LEGO Racers

LEGO Racers is a game that makes me feel old! I remember picking this up on the Nintendo 64 back in the day and it was a game I had a great deal of fun with. While LEGO games are one of the biggest gaming franchises going today, LEGO games have been made and have been popular for decades at this point and they are a series that has, for the most part, always been of a high quality. LEGO recently tried their hand at a racing game again and that was what inspired me to go back and try this to see if it was as good as I remember it being!

The Greatest Racing Champion

One thing that is neat about LEGO Racers is that it takes a page out of Diddy Kong Racing’s playbook and has a single player story mode. The main game mode is Circuit Race and in this mode, we have a racer called Rocket Racer who is so good at racing, that they have decided to make a new racing contest where the greatest drivers from history will compete so that he has some real challenge. We play as a LEGO Mini Figure that wants to show that they have what it takes to be the ultimate racer. For a racing game from 1999, the story is way more awesome than it has any right to be!

Brick By Brick

The LEGO Mini Figure situation back in 1999 was not what it is now where we have tons of franchises represented in LEGO Mini Figure form. LEGO Racers as a result has some cool Mini Figures to select from, but, the game also lets you create your own LEGO Mini Figure which I thought was a lot of fun back in the day to see myself in LEGO form. You can also build your own cars! This aspect of the game is not as intuitive as it is in modern racing games and can take a while to get to grips with, I remember having to read the instruction book back in the day so I knew what I was doing. You can get various new pieces as you progress through the game which is fun.

LEGO Style And Fun!

I love the whole vibe that LEGO Racers has, if you take the recent LEGO 2K Drive game and scale it back to what you would think a LEGO racing game released in 1999 would be like, that is exactly what we have here. We have a solid selection of tracks, each one having a different theme and song which is great. We have LEGO Pirates, castle, and the other stuff that LEGO was famous for back in the day all represented. If you are someone who grew up with LEGO during this time, you will love this as it will feel like a really fun nostalgic throwback. I do have to give the music a bit more attention as it rocks way harder than you would think.

Driving The Yellow Brick Road!

I will say that going back and playing LEGO Racers now is a bit tough as it is rather rough around the edges in comparison to what we have with modern racing games. It is not bad, but it is a product of its time. It is an arcade style racer with drifting and various weapons to take down the other racers. The story mode is great, but it is rather lacking in gameplay modes, you can do time trials and race against your friends, but if you look at Diddy Kong Racing which came out a few years before this, that offers way more for you to do. The driving is easy to get to grips with, but with car customization being a big part of the game and that being hard to get to grips with, it may lead to frustration for some players.

Pros:

• I love the classic LEGO Mini Figures in this game
• The story had a lot of charm
• The actual racing feels pretty good
• Making your own LEGO racer is fun

Cons:

• The game really does show its age
• Making a car is way more complicated than it should be!

Making customised spaceships and vehicles is one of those childhood pleasures that everyone wishes they didn't have to grow out of. Luckily, for those of us who can no longer justify spending the mortgage money on the latest Lego theme set, Lego Racers includes enough knobbly plastic bricks to satisfy any building nostalgia as well as enough racing action to appeal to all those who're fortunate enough to still own a Lego set or two.

This is a driving game in the familiar Mario Kart style which also gives you the ability to race your own customised cars. You can make them as outlandish as you like, using a good selection of basic parts, and you can enter them in a series of seven different trophies, each defended by a Lego boss character. If you defeat them you'll be able to cannibalise their cars for choice bits, enabling you to remodel your current vehicle or just build a new one from scratch.

The Lego theme extends to the weapons you pick up on the tracks, which can be powered up by collecting extra white blocks. For example, if you get a speed booster, you can use it straight away to gain a limited advantage or hold on to it until you get a couple, in which case it turns your car into a rocket- powered flying machine. Unfortunately the actual game play isn't quite up to the standard the concept deserves.

The handling is twitchy and imprecise, so it's annoyingly difficult to adjust your line to grab the right power-up, and the results of the three-lap races are usually determined at the start. If you miss time your turbo, it's often impossible to catch the leader - you can race like Schumacher, but you'll finish third or fourth, with the race winner almost a full lap ahead. But if you can put up with these shortcomings, Lego Racers is actually pretty good, and the create-a-car feature makes it a unique racer.

Ever wanted to drive the Lego cars you spent hours perfecting? Now you can, with Lego Racers from High Voltage Software and Lego Media. Each of the tracks will feature a theme from actual Lego sets you can buy off the shelves, and players are encouraged to customize their racers for maximum oddity. A fairly robust car builder engine allows you to build your vehicle piece by piece. To be released in September.