Tag Archives: 2013

Review: LEGO City Undercover (Wii U, 2013)

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When Lego City Undercover was originally announced back in 2011, I brushed it off as a gimmicky Grand Theft Auto wannabe for kids. It didn’t help that I was already feeling let down by the Wii U after its disappointing E3 debut, where Nintendo seemed to be completely out of touch with reality and the rest of the industry.

The years since then have been a very different story for the console, having built up an excellent library of games, including Super Mario 3D World, EarthBound on the Virtual Console, Mario Kart 8, and this exclusive from Tt Fusion and WB Games.

2014 has been a good year for me and open-world titles. Tomb Raider, Batman: Arkham City, and Grand Theft Auto V are among the sandbox-style games that I’ve played and put extensive time into, and I’ve loved them all.

Like I said, I had initially ignored Lego City Undercover, but I had also seen the very positive reviews and forum threads on it, and figured now would be a good time to see what it was all about.

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And I’m so glad I did! Lego City Undercover is one of the most purely fun games I’ve played on the Wii U, providing a wealth of variety and challenge for gamers of all ages.

Its format will be familiar to fans of open-world games. While there is a main storyline full of special missions and unique environments that keeps you moving forward through the game world, it is primarily comprised of a giant, living city that you can explore freely.

What I like about Lego City Undercover’s gameplay is that it blends together the vibrant feel of Grand Theft Auto V with the structural, dizzying traversal of games like Uncharted and Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider from 2012. It also does so through humor, creative design, and violence that doesn’t go beyond that of typical Saturday morning cartoons.

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Like many other of its genre peers, collectibles are a big part of the gameplay. Not only will you be picking up a large supply of Lego bricks in order to build things, but you’ll also need money to unlock most of the game’s characters, vehicles, and special abilities.

That’s actually something I don’t like about Lego City Undercover’s design. You spend a lot of time finding all of these collectibles, but there is an additional step required, where you have to go to your home base to unlock each one individually for use within the game world.

I hope that if a sequel is developed, that unlockables can be used immediately once you find them. Compounding this problem is the actual unlocking interface, which is slow and unresponsive.

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Then there are the load times, which can last up to a minute and a half. These occur pretty often, especially later in the game when you’re going back and forth out of levels collecting all the things you missed your first time through.

I consider myself to be a pretty patient player, but Lego City Undercover’s long, non-interactive loading screens definitely tested me. I give these a bit of a pass, however, since this is one of the Wii U’s earlier releases, so I’m sure if given the time, Tt Fusion would have been able to implement better streaming/preloading technology and get a better handle on the hardware architecture itself.

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Graphically, the game looks very good, with excellent draw distance, nice environmental detail, and a decent framerate. It does often dip below 30fps, but given how much is being displayed on-screen, its performance hits aren’t entirely surprising.

There are some inconsistencies in quality when it comes to texture detail too, but for the most part, the game looks nice, and particularly shines during special missions and Super Build sequences, which show various structures being built brick-by-brick.

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In terms of audio, Lego City Undercover gets most things right. The voiceover work is wonderful, with some sound-alikes that are pretty close to the real thing, like Morgan Freeman and Joe Pesci.

Music is also good, with a ’70s funk soundtrack that fits the story and style of the game perfectly. Additionally, there are some licensed tracks, and the music for the final stage is particularly amazing.

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What’s bizarre, however, is the complete absence of music during most of the game’s open-world and driving sections. Fans of Grand Theft Auto and other open-worlders have become accustomed to different radio stations to listen to, and driving around Lego City without a single chord of music makes these sections feel sterile and incomplete.

It’s a giant missed opportunity, in my opinion, but on the flipside, because of how long it will take to 100% this game, maybe not having a repeating soundtrack during these segments is a blessing in disguise. It’d be nice to have the option, though.

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The Wii U GamePad is put to good use in Lego City Undercover, and like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, it’s nice being able to use it as an interactive map and resource without having to pause.

It’s also used throughout the game to set waypoints, check in on your overall progress per area, listen in on conversations, and uncover important clues. It works pretty well, but I found myself feeling rather silly on multiple occasions holding the GamePad up in the air, spinning in my chair looking around the room. If a sequel is produced, it’d be nice to have the option to just use the thumbsticks for this functionality.

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There is a lot to do in Lego City Undercover. While the main campaign will take most players about 15 hours to complete, it will easily take triple that — if not more — to 100% it.

The great thing is that most of those additional tasks are fun to do and discover. They usually don’t take that long to complete either, and abilities like fast travel, ability boosts, scanning upgrades, and other enhancements make the collectibles a joy to uncover.

The game does a great job of keeping track of what you’ve found, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself pulling your hair out trying to find that last character token in a given area. Try your best to avoid FAQs, since the game is at its most rewarding when you solve the game’s various puzzles and challenges on your own.

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I had a great time with Lego City Undercover. While it doesn’t have the spectacle, controversy, or production value of similar open-world games, it’s certainly one of the most enjoyable in the genre, providing laughs, solid gameplay, varied locales, and no shortage of things to discover and do. I highly recommend it.

  • Graphics & Presentation: B+
    A believable world full of colorful characters, environments, and creative Lego structures. 30fps for the most part, with framerate dips when the screen gets busy. Nice animation, depth, and a fun story that will keep you going until the very end.
  • Music & Sound Effects: B
    A fun ’70s soundtrack with some licensed tunes as well. Excellent voice acting, good sound effects and believable ambient fill. No music during most of the open-world and driving sequences makes those parts of the game feel dull, so hopefully a more robust radio setup makes its way into a sequel.
  • Gameplay & Controls: A-
    The world is a pure joy to explore, and the controls are solid. Some platforming and judging of distance is vague, but with unlimited lives and convenient retry features, it’s rarely an issue. Grand Theft Auto could learn a thing or two from this game’s flying controls, which are wonderful. Tons of gameplay variation and abilities will keep you  going long after the credits roll.
  • Value: A+
    It will take about 15 hours to get through the main storyline, but 60 is more likely to 100% it. Tons of collectibles and post-game content will keep you going for days, if not weeks, after you finish it. Lego City Undercover represents a tremendous value.

Overall: A-

 

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Review: New Super Luigi U (Wii U, 2013)

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New Super Mario Bros. U is my favorite side-scrolling Mario game since 1991’s Super Mario World. And yes, that includes Yoshi’s Island, which is a game I enjoyed and completed, but stopped short of achieving 100% in every stage.

The New series of Mario games got its start back in 2006 on the Nintendo DS. It built off of the series’ past successes on the NES and Super NES, and marked Nintendo’s return to classic, side-scrolling 2D gameplay. The world was ready, and so was I.

20140926_nsmb_dsUnfortunately, I didn’t really care for it. Something about it felt off, and at least on the DS, I didn’t like its low-fidelity visuals and sterile design. In fact, it took me close to six years to finally finish it, and that’s mostly because I wanted to have a baseline on which to compare its three sequels.

Thankfully, New Super Mario Bros.‘ follow-ups — New Super Mario Bros. Wii, New Super Mario Bros. 2 on the 3DS, and New Super Mario Bros. U — are all superior, with the Wii and Wii U versions being my favorites.

The 3DS game looked and played well enough, but I thought it was way too easy with watered-down design.

nslu_boxAfter completing and thoroughly enjoying New Super Mario Bros. U, I didn’t immediately purchase its Luigi-based DLC. I thought $20-30 was too much to pay for what was in my mind just some remixed levels starring Luigi. I had this idea in my mind that if Nintendo was able to put all of the extra Luigi content in a game like Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the original asking price, why were they charging so much extra for this?

Now that I’ve played through this game in its entirety, in hindsight, that opinion can only be seen as my own ignorance.

New Super Luigi U is a great game. Although it is technically DLC — and it requires New Super Mario Bros. U to function if you buy it digitally — it plays like a brand-new game, full of new ideas and challenges.

Oh, and I did buy the physical version, which does not require the original game. Plus, you gotta love that green case!

Anyway, Luigi U borrows its graphical and musical assets from its parent Mario game, and it also has the same world map, but the levels themselves have been completely redesigned, and you are now at the mercy of a reduced timer that starts at 100 instead of 400.

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You not only have to contend with less time, but with Luigi’s drastically different controls and physics. He jumps much higher now, can float in the air momentarily, and has a tendency to slide around like a wet noodle, so unless you’re just a platforming natural, it will take some time to get used to these changes.

You will be frustrated on many occasions as your attempts to grab items, dispatch enemies, dodge environmental hazards, and collect the three special Star Coins in each level, will lead to your death. But once you get used to it, this becomes an absolute blast to play.

Levels are shorter, there are no checkpoints, and extra lives can be scarce when you most need them, so the game remains challenging from several different perspectives. That’s a rarity in modern game design.

You will also have to chase and catch Nabbit from time to time, which is fun and necessary to do if you want to attain 100% completion status.

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Graphically, Luigi U is beautiful to look at, with all of the subtle touches and artistic brilliance that adorned New Super Mario Bros. U. The highlight here, however, is that there are hidden Luigis all over the place. They are sometimes obvious, but many of them are cleverly hidden or blended in with the backgrounds. These are all fun to find and uncover, and since they are often found near a Star Coin, their discovery becomes that much more meaningful.

The game runs at a rock-solid 60fps at 720p resolution, and I don’t remember seeing a single bit of slowdown. The New style has been controversial for close to a decade, and you either love it or hate it. I think it looks its best on the Wii U, with crisp design, silky-smooth animation, tons of depth, and gorgeous environmental effects.

On the audio side of things, it’s… New Super Mario Bros., which is to say it isn’t all that memorable. When you compare it to something like Super Mario Galaxy, you can’t help but feel like the New series simply plays it too safe in the sound department.

It’s whimsical with some standout tracks, but for the most part, it’s derivative and not a soundtrack I’d listen to when I’m not playing the game. On the flipside, Luigi U‘s sound effects are crisp, classic, and full of a variety of voice samples. They’ve gotten to the point where they sound totally natural, as opposed to how awkward they were when Nintendo shoehorned them into the Game Boy Advance titles.

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Getting back to that time limit I mentioned earlier, I wish this game had better Miiverse and ranking integration. While you can manually post your times, a more traditional and automated leaderboard system would be great.

It would also be fantastic if for the next game, they add in Miiverse replays like the ones in NES Remix 2. As it is now, the Miiverse comes off as mostly negative, since the majority of the posts you’ll see will be from frustrated players who have died at various points throughout the game.

Another small complaint is how long it takes to retry a stage after you die, which takes about 12 seconds each time. I wish it would just ask me if I want to try again instead of kicking me back out to the world map only to turn around and go right back in. It doesn’t take too long, but it takes just long enough to be an unnecessary nuisance.

Finally, something that would make this game even better is having the gold flag requirement, like in Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) and World (Wii U), or introduce a Rainbow Stars requirement for each stage, like the NES Remix titles. This game already has a lot of replay value, but these would put it over the top, and reward repeat efforts.

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All in all, I had a great time playing New Super Luigi U. As someone who absolutely loved Mario’s first outing on the Wii U, playing through this world again with completely different levels and character physics was a welcome challenge that at times pushed my abilities to their limits.

How Nintendo will top this brotherly combo is something that’s hard to imagine. New Super Luigi U represents some of the finest in Nintendo 2D platforming.

  • Graphics & Presentation: B+
    You either love or hate the New style, and while I’m not a big fan of it, Nintendo has definitely improved upon the handheld and Wii installments with lovely backgrounds and animation to die for. 60fps 720p shows how Nintendo’s flagship franchises can shine in HD.
  • Music & Sound Effects: B
    Mario Galaxy and 3D World this is not. The soundtrack is solid, but it relies too heavily on past melodies and influences. Themes like the underwater one are superb, but the standouts are the exception rather than the rule. Excellent sound effects and voice samples bring the characters to life.
  • Gameplay & Controls: A
    Luigi feels really loose at first, but they become second nature after several stages. It’s fun to collect the Star Coins, Hidden Exits are tricky, and all of the secret Luigis strewn throughout each world will make you smile. Platforming can be super-tough and the game isn’t overly generous with 1UPs.
  • Value: A
    It will take about 15-20 hours to get through this. Compared to most DLC and season passes, $20-30 sounds like a lot, but given how much content there is, it represents more than you’ll get out of a lot of $60 purchases. Going for perfect, no-hit runs will keep speedrunners coming back for more.

Overall: A

 

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