Greatest recognized 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 stuffed with destructible brick-y environments to crash via and a kid-friendly narrative stuffed with fourth-wall-breaking enjoyable.
The sport’s greatest function is Bricklandia, the playful Lego panorama wherein 2K Drive is about. 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 wish to step on) is an exciting expertise, made higher by the fastidiously animated auto-morphing skill. As you cross completely different terrain, from highway to off-road and on water, gamers routinely change between autos 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 honour of Sky Cup Champion. Mohawked egomaniac Shadow Z serves as your rival on this endeavor, popping up once in a while to remind you of how mean-spirited he’s.
To even get near taking him on, it’s essential to discover Bricklandia in the hunt 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 a captivating ensemble and supply new vehicles and perks to play with, in addition to Brickbux, with which you should buy new machines and components. You too can construct your personal autos brick-by-brick on the storage, which let me create some really cursed rides. Whereas the constructing system isn’t probably the most intuitive, it does really feel like an applicable nod to Lego’s humble brick-building origins.
Throughout Bricklandia’s assorted biomes, you additionally encounter On-The-Go Occasions, ambient missions that you would be able to drop out and in of for pockets of absurd enjoyable, corresponding to leaping over homes or drifting via a minefield. Conquering the standards 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 stored 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 concentrate on the jokes. This was at all times 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 means via the map is simple junk meals enjoyable, however the must-win races will be punishing as a result of some devastating pickups and brutal decelerate if you veer off observe. A few of the open-world missions require you to drive with dexterity and try deft actions whereas herding rockets or smashing via tiny robotic invaders, which might result in frustration, the place I typically felt too quick for my very own good. Whereas I relished the way it acquired 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 via 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 one in every of us acquired the highest spot. Notably, this function made the dreary defend and rescue missions far more palatable because of 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. After all, you might 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 stuffed 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 will make for an excellent smoother trip.