The best word to describe this game is aggressive. Immediately off the bat you'll have to trudge through pop-ups, long EULAs, signing in with an account, and then prompted about the paid currency, battle passes, daily challenges, and seasonal rank in the online.
Eventually you'll find the story mode and we reach the second stage of aggression; the writing never takes a breather, and it's about a 50/50 whether any joke lands. Sometimes it's a chuckle, sometimes I wish the game was just quiet for a moment. Sometimes it's self-aware about how annoying it is, but that doesn't excuse it for being annoying.
Finally, the last bit of aggression (and it's not a bad thing) is how much destruction occurs in this game. Nearly every object can be demolished into its raw Lego pieces, dozens of pedestrians can be flung into the air at once, and once the game starts to get going at the faster speeds, it all meshes together into a fairly decent flow.
The game follows a very simple structure; there's four worlds, each with some races which is how you progress through the story, some side missions that should take you a minute or two each, various one off challenge gates that you'll probably ignore until you have a faster car later in the game, and hundreds of collectable pickups, none of which really mean anything unless you enjoy the grind.
And grind it is, because while there's a good variety with each race having its own rival character and AI names and themed vehicles, there's only so many kinds of track layouts that really feel unique and inspiring, and every car controls the same (which is why you can download community made designs for them). The car editor is extensive and probably too involved for me to fully understand but I appreciate its depth, but there's not any tangible meaning or incentive in game to do so.
And it all ends with a bit of a whimper; never getting very difficult (although fortunately there's no unfair randomness happening in the races), and never really reaching any degree of amazingness. The story exists in its own bubble aware from the externalities of the modern Game as a Service, and while serviceable I struggle to really latch on to it and want to replay any of it, or care about collecting every tiny piece of cash floating in the world. Maybe it's worth a curiosity play but I think there's time better spent elsewhere.
Eventually you'll find the story mode and we reach the second stage of aggression; the writing never takes a breather, and it's about a 50/50 whether any joke lands. Sometimes it's a chuckle, sometimes I wish the game was just quiet for a moment. Sometimes it's self-aware about how annoying it is, but that doesn't excuse it for being annoying.
Finally, the last bit of aggression (and it's not a bad thing) is how much destruction occurs in this game. Nearly every object can be demolished into its raw Lego pieces, dozens of pedestrians can be flung into the air at once, and once the game starts to get going at the faster speeds, it all meshes together into a fairly decent flow.
The game follows a very simple structure; there's four worlds, each with some races which is how you progress through the story, some side missions that should take you a minute or two each, various one off challenge gates that you'll probably ignore until you have a faster car later in the game, and hundreds of collectable pickups, none of which really mean anything unless you enjoy the grind.
And grind it is, because while there's a good variety with each race having its own rival character and AI names and themed vehicles, there's only so many kinds of track layouts that really feel unique and inspiring, and every car controls the same (which is why you can download community made designs for them). The car editor is extensive and probably too involved for me to fully understand but I appreciate its depth, but there's not any tangible meaning or incentive in game to do so.
And it all ends with a bit of a whimper; never getting very difficult (although fortunately there's no unfair randomness happening in the races), and never really reaching any degree of amazingness. The story exists in its own bubble aware from the externalities of the modern Game as a Service, and while serviceable I struggle to really latch on to it and want to replay any of it, or care about collecting every tiny piece of cash floating in the world. Maybe it's worth a curiosity play but I think there's time better spent elsewhere.