Lego Racers

"Mario Kart + Lego + Shortcuts = FUN!"

Lego Racers. You build cars, you race them, you build new cars. Think of it as Mario Kart meets Lego, but with a few important additions.

The storyline is weak. Rocket Racer has invited all of the world racing champions to compete in a racing tournament against him. About what you'd expect from a racing game. Ah, well, who buys these for their story?

The graphics are pretty good, considering it's the N64. They certainly aren't earth-shatteringly awesome, but they get the job done. The Lego minifigures are rendered well, as are the Lego bricks. It's interesting to see different expressions on the Lego people's faces. While the graphics are a tad grainy, on a scale of one to perfect they're "Pretty Good".

The music is nice. The different courses each have different music tracks, which play at varying tempos to create different feels. Even the laid-back main menu music is rather catchy. It isn't something you'll download to you iPod anytime soon, but it works. Some of the tunes are very good, while others are pretty dull.

The sound effects are about realistic from what seems to be a Lego game patterned off a Mario game: not exactly realistic, but good just the same. When you activate a turbo booster, it doesn't sound like a rocket, nor do the cannonballs sound like cannonballs. Some effects are done well, such as the metallic clank of the Grappling Hook. However, despite lacking realism, all of the effects are all right, distinctive, and fit reasonably well; an Oil Slick does not sound like an explosion, for example.

And now for the Gameplay. You start with a certain set of bricks to work with. You can use them to build cars and drivers. By winning circuits (similar to Mario Kart's cups), you can unlock more bricks to build better cars with. If you don't feel like spending time building, there are pre-made cars available for you. One thing that I didn't like was that different chassis, weights, and balances didn't seem to have any real effect on the car's performance, but it's still fun to customize your own car down to the expression on the driver's face.

The racetracks aren't exactly great, but they're fun. Almost every track has a shortcut or secret passage, which is a great leap ahead of Mario Kart 64's almost complete absence of shortcuts. The different opponents have different preferences; one prefers offensive weapons, while another uses Shields a lot. Unlike in Mario Kart, where you're assigned items randomly, the item you get is determined by the color of the brick that you pick up from the track; red for an offensive attack, yellow for a trap (i.e. oil slicks), green for a turbo boost, and blue for a shield. You can then make your item stronger by collecting up to three white bricks. It adds quite a bit of strategy to the game.

Multiplayer is good; it's just you and your friend, with no computers to get in the way. Items become critical in multiplayer, as your friend is probably quite a bit smarter than the computer racers, so strategy is key. It takes a long time for versus races to get old.

The Time Trials put you against the best time of the racer Veronica Voltage. With the brick locations mixed up and a tough time to beat, it isn't easy to complete this entire mode. However, you do get a reward for beating her on every course, so keep at it.

Recommendation? BUY. This game is fun.

Overall: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/13/06