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!