city, including sports cars, motorcycles, and even aircraft.
  • LEGO video games are known for their humor and parody, and LEGO City Undercover delivers this and more with fully voiced characters and ambient crowds, bringing LEGO City to life.

  • To top