Lego 2K Drive - Review

We recently saw the LEGO world dip its toes into the racing realm when Microsoft added LEGO vehicles and minifigs to its Forza Horizon series. Prior to that, we haven’t seen a LEGO racing game since LEGO Racers 2 back in 2001. With LEGO 2K Drive, we get the chance to play a wacky, accessible racing game built for all ages.

The game begins with you as a chosen minifig, led by legendary driver Clutch Racington. Clutch shows the minifig the ropes and builds up their skills with the quest to win the coveted Sky Cup Grand Prix trophy in mind. The one standing in your way, Shadow Z, isn’t beyond cheating to keep anyone from taking what he believes is rightfully his. The journey to the Sky Cup Trophy is an amusing romp, with well-written jokes and constant car-related puns punching you in the face every chance the game gets. I can’t think of many moments throughout the story mode where I didn’t have a smile on my face.

Off the bat, LEGO 2K Drive pulls from the various worlds found in LEGO sets throughout history. There are four major areas to race in, with each one having a distinct theme to it. While you don’t drive freely through them like a large open world, each area is large enough to be explored separately, with many races and sidequests to complete in each area.

The game plays like a hybrid of Forza Horizon and Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. While the vehicles handle like an arcade racer, the core gameplay is within drifting, weapons and transforming vehicles. The game balances both rather well, and while the weapons don’t feel quite as intuitive as the likes of Mario Kart and the Sonic Racing games, they serve enough of a purpose to create mayhem in every race. Many times I found that the difference between winning and losing was some well placed boosts and drifts, and for a LEGO game, it can be somewhat unforgiving at times.

What LEGO games might be the most famous for is the sheer destruction that players can perform, and 2K Drive is no different. A loss of LEGO bricks on your vehicle can be rectified by destroying the environment and rebuilding your vehicle.

While the game is called LEGO 2K Drive, you’re not limited to just cars in the world. As you go into certain areas off the road, your vehicle transforms itself into an off-road vehicle such as a quad bike, or a boat if you drive directly into the water. This opens up many options as far as exploration is concerned, and gave the developers some freedoms when developing the racing tracks. It also allows you to complete a lot of side missions that aren’t limited to being on the race track. It does open the game up for a lot of variety.

Completing many of these sidequests and races provides numerous rewards, including new vehicles and minifigs, and possibly the most important in a LEGO game, construction pieces to build on your own vehicles. Building is somewhat simple, and the game does a good job of letting you know if your vehicle works or not. If you’re building one of the premade vehicles, the game builds it step by step, so if you have the resources at home, you can build your LEGO vehicle along with the game, which is a pretty neat feature.

The game works well at all of its features, but never truly excels at any one particular facet of gameplay. Many children will be very enamoured while playing the game, though older players may find there’s not a lot of replayability, which doesn’t normally come with racing games. I myself found the game to be quite charming, but I had no reason to come back to it once I’d completed the story mode. When there’s other, established, viable options out there that people are already playing, a game would need to do something special to break into people’s gaming habits, and I can’t see LEGO 2K Drive doing a good enough job of this to set itself apart from other arcade weapons-based racers.

LEGO 2K Drive is definitely one for all ages. What you get in the package is a variety of activities, races, and sidequests to keep you busy for a long while. There is a lot to like about LEGO 2K Drive, and for fans of arcade racers, it is definitely one to consider. However, it doesn’t necessarily excel at anything it attempts to do, and other games in the genre have already been there, done that, and done it better. However, if you don’t have access to the man in the red hat or his blurry blue rival, or if you are a fan of the LEGO world in general, LEGO 2K Drive is definitely a racing game you want to give a chance.

The Score

7.0

Review code provided by 2K

The Pros

+Vibrant LEGO world

+Solid gameplay

+Variety of fun modes

The Cons

-Doesn’t excel at any one element

-Little reason to return once finished