LEGO 2K Drive – Review
LEGO 2K Drive’s hidden power comes from disorder. The game openly draws inspiration from popular recent racing games like Forza Horizon and kart racers. The genre was popularised more than a decade ago by games like Burnout and Motorstorm, which rewarded players for being a nuisance, and this game manages to convey the same sense of destruction.
In LEGO 2k Drive, you may race your LEGO motor on asphalt, dirt, or water to solve various tasks and unlock new tracks to race on. The game automatically adapts your vehicle’s appearance to the terrain you’re traversing, letting you drive wherever without a second’s thought. This improvement makes adventuring easy, but it also leaves more opportunity for error for kids and bad drivers like me; but, if you’re an expert, you can manually switch.
It’s crucial that you know LEGO 2K Drive is a family-friendly game before you start playing. Because it is so comprehensive, the course will take a long time, making it difficult to get through as an adult. Since this is where you learn the fundamentals of the game, including fast travel and other capabilities you’ve come to expect, you’ll wish you could have skipped some of the early, more tedious activities.
The races are a lot of fun and a nice challenge once you get rolling and get past the bulk of the beginning. After the prologue, I was surprised to find a hard racing game hiding beneath the zany characters and drawn-out tutorial. After all, this is what I have come to expect from any LEGO-branded video game: a fun experience that anyone can enjoy.
You may improve your LEGO 2K Drive experience by unlocking new cars and unlocking new features as you play. The car you’re driving may seem mostly decorative, but mastering the gameplay will take practise, especially as you add in drifting, bonuses, and things you find during races.
LEGO 2K Drive’s crowning achievement is its family-friendly nature, which makes it all the more infuriating that it’s so easy to spend real money on in-game purchases. If you like an item but don’t have the money to buy it, you’re only three clicks away from shelling out actual cash.
You’ll be able to buy a few things from the shop and maybe even a couple of cars as the game progresses, but that money won’t last forever, and it’s obvious that someone lot younger (and in the target audience) will always be on the verge of squandering it.
Some of the more interesting vehicles in the store will cost you money, but if you exercise your imagination, you can make almost anything you want. Some of the better tools are for sale, but they’re not too expensive, so you can get to work right away. LEGO 2K Drive’s car builder is so robust that it might stand on its own as a game; I can’t wait to see what other, more imaginative players come up with once the game is out.
The process of releasing your creations into the wild is similarly straightforward. You can switch between your three vehicles and your driver at any time outside of races using the loadout you create in the options. In case you’re lacking in imagination, this also applies to any cars you might unlock or purchase.
While new racers can be unlocked as the tale progresses or mentioned through the aforementioned store, the major drawback of the creator is that players cannot design their own racers. Again, these are fairly pricey, and it’s unfortunate that their likeness couldn’t be included into a racing game aimed at a younger audience.
The open-world driving is reminiscent of Forza Horizon, while the races have all the excitement and thrill of Mario Kart. You can take the initiative against the competition by picking up things as you race around a course on land or sea. Therefore, you’ll need to keep your wits about you and watch out for rockets, spider webs, and other obstacles while you’re racing.
Fortunately, you can use your abilities to boost, drift, and jump to assist you get away from your pursuers. When you are far enough ahead, you may realise that your lead doesn’t last very long. LEGO 2K Drive has a rubber-band-like tension that seems to be maintained throughout. This may feel unjust at times, but it guarantees that the mayhem will continue indefinitely and keeps things interesting.
The excellent visuals and audio in LEGO 2K Drive only add to the excitement of the racing. All of the landscapes you drive through look amazing no matter what vehicle you’re in, and crashing through the LEGO-constructed environments is now one of the most rewarding game sounds I’ve ever heard. The fact that it looks so much like actual LEGO bricks is astounding, even if that isn’t meant as a high complement.
Despite best efforts, the humour doesn’t land as well as in past LEGO games. It bears repeating that I am not even close to being in the target audience for these games; I have no doubt that an eight-year-old would find many of the jokes to be hilarious. Most of it, though, falls flat for me.
LEGO games have always managed to reflect the universally humorous spirit of Pixar films. However, in LEGO 2k Drive, everything is all jingle and no bells. Except for Hugh Mann, the alien impersonator (I’m embarrassed to say how funny I found this). You’ll still find a few moments that make you smile, but overall, the game lacks the heft and polish of its LEGO counterparts.
Everything that fans of the LEGO games have come to anticipate is in LEGO 2K Drive, and it adapts nicely to the demanding genre of racing games. The visuals are stunning, the game is fun for people of all ages, and the levels are packed with stuff to do. The game’s store and microtransactions detract slightly, but they seem inappropriate solely because of the intended audience.
Players of any age will be able to spend hours immersed in LEGO 2K Drive thanks to its wealth of optional activities and customizable vehicles. The multiplayer functions as we’ve come to expect them to; adding a friend is simple, and when you’re done, player 2 can just quit the game. We can’t wait to complete the remaining side tasks in LEGO 2K Drive, which, if it lives up to expectations, will be one of the best family-friendly racing games available.
