Scratch

Lego Battles.

Yea...
Luv dat sig!   

So who's excited for LoTR?

Undercover, LOTR, Island, Island 2, Racing, and PoTC are awesome.

I have all red bricks on Lego Battles.  >:)

wasabi56 wrote:

Oh and my favorite game in general  ever (don't critisize me for this) is (was) Lego Universe.

That was one of my favorite games to play. I go it for my b-day, and played it a lot. I got up to level 3 Sentinal, level 30 somethin, and more than half of the Crux prime kits. Great game.

I've played both Lego Star Wars (both 100%)
and Indiana Jones (95%+)

Lego City: Undercover.
In 2005 LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game became the very first title to assume the now familiar template. Since then the Cheshire-based developer, Traveller's Tales, has become synonymous with the LEGO brand. In fact, for the best part of a decade it's done little else but LEGO film licence tie-ins so the freedom of a title such as LCU (LEGO City: Undercover) must come as a breath of fresh air.

Though TT would never admit to it, the time and content constraints of working for a US publisher such as Warner Bros. Interactive (while also having to keep LEGO happy) must be stifling and the team must have thanked their lucky stars when Nintendo showed interest in an open-world adventure. As Executive Producer Loz Doyle tells us, LCU was something the team had wanted to do for a while: "We had already started work on the technology for a proper open-world game, but with the arrival of the Wii U and its unique GamePad, that really opened up a lot of new ideas... gameplay ideas that suited us perfectly".

LCU's development time, unlike many of the Wii U's ported launch titles, has been significant and the fact that the game has been built from the ground up for Wii U really shows. First announced in June 2011 the game will have been underway for around two years by the time it launches and will be one of just a few games launched so far (along with the likes of ZombiU) to really take advantage of the hardware. As such, LCU is an absolutely massive game with a vast number of different things going on at any one time.


Comparisons with Grand Theft Auto may seem exaggerated, but actually the freedom to explore and interact with your environment does bear many similarities. The switch couldn't have been an easy one though; going from the extremely limited, super-controlled mission arenas in the likes of LEGO The Lord Of The Rings to open world, sandbox-esque freedom in LCU doesn't come overnight. As Doyle openly tells us, "We have gone from creating purely level-based games to having a sprawling open world city, so the technology and game systems involved were new to us. Yes, we had the core proven systems such as slick character control, addictive collectibles, easy-to-learn gameplay and so on... things that remain unchanged. But there is so much more to create when you're considering a city game."This might explain why the LEGO games have stuck rigidly to the same template for so long: any change is a major risk. Not only might it not be received well but the process of change also takes time and costs money. The work involved, as Doyle explains, was considerable:

"We had to develop a full streaming system, a civilian population, a full traffic system and a physics-based driving system to name but a few. Then there's the sheer volume of work involved in building the city, the levels and the many vehicle models."

If you're going to go to the effort of putting all these new systems in place then you may as well make it worthwhile, and Traveller's Tales certainly has. This is no 'Super Mario 64 castle grounds'. The city is huge. "It would take around 10 minutes to drive a loop of the city," Doyle tells us. "That doesn't even include exploring all the side roads and other regions. Not only is there the ground level city to explore but you can also get up on most of the rooftops where there is a whole load of additional gameplay."We can confirm that this isn't just hyperbole; the city is satisfyingly big. In terms of the style of the city, there are blatant US influences here. LEGO City is very obviously a mixture of New York and San Francisco. It has its very own Times Square and even the Statue of Liberty makes an appearance.
Just around the corner the Golden Gate Bridge meets the classic San Fran street slopes and Albatross Island (the city's island prison) is a blatant replacement for the infamous Alcatraz.

The sly references and humour are absolutely classic Traveller's Tales hallmarks and the rich mixture of skyscrapers, bright lights, waterfronts, sloping streets and oversized street signs makes for great variety when exploring the town.

McCain Fried

One of the great things about LCU, and one of the elements that has us most excited, is the fact that it has its own story. Again, this is a big risk for TT and Nintendo alike. Previous LEGO games worked because they were attached to juggernaut film licences.

Now, for the first time, it's going to have to stand on its own two, block feet. We have a feeling it'll manage just fine though. The story goes that undercover detective Chase McCain has returned to LEGO City to find it overrun by crime. The notorious Rex Fury has managed to break out of Albatross Island prison and is running LEGO City into the ground. Your mission is simply to find out how Rex broke out of one of the most secure prisons in the LEGO universe, locate him and prevent the biggest crime wave the residents of LEGO City have ever experienced.


The ways in which you go about this are various. There is an overarching storyline with many missions that have to be accomplished but there's so much more to do besides that. Doyle explains more. "The story takes you all over the city to a variety of different locations. You're updated via the GamePad with video calls on what to do and where to go next. But you don't have to follow the story all the time; you are free to break off from the story whenever you like and explore what else the city has to offer.
"There is a huge variety of gameplay outside of the story, in fact there's more than we had planned to include."

It's Da Pigs, Bruv

You'll want to follow the story at least partway before straying off, though because it's the disguises that open up the world and these can only be unlocked via the main story. There are 290 in all (yes, really) and while many of them are there for the fun factor alone, a significant number of them directly affect gameplay. Chase won't get all the information he needs as an undercover detective. Not everyone trusts a copper, but it's not just the extraction of info that's the problem. You'll also need the right skills to overcome obstacles and these come with the various get-ups.Dressing up a burglar will help you break into protected buildings and crack safes. Assuming the guise of a construction worker enables you to access sites and use a pneumatic drill. The list of uniforms and abilities goes on... and on... and on.

In previous games this would have required you to switch between key characters in order to make the best possible use of that expensive film licence and it's really refreshing that it's handled in a different way this time around.

Once you've earned these disguises you'll definitely want to take a break from the story to enjoy some good old fashioned 'off the clock' fun. As Doyle explains, you can't be a good cop all the time: "There's so much more outside of the story. As a robber you can steal cars and try to outrun the police, take part in vehicle and free-running time trials, be a limousine driver, catch renegade aliens, rescue cats, put out fires... the list goes on and on."


You'll notice an emphasis on vehicles there. Perhaps it's a guy thing, but we're massively excited by the sheer number of vehicles on offer. After all, that's what LEGO is all about for little boys (granted, we're not little any more but this game makes us feel like we are). There are more than 100 on offer; so far we've seen police choppers, police bikes, police cars, ambulances, fire engines, tractors, recovery trucks and supercars (a Ferrari and a Lambo). Screw the story, if we're honest we'll be happy to explore every nook and cranny of LEGO City in our yellow Lambo. It doesn't have to be yellow, though.
"Once you've collected some vehicles you can go to a vehicle call-in point and call in any vehicle you have bought, in any colour," explains Doyle. "Disguise Booths are dotted around the city as well, and you can go in these to change into one of the disguises that you've purchased."

So far, so good. We're genuinely excited about what we've seen so far - we wouldn't have put it on the cover otherwise - but it's the GamePad functionality that puts the icing on the cake. In fact, as it turns out this cake isn't just iced, but has a seam of sweet GamePad jam running through a touchscreen marbled sponge of a cake [yes, I've been eating cakes today and could now eat another one all by myself - Ed.].

The GamePad is integral to the story. It's funny to see the similarities between LCU and ZombiU. Both games have enjoyed a similar development timeline. It's very unlikely that the two teams have had anything to do with each other yet they've come up with very similar solutions. For starters Chase has a little police gadget that looks just like a GamePad (the same as ZombiU).


The guys at TT must've been holding their heads in their hands when Ubisoft revealed that little gem. But what does it matter? It's a nice little thing to do and if anything it simply proves that TT is all about the Wii U. As Doyle tells us, the GamePad is no gimmicky add-on.
"LCU would definitely lose something on other platforms," he reckons. "Chase is actually given a LEGO version of the GamePad as his Police Communicator, so it's really woven into the story. We started with a massive array of ideas [for the GamePad] but in the end we focused on it being a Police device. The map is really useful to have on at all times rather than in a small corner of the screen, plus you receive video calls from different characters."

The GamePad is more than just a map and a video chat screen, though. It also acts as a scanning device. Again, it's funny to see the ZombiU similarities, but having it in a LEGO game is just hilarious. Holding up the GamePad in scan mode lets you see through buildings, scan for criminal activity and search out hidden items, collectibles and hidden side-quests. Speaking of collectibles, a brand new addition to this game is the Super Brick. These rare items are hard to find and are often integral to progressing the story. Finding one will enable you to build something that advances the story.

We're so excited about this game. The kid in us is absolutely buzzing but on a personal level this is the LEGO game I've been waiting on for years. You'll see from my LEGO The Lord Of The Rings 3DS review that I've just about had enough of the average gameplay of the other games. That's no slight on Traveller's Tales - it's a necessary evil, but with Nintendo giving the firm the freedom to develop the game it's always wanted to, we're all in for a treat.





p.s. I quoted from http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/46928/previews/lego-city-undercover-your-next-wii-u-blockbuster/? pages 1-3

Legoland and the online Bionicle Flash games (plus Backlot, World Builder, and Junkbot) are the best B]