Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins

It's all happening in the open-world genre as every developer seems to adopt that gameplay trait as a trend. That means that Lego has to take a piece of the pie, considering they make games based on just about everything. Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins is a handheld addition serving as a prequel to the original game, aiming to create a more riveting portable franchise experience.

A couple of admirable firsts for Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins. The primary factor is that it's the first open-world game for the Nintendo 3DS, with the second being that it's the first Lego game for the console, as mentioned above. So with the original title being as ambitious as it is, how will gameplay translate into a handheld console?

It All Starts with a Chase

It's probably worth recapping what Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins is about before picking apart the gameplay. The narrative is set two years before the original game's events. Our protagonist Chase McCain is a rookie cop hellbent on putting Lego City's criminal mastermind Rex Fury behind bars. It's all very 80s vice in the form of Lego, but it's still mildly entertaining.

So now on to the gameplay. Suppose anybody immersed themselves in the original title. In that case, you'll know we had a decent open-world title set in the original Lego universe. However, Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins isn't going to see the same hardware standards. It makes it hard to see how its spin-off will deliver on similar gameplay. Firing up the game, you'll see straightaway that it has limitations.

The open-world standards of the first game are mainly absent, with restrictive hardware streamlining Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins down to a more straightforward run. Some repetitive quests and missions attempt to give a more liberal feel but are ultimately dull and mundane. It's a noble attempt to bring an open-world experience to the handheld, though it does fall flat.

The saving grace of Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins is that the characters are still lovable, the story entertaining, and significant bits of humor are sprinkled throughout. Though the narrative does a decent job of retaining player interest, there feels that there's not much a game enough to leave players with a good impression.

Struggling to Catch Up

Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins is not a poor original version. It's just that it's not great. The open-world experience doesn't translate well because of the handheld console limitations, leaving players with an unremarkable playthrough. But we can safely say there have been worse adaptations of big franchises on handhelds. Let's not forget the disaster called Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified.

Round-Up - Pros & Cons

Pros:

• A well-written origin story for the protagonist
• Lots of humor sprinkled throughout the game
• Great character development

Cons:

• Long loading times between zones
• The gameplay feels stale relative to open-world mechanics
• Visuals don't live up to the original