This game was better when I was a kid :/ Not as re-playable as I'd like
This is a certified hood classic
They actually had this game as an attraction at Legoland. Like on the same level of its most popular rides.
Still made the best memory of when I hit my dad with an item in game and he shouted in a room of strangers "YOU LITTLE SHIT". Thanks Dad.
Still made the best memory of when I hit my dad with an item in game and he shouted in a room of strangers "YOU LITTLE SHIT". Thanks Dad.
Los juegos de la color eran sorprendentemente buenos para lo poco que sobre el papel tenían que ofrecer.
Este juego no solo tenia unas carreras super originales si no que a parte tenían un puto creador de circuitos que podías hacer locuras y la IA se adaptaba perfectamente a ellos.
Este juego no solo tenia unas carreras super originales si no que a parte tenían un puto creador de circuitos que podías hacer locuras y la IA se adaptaba perfectamente a ellos.
Main theme song made my ears bleed. Worst experiance ever.
i'd like to thank this game for putting me on the path that would eventually lead me to gravitate to an initial d arcade machine and leave me with an itch that can never be scratched
Pretty decent, but even kid me wished for it to be more difficult
This baby's got 4 stars all day in my lego-themed nostalgic brain.
WARP TURBO
Mario Kart eat your heart out. Very broken, very fun
The various LEGO games that have been released over the years, particularly the ones in the 90s and early 2000s, are all pretty much the textbook definition of "games-for-kids". Essentially, they were all about taking already established genres, both simple and complicated, and making them easy for anyone to understand and get into, whilst also being filled with tons of love and charm. LEGOLand was a tycoon game, LEGO Rock Raiders was an RTS, LEGO Chess…There's a reason that despite being nothing but a collection of below-average minigames, the original LEGO Island is still beloved by 90s kids worldwide: It oozes charm and personality from every crevice in a way that its sequel – the game I myself grew up with, for the record – doesn't really match. You tend to get exactly what you expect with LEGO games, and they tend to only really stick out from the crowd thanks to their personality. Which is what makes 1999's LEGO Racers so fascinating to me, because even though it very much is still a simplified game of its genre like its ilk, it goes the extra mile in a surprising amount of areas. There's so many small little things that still keep this game in my thoughts all these years later, and I feel like it doesn't get enough credit for it all.
But we do still need to unpack that personality-topic before anything else, because it smacks you in the face right as it starts. I think LEGO Racers is the closest any video game has come to having actual Penis Music make up most of its soundtrack with complete confidence: Everything is loud and insane, the speed boosts make the cars rocket away like they're being launched from a slingshot of chaos, the game makes the harshest sounds imaginable with every drift and cars bounce around like they're made of rubber. Yet its not some floppy ragdoll-physic nightmare, everything is chaotic and zany in a way that feels completely expected. The best way I could really describe it, really, is that it’s like a group of kids frantically playing with toy cars, swerving them around a racetrack whilst making obnoxious sound effects as they go. Okay, sure, that sounds on-the-nose, but I dare you find any other comparison that truly captures the game's style, the feel of ridiculousness still kept controlled by a fun-loving basis. When a child gets invested in the game they're imagining in their heads, no corners will be cut to make it more pleasant for others. Its their ride, and you're just along for it.
There's of course also an inherent kind of childish wonder to the game's main advertised feature, you get to build your own car! Its a surprisingly easy to understand system, you get pieces from different famous LEGO sets and the more of the game's bosses you beat the more pieces you're given access to. Its a little clunky, designed with a controller in mind which means you can't just mouse-drag-and-drop pieces to your car, but the simple shapes and plain templates to work with meant even as a kid I could try a bit of artistry, in a way I barely even did with my own LEGOs in my room.
That childish whimsy I feel also extends to just how intuitive the game is, truly succeeding at its goal of being a "kids game" in ways other than being simplified. For being touted so often as the ultimate family game, Mario Kart to me really doesn't succeed in being intuitive in a lot of areas despite its simplicity. There's the obvious talking point, "why do I have to accelerate halfway through the countdown for a speed boost to go fast", but I would argue that the drifting system is pretty poorly communicated to new players. Different vehicles drift in different ways, the vehicle jumps in an offputting way that doesn't really convey "start of a turn" at all...its the kind of system you need someone more experienced to explain to you to really get, and thats always bugged me given drifting is essentially the game's core mechanic. Now yes, LEGO Racers has drifting too, and while it IS a lot snappier and easier to immediately understand comparatively, it's also not nearly as fundamental to being good at the game as in Mario Kart. No, the real core of the game is in the items, and how you “build” them as you race. Just like Mario Kart’s item boxes, every track in LEGO Racers has colored bricks strew about in formations to be picked up, usually in horizontal lines. The difference here is that the item you obtain isn’t randomized, Red bricks always give you the cannonball projectile, Blue bricks always give you the barrier which protects against said projectile and so on. To then make these items better before you use them, you build upon them by collecting the smaller White bricks, which are a third of the size of the main colored bricks. The end result is a fascinating system that rewards those holding on to items for longer with better results than just using items as soon as you get them, which makes the dynamics of damaging other racers even more interesting as each hit from a Red brick item makes the hit player lose one white brick. This in return makes it easier for players in the back to get better items, as Reds only attack ahead and the Yellow brick items which do attack racers behind you don’t make them lose White bricks. That’s a lot of words, but the player experience is beautifully understandable: Red means danger, Blue means protection, Yellow means reassurance, Green means speed, and White is an enhancer to all of them. Its simultaneously unique, intuitive, and has the potential for endless amounts of depth.
Which, yeah, that is where the game does start to lag behind. Item enhancing is a fascinating system, in large part because enhancing isn’t always optimal: The unenhanced Red brick item is is easier to hit and use than the grapple hook it turns into with one enhancement, but the grapple hook in return can give the player mayor speed alongside its offensive power by slingshotting off of the grappled player. The problem comes with how most items sadly just aren’t balanced in this way, and that the Green brick in particular is absolutely busted in power. Get one Green brick, get all three White bricks to fully enhance it, and then use it to essentially Bullet Bill-skip one quarter of the racetrack through warping, from any position in the race. Including first. Not to say it isn’t satisfying to do, the warphole visual effect looks fantastic and its endlessly rewarding to build up to this power move with each White brick collected, it leads to a form of play that can only be countered by doing the exact same strategy back. Yet as a kid, I could only find this awesome, especially after realizing that the track of the final boss - Rocket Racer - was specifically designed to allow both you and him to chain together several Warps in succession. Replaying the game now as an adult, I even found a new piece of tech using it that I’m dubbing the Collectwarp. Because of the slight delay between using the item and your racer entering the Warp hole, by using the item right as you’re about to collect a new brick, you’ll both warp and get that brick at the same time, letting you start your next build with a head start.
I think it speaks a lot to just how fun the game is at a conceptual level that I was able to come up with new things to do with such a dominant strategy, rather than simply settle for victory with using it. I think the track designs also help with that, simple as they may be in some ways all twelve tracks are still made up of a lot of interesting shortcuts and item placements that make each one feel different to play on beyond their setpieces. On Magma Moon Marathon, the player needs to drive through colored gates in a specific order to unlock a big gate that saves a sizeable chunk of time, wheras on Desert Adventure Dragway a well-placed cannonball shot opens up an extensive secret route through the pyramid the course otherwise runs around, also containing three white bricks to collect in its sharp 90 degree turns. It’s not all winners, but it has a level of interactivity with the environment and rewarding exploration that a lot of tracks in the more recent Mario Karts just don’t really reach.
But let me be clear: for as hard as it tries, with as many ideas as it has, LEGO Racers does not manage to be as good as Mario Kart. If you’ve read this entire review seeking that to be proven otherwise, I’m sorry. For whatever small faults I could accuse Mario Kart of having, its still a thoroughly polished, well crafted, balanced-enough experience, that LEGO Racers can’t really seriously compete with the same way a game like Crash Team Racing can. And, yknow what? That’s not a bad thing in my eyes. LEGO Racers still had its own audience of kids in love with LEGO, and it succeeded eons better than many other racing games aimed at an even younger crowd than Mario Kart. Just because a game isn’t the biggest success in the world, or much of a champion in any field, doesn’t mean that it’s lacking purpose! This game’s style and presentation still occupies a very special place in my mind to this day, and I’m constantly taking reference from all aspects of the game’s design to further my own design work in games and more.
Never write off any game you play. Every game is a learning experience, both for the developers, and for you. Because that's what it means to grow up.
[Playtime: 5 hours]
[Key word: Influence]
But we do still need to unpack that personality-topic before anything else, because it smacks you in the face right as it starts. I think LEGO Racers is the closest any video game has come to having actual Penis Music make up most of its soundtrack with complete confidence: Everything is loud and insane, the speed boosts make the cars rocket away like they're being launched from a slingshot of chaos, the game makes the harshest sounds imaginable with every drift and cars bounce around like they're made of rubber. Yet its not some floppy ragdoll-physic nightmare, everything is chaotic and zany in a way that feels completely expected. The best way I could really describe it, really, is that it’s like a group of kids frantically playing with toy cars, swerving them around a racetrack whilst making obnoxious sound effects as they go. Okay, sure, that sounds on-the-nose, but I dare you find any other comparison that truly captures the game's style, the feel of ridiculousness still kept controlled by a fun-loving basis. When a child gets invested in the game they're imagining in their heads, no corners will be cut to make it more pleasant for others. Its their ride, and you're just along for it.
There's of course also an inherent kind of childish wonder to the game's main advertised feature, you get to build your own car! Its a surprisingly easy to understand system, you get pieces from different famous LEGO sets and the more of the game's bosses you beat the more pieces you're given access to. Its a little clunky, designed with a controller in mind which means you can't just mouse-drag-and-drop pieces to your car, but the simple shapes and plain templates to work with meant even as a kid I could try a bit of artistry, in a way I barely even did with my own LEGOs in my room.
That childish whimsy I feel also extends to just how intuitive the game is, truly succeeding at its goal of being a "kids game" in ways other than being simplified. For being touted so often as the ultimate family game, Mario Kart to me really doesn't succeed in being intuitive in a lot of areas despite its simplicity. There's the obvious talking point, "why do I have to accelerate halfway through the countdown for a speed boost to go fast", but I would argue that the drifting system is pretty poorly communicated to new players. Different vehicles drift in different ways, the vehicle jumps in an offputting way that doesn't really convey "start of a turn" at all...its the kind of system you need someone more experienced to explain to you to really get, and thats always bugged me given drifting is essentially the game's core mechanic. Now yes, LEGO Racers has drifting too, and while it IS a lot snappier and easier to immediately understand comparatively, it's also not nearly as fundamental to being good at the game as in Mario Kart. No, the real core of the game is in the items, and how you “build” them as you race. Just like Mario Kart’s item boxes, every track in LEGO Racers has colored bricks strew about in formations to be picked up, usually in horizontal lines. The difference here is that the item you obtain isn’t randomized, Red bricks always give you the cannonball projectile, Blue bricks always give you the barrier which protects against said projectile and so on. To then make these items better before you use them, you build upon them by collecting the smaller White bricks, which are a third of the size of the main colored bricks. The end result is a fascinating system that rewards those holding on to items for longer with better results than just using items as soon as you get them, which makes the dynamics of damaging other racers even more interesting as each hit from a Red brick item makes the hit player lose one white brick. This in return makes it easier for players in the back to get better items, as Reds only attack ahead and the Yellow brick items which do attack racers behind you don’t make them lose White bricks. That’s a lot of words, but the player experience is beautifully understandable: Red means danger, Blue means protection, Yellow means reassurance, Green means speed, and White is an enhancer to all of them. Its simultaneously unique, intuitive, and has the potential for endless amounts of depth.
Which, yeah, that is where the game does start to lag behind. Item enhancing is a fascinating system, in large part because enhancing isn’t always optimal: The unenhanced Red brick item is is easier to hit and use than the grapple hook it turns into with one enhancement, but the grapple hook in return can give the player mayor speed alongside its offensive power by slingshotting off of the grappled player. The problem comes with how most items sadly just aren’t balanced in this way, and that the Green brick in particular is absolutely busted in power. Get one Green brick, get all three White bricks to fully enhance it, and then use it to essentially Bullet Bill-skip one quarter of the racetrack through warping, from any position in the race. Including first. Not to say it isn’t satisfying to do, the warphole visual effect looks fantastic and its endlessly rewarding to build up to this power move with each White brick collected, it leads to a form of play that can only be countered by doing the exact same strategy back. Yet as a kid, I could only find this awesome, especially after realizing that the track of the final boss - Rocket Racer - was specifically designed to allow both you and him to chain together several Warps in succession. Replaying the game now as an adult, I even found a new piece of tech using it that I’m dubbing the Collectwarp. Because of the slight delay between using the item and your racer entering the Warp hole, by using the item right as you’re about to collect a new brick, you’ll both warp and get that brick at the same time, letting you start your next build with a head start.
I think it speaks a lot to just how fun the game is at a conceptual level that I was able to come up with new things to do with such a dominant strategy, rather than simply settle for victory with using it. I think the track designs also help with that, simple as they may be in some ways all twelve tracks are still made up of a lot of interesting shortcuts and item placements that make each one feel different to play on beyond their setpieces. On Magma Moon Marathon, the player needs to drive through colored gates in a specific order to unlock a big gate that saves a sizeable chunk of time, wheras on Desert Adventure Dragway a well-placed cannonball shot opens up an extensive secret route through the pyramid the course otherwise runs around, also containing three white bricks to collect in its sharp 90 degree turns. It’s not all winners, but it has a level of interactivity with the environment and rewarding exploration that a lot of tracks in the more recent Mario Karts just don’t really reach.
But let me be clear: for as hard as it tries, with as many ideas as it has, LEGO Racers does not manage to be as good as Mario Kart. If you’ve read this entire review seeking that to be proven otherwise, I’m sorry. For whatever small faults I could accuse Mario Kart of having, its still a thoroughly polished, well crafted, balanced-enough experience, that LEGO Racers can’t really seriously compete with the same way a game like Crash Team Racing can. And, yknow what? That’s not a bad thing in my eyes. LEGO Racers still had its own audience of kids in love with LEGO, and it succeeded eons better than many other racing games aimed at an even younger crowd than Mario Kart. Just because a game isn’t the biggest success in the world, or much of a champion in any field, doesn’t mean that it’s lacking purpose! This game’s style and presentation still occupies a very special place in my mind to this day, and I’m constantly taking reference from all aspects of the game’s design to further my own design work in games and more.
Never write off any game you play. Every game is a learning experience, both for the developers, and for you. Because that's what it means to grow up.
[Playtime: 5 hours]
[Key word: Influence]
Played a lot of this as a kid before I ever had a console. It was fun, and had some nice elements like building your own car, upgradeable power ups. A decent kart racer.
not balanced, not smooth to play. still enjoyable. one of the first games i played with any kind of customization - the car building was very very fun as a kid. 100% worth checking out if you like legos and racing.
This is the best lego game, better than all the TT games COMBINED yeah I said it. Making cars and characters is goofy, the tracks are memorable and have fun shortcuts, the item system rewards finding a proper path that gets a green brick and 3 white bricks while also staying competitive. I wanna marry rocket racer
This was the game of my childhood - I can still hear the menu music! Originally played on PC, I've since bought this on N64, PS1, GBC as well.
Building your own cars and racing them around inventive tracks with a range of zany characters, good graphics for the time and catchy music - what more could you want from a kart game? The handling of the cars is good, and there is a drift mechanic similar to Mario Kart. Unlike Mario Kart however, the powerups are not fixed depending on the position you find yourself in during the race. You can see which type of powerup is on the track, and then collect white bricks to upgrade them.
In my opinion, the game still holds up reasonable well today and would be a lot of fun for children to play. I have very fond memories of playing this with my dad and brother. I still fire it up on the N64 occasionally for a blast.
Building your own cars and racing them around inventive tracks with a range of zany characters, good graphics for the time and catchy music - what more could you want from a kart game? The handling of the cars is good, and there is a drift mechanic similar to Mario Kart. Unlike Mario Kart however, the powerups are not fixed depending on the position you find yourself in during the race. You can see which type of powerup is on the track, and then collect white bricks to upgrade them.
In my opinion, the game still holds up reasonable well today and would be a lot of fun for children to play. I have very fond memories of playing this with my dad and brother. I still fire it up on the N64 occasionally for a blast.
A pretty basic kart racer but still fun to revisit for old time's sake.
probably best kart racer
I played a lot of this game as a kid, even though it isn't very good and I owned Mario Kart 64.
Pretty fun ideas with building your own car and customization of car and character, but outside that it's an inferior Diddy Kong Racing.
Played the Demo but its seems fun.
Worse Mario Kart 64.
main menu theme bangs hard
Curiosamente a versão de 64 desse jogo é um dos mais difíceis de se emular do console (se você estiver utilizando um dispositivo muito fraco ele não roda não viu)
A gameplay em si é um jogo padrão de kart da época
A soundtrack varia bastante tem umas músicas bem chatinhas viu
Com certeza o que faz ele se destacar dos outros jogos é a criação e customização do piloto como também do veículo
A customização do piloto tem uma variedade grande até de roupinhas e tudo mais
Mas nossa você consegue fazer o seu veículo DO ZERO com as pecinhas de lego com um sistema de montagem e customização, que algumas pessoas comentam ser complicado demais pra uma criança mas eu acho até que bem intuitivo.
Mas po jogar com algo que você mesmo criou é com certeza algo legal
É um bom jogo foi o primeiro da franquia lego que joguei, bem nostálgico pra mim.
Tenho vontade de jogar a versão de gameboy color caso isso aconteça atualizarei essa review
A gameplay em si é um jogo padrão de kart da época
A soundtrack varia bastante tem umas músicas bem chatinhas viu
Com certeza o que faz ele se destacar dos outros jogos é a criação e customização do piloto como também do veículo
A customização do piloto tem uma variedade grande até de roupinhas e tudo mais
Mas nossa você consegue fazer o seu veículo DO ZERO com as pecinhas de lego com um sistema de montagem e customização, que algumas pessoas comentam ser complicado demais pra uma criança mas eu acho até que bem intuitivo.
Mas po jogar com algo que você mesmo criou é com certeza algo legal
É um bom jogo foi o primeiro da franquia lego que joguei, bem nostálgico pra mim.
Tenho vontade de jogar a versão de gameboy color caso isso aconteça atualizarei essa review
Classic game of my childhood. I remember some of the tracks and shortcuts like the back of my hand, and I haven't even played this in over a decade. Comparatively simplistic by today's racing game standards, but there's still a charm to the approach and more depth than you'd expect from a children's racing game of this era.
If you can defeat the first boss you get enough of items that makes you able to make a gandalf wagon and gandalf character and that alone makes this game pretty awesome. Oh and the racing part is fun albeit very broken since you only really grind for green powerups due to it skipping half the stages.
This review contains spoilers
This game is fine, but they could have done more with, everything. The Story is that there is a racing competition, and your character wishes to win it, yeah that's all it needed. The Graphics are bad but look appealing and colorful despite the terrible effects. The Gameplay has you customize your own racer and own car, even if you can make one that blocks the racers screen which is odd. Then you race other well-known types of Lego figures and their cars in races, where you run over colored bricks for powerups, these tracks are creative with all the Lego around as nice views, but the different amount of weight on your car doesn't change your stats, like they do when racing cars in LEGOLAND Windsor, (I haven't been to the rest so I can't judge them). The White bricks powerup the powerup you already have, red lets you shoot projectiles, yellow sets a hazard for those behind you, blue is a shield from other attacks, and green is turbo speed, all these are the perfect 4 powerups all racing games with powerups need, great choices. The difficultly level is really high for a small kid's game, but that's not a problem since it just takes learning, and the controls are a bit stiff, but easy to get used to. The Levels are mostly good, but some feel the same and can take a bit away from the race. The Music is fast faced fun for each level, so I would call them good tracks, music tracks not Lego tracks. Lego Racers shows good charm in the little it has to be good as a game.
Lego Racers, is the Best fucking racing game of all time.
Played every port of this game grew up with the PC version ♥
The driving controls might turn off new players but its not necessarily bad controls as many people falsely claim.
It is actually just "skill based" Movement akin to rocket jumping or whatever that dodge shit is in smash melee.
Essentially you will turn like a sloth till you tap the space bar and then you make a 180 turn into a wall...
now that sounds like shit right?
WRONG you're just bad at games >;3
you see~ A PRO GAMER knows you have to rapidly tap the space bar and side strafe in this advanced technique I coined as "Drift fucking". If you're ears are bleeding from the chopped overblown sound effects that means you're doing it correctly.
once you've mastered DRIFT FUCKING next you'll need to learn about the ADVANCED POWER UP TECH
this game ain't your bitch boy's mario kart with randomized strategy-less power up boxes, there is a RTS-RPG-MMO-CHESS level power up system.
You see each color corresponds to a specific power up type
Red (guns)
Yellow (guns that shoot out of your ass)
Blue (shields (for bitches))
Green (the best choice 99% of the time)
Coloured bricks are upgraded by getting WHITE Bricks, and while normally its a simple battle of( more white = better) occasionally you'll want to quickly dispose of a yellow oil spill to grab a farther up green brick, or you'll avoid upgrading to tier 3 red so you can hook shot someone and gain some distance. I have been joking alot in this review but this system is genuinely fun and satisfyingly.
however if you have all 3 White bricks just grab green. green is rockets but tier 4 is a teleport with the sexiest VFX's in all of gaming. tier 4 green is broken and sexy~
I didn't even mention car building and feeling you get when you defeat a classic 90s Lego character in armed combat or the fact that in the GBA version of the sequel the final boss of this game is fucking suicidal because you beat him in the last game which is so meta and I love it.
Almost as good as lego islands 2 without the shitty load times.
Played every port of this game grew up with the PC version ♥
The driving controls might turn off new players but its not necessarily bad controls as many people falsely claim.
It is actually just "skill based" Movement akin to rocket jumping or whatever that dodge shit is in smash melee.
Essentially you will turn like a sloth till you tap the space bar and then you make a 180 turn into a wall...
now that sounds like shit right?
WRONG you're just bad at games >;3
you see~ A PRO GAMER knows you have to rapidly tap the space bar and side strafe in this advanced technique I coined as "Drift fucking". If you're ears are bleeding from the chopped overblown sound effects that means you're doing it correctly.
once you've mastered DRIFT FUCKING next you'll need to learn about the ADVANCED POWER UP TECH
this game ain't your bitch boy's mario kart with randomized strategy-less power up boxes, there is a RTS-RPG-MMO-CHESS level power up system.
You see each color corresponds to a specific power up type
Red (guns)
Yellow (guns that shoot out of your ass)
Blue (shields (for bitches))
Green (the best choice 99% of the time)
Coloured bricks are upgraded by getting WHITE Bricks, and while normally its a simple battle of( more white = better) occasionally you'll want to quickly dispose of a yellow oil spill to grab a farther up green brick, or you'll avoid upgrading to tier 3 red so you can hook shot someone and gain some distance. I have been joking alot in this review but this system is genuinely fun and satisfyingly.
however if you have all 3 White bricks just grab green. green is rockets but tier 4 is a teleport with the sexiest VFX's in all of gaming. tier 4 green is broken and sexy~
I didn't even mention car building and feeling you get when you defeat a classic 90s Lego character in armed combat or the fact that in the GBA version of the sequel the final boss of this game is fucking suicidal because you beat him in the last game which is so meta and I love it.
Almost as good as lego islands 2 without the shitty load times.
Despite having far fewer tracks than I remember, and resorting to mirroring tracks pretty early on, Lego Racers somehow remains exactly as fun as I remember it being.
The brick system for powering up your power ups is great, and it's still a blast to break things by using the full-power green brick warp power up over and over.
Later circuits also remain a challenge, probably because the CPU cheats to higher degree, and there's likely a ton of rubberbanding going on there, but it doesn't feel impossible.
After finally finishing the game and defeating all of its host racers 22 years after first playing it on my family's eMachines PC, I can confirm this game still rules.
The brick system for powering up your power ups is great, and it's still a blast to break things by using the full-power green brick warp power up over and over.
Later circuits also remain a challenge, probably because the CPU cheats to higher degree, and there's likely a ton of rubberbanding going on there, but it doesn't feel impossible.
After finally finishing the game and defeating all of its host racers 22 years after first playing it on my family's eMachines PC, I can confirm this game still rules.
Played as part of CONQUERING MY CHILDHOOD
A bite-sized masterpiece, Lego Racers presents some of the most chaotic, high-energy racing I've seen in any game. Aside from the fact that you're unable to spin out, the driving itself is fairly straightforward - until you hit the powerslide button, which immediately snaps your car hard to the side and lets you aggressively tear down the sharpest of corners without even thinking. It's responsive to an extreme and opens up its own set of crazy, tight maneuvers, and add an element to the driving that isn't that hard to get used to, but affords a lot of room for mastery.
The power-up system is fairly sophisticated and elevates the dynamic of the entire race beyond the simple act of just using them. You have four types of powerups - red (offensive), blue (shield), yellow (defensive) and green (boost), each acquired by grabbing the respective colour brick; on top of this, they all have four 'levels' increased by grabbing white bricks. The highest level green powerup - a wormhole teleportation device, of course! - is clearly leagues above all the others, so your racing line has to accommodate grabbing as many green and white bricks as possible more than just barrelling straight through to the end. But if you get hit by an opponent's powerup you lose some of your white bricks, so it's not always feasible to hold onto all your pieces until you get the wormhole - it might be better to make the snap decision to drop a bomb or chuck a grappling hook to get a bit of space or distance in a pinch. It's not just a cool powerup system, but it creates room for split-second tactical decisions and warps the way you interact with the race in a way that makes it as compelling as it is fresh.
The main problem with this game, really, is just that there isn't enough of it! There's only 6 circuits, each consisting of four tracks, as well as a single 'final boss' track at the end. The latter half of the circuits consist only of reversed tracks from the first three which is like, better than if they didn't exist at all? But then again it's probably even more telling that you can knock this game out in an hour or two despite them reusing all but one of their tracks. It's such a shame, because it's a really fun game - I just wish there was more of it to play!
A bite-sized masterpiece, Lego Racers presents some of the most chaotic, high-energy racing I've seen in any game. Aside from the fact that you're unable to spin out, the driving itself is fairly straightforward - until you hit the powerslide button, which immediately snaps your car hard to the side and lets you aggressively tear down the sharpest of corners without even thinking. It's responsive to an extreme and opens up its own set of crazy, tight maneuvers, and add an element to the driving that isn't that hard to get used to, but affords a lot of room for mastery.
The power-up system is fairly sophisticated and elevates the dynamic of the entire race beyond the simple act of just using them. You have four types of powerups - red (offensive), blue (shield), yellow (defensive) and green (boost), each acquired by grabbing the respective colour brick; on top of this, they all have four 'levels' increased by grabbing white bricks. The highest level green powerup - a wormhole teleportation device, of course! - is clearly leagues above all the others, so your racing line has to accommodate grabbing as many green and white bricks as possible more than just barrelling straight through to the end. But if you get hit by an opponent's powerup you lose some of your white bricks, so it's not always feasible to hold onto all your pieces until you get the wormhole - it might be better to make the snap decision to drop a bomb or chuck a grappling hook to get a bit of space or distance in a pinch. It's not just a cool powerup system, but it creates room for split-second tactical decisions and warps the way you interact with the race in a way that makes it as compelling as it is fresh.
The main problem with this game, really, is just that there isn't enough of it! There's only 6 circuits, each consisting of four tracks, as well as a single 'final boss' track at the end. The latter half of the circuits consist only of reversed tracks from the first three which is like, better than if they didn't exist at all? But then again it's probably even more telling that you can knock this game out in an hour or two despite them reusing all but one of their tracks. It's such a shame, because it's a really fun game - I just wish there was more of it to play!
this game is busted (good way)
the turbo power-up in this game feels fantastic as it improves your not only your speed with each level-up, but your handling as well. thats the item you'll want to be going for most of the time. this is very much a contest of getting ahead of the pack, which is demonstrated by the rival cpu, who zips past everyone else on the first lap. oftentimes, the start of the race is the most important part, so you'd better aim for those green bricks and not mess things up. its a bummer, because a lot of the items are powerful and fun to use!! its just, with the discrepancy in ai difficulty, a lack of rubber-banding, and no real catch-up mechanics, i feel like the game doesn't reach its full potential. would an option to randomize item placement lessen these issues? maybe! idk!
part of that potential, however, still shines through, and a prime example is the grappling hook item, which when shot at an opponent, slows them down and pulls you towards them with a tremendous amount of speed. if you don't bump into their rear end, you can sling yourself past them to keep that boost of speed awhile longer. its incredibly satisfying to use, and when you're given the opportunity to pull it off, its evident that this item fills a bit of a balance gap.
tangentially, you have to be pretty precise to win some of the time trials, which is odd considering 2/3rds of them feel like crapshoots in comparison. in some cases, i've felt like the item boxes should have been bigger, or collision on parts of the environment smaller.
now i haven't played like, every kart racer, and maybe there are some games out there that have more consistent highs, but the majority of lego racers was a blast for me. this game fucks. and i don't say that about a lot of games.
the turbo power-up in this game feels fantastic as it improves your not only your speed with each level-up, but your handling as well. thats the item you'll want to be going for most of the time. this is very much a contest of getting ahead of the pack, which is demonstrated by the rival cpu, who zips past everyone else on the first lap. oftentimes, the start of the race is the most important part, so you'd better aim for those green bricks and not mess things up. its a bummer, because a lot of the items are powerful and fun to use!! its just, with the discrepancy in ai difficulty, a lack of rubber-banding, and no real catch-up mechanics, i feel like the game doesn't reach its full potential. would an option to randomize item placement lessen these issues? maybe! idk!
part of that potential, however, still shines through, and a prime example is the grappling hook item, which when shot at an opponent, slows them down and pulls you towards them with a tremendous amount of speed. if you don't bump into their rear end, you can sling yourself past them to keep that boost of speed awhile longer. its incredibly satisfying to use, and when you're given the opportunity to pull it off, its evident that this item fills a bit of a balance gap.
tangentially, you have to be pretty precise to win some of the time trials, which is odd considering 2/3rds of them feel like crapshoots in comparison. in some cases, i've felt like the item boxes should have been bigger, or collision on parts of the environment smaller.
now i haven't played like, every kart racer, and maybe there are some games out there that have more consistent highs, but the majority of lego racers was a blast for me. this game fucks. and i don't say that about a lot of games.