LEGO® City Undercover

one of the best lego games ever made

On its own, the main game is actually pretty fun with all its slapstick moments and similar shenanigans. But everything else is an overly tedious grind (and yes, I’ve played and completed several Lego games to 100% before), which is hardly any fun. For quite a few actions, a status text pops up, basically saying: Oh great, you’ve completed one of these actions; now you have to search the world and complete 20 more of them. Unlike in other LEGO games, the only tool to help with the search is a 3D scanner that only reaches a few meters from your current location. Often, the target points are hidden on some roof, and it’s barely obvious how to get there. Most of the time, this ends up requiring you to traverse nearly half a city block just to find the entry point. Unfortunately, you can’t fly like in other spin-offs—or rather, you’re only allowed to land the flying vehicles in specific locations. Other major drawbacks include imprecise controls, the lack of waypoints, and the camera. You often have to repeat climbing sequences and parkour sections multiple times because the character simply won’t grab onto something or gets stuck in mid-air. During time-based quests, there were frequent moments when it was simply unclear where the next checkpoint was located. It just isn’t displayed anywhere. The camera, on the other hand, is a real nuisance. Sometimes it simply refuses to rotate (within the open-world environment!), actively preventing you from getting a clear view of your surroundings. At the start of a race, it always initially pans so that you’re looking straight at the hood in front of you instead of in the direction of travel.