LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins

Genre: Open-World 3D Action-Platformer

Players: 1, StreetPass Supported

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Review:

LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2013, is a companion game to the Wii U release of LEGO City Undercover, with this game’s events taking place two years earlier. While this is not a port of the console game, it is apparently an attempt at creating a similar experience, albeit scaled-down. As such, this is also a 3D Action-Platformer set in an Open World. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, that means that this may well be the only Open-World game on the Nintendo 3DS. This fact alone should tell you one thing – the creators of this game were either very ambitious, or very foolish.

On paper, The Chase Begins seems to have all the same ingredients as the console game. You have an open city to explore, the ability to grab any car you come across, secrets to search out, a whimsical parody of cop films. However, when you look a bit closer you start to see the problems here.

First, this game’s 3D visuals are sufficient, but far from impressive. The framerates aren’t great, there’s a thick fog hanging a city block away from you at all times, and the environments seem more bland than those in the console game. It’s all fine, but it’s unquestionably a step down.

However, the sound is worse. While you do still have voice acting during the game’s cutscenes, the voices all stop once you’re in-game.With no background music except when you’re in a vehicle, this means that the entire game is eerily quiet. This matches the extremely subdued sense of humor in this game, which seems almost devoid of personality.

The gameplay here all more or less works about as well as the console game, only… well, I think someone forgot to tell the people making this game that the whole point of an Open World is that you can go anywhere. Not so here, where driving for more than fifteen seconds or so in any one direction will get you an error message telling you that you’re not allowed to go to that place yet in the point you’re at in the story. Never in an Open-World game have I felt so trapped… and I’ve played Open-World games that take place inside prisons.

For all my complaining, I do find LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins to be an enjoyable game, and if you absolutely need an Open-World game on your Nintendo 3DS, this will suffice. But after the wonderful console game that this game is based on, it’s hard to see this restrictive, bland game as anything but a disappointment by comparison.

tl;dr – LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins is a family-friendly 3D Action-Platformer and Open-World game, and a prequel to the console release of LEGO City Undercover. However, while this game does a decent job transitioning the core gameplay of that game to handhelds, the same cannot be said for the sense of freedom, and the wonderful personality of the console game, compared to this almost humorless, restrictive, bland handheld game. This game comes across as a pale shadow by comparison, and while it’s still enjoyable, it’s hard not to see it as a disappointment.

Grade: C+

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