Publishers 2K and developers Visual Concepts Entertainment have recently launched their racing game in collaboration with LEGO. Directly titled LEGO 2K Drive, this racing game takes inspiration from the numerous other titles before it in the racing genre and brings a unique take on the genre. From my playthrough of the game, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with some of the options available and definitely found this to be a worthwhile game.

Story

Welcome to Bricklandia! Here, many racers look to be considered the top racer in the land, but to get there you will have to earn your way to the top. Take your time helping people as you continue racing your way up into the Arena. Once you’ve conquered the lower Arena’s, you’ll find yourself in The Sky Cup - Bricklandia’s most prestigious race!

Gameplay

When you start out the game, you will be on a sort of tutorial island area. Here, you will have your first race and get a handle on the general mechanics of the game. I used a controller for this title and with it you have your base controls; steering with the analog stick, gas with R2, brakes/reverse with L2, jump with Triangle, and quick turn with Square. These will be what you will mainly use in the game.

In the actual race, you will also come across power-ups. Use them to get an edge over your opponents and win the race! These seem to be completely randomly given, but I did notice some more powerful abilities appearing more often when I was still climbing in position, so there is likely an economic factor as to which item you’ll be given. These items range from an EMP pulse that slows those around you to a car-seeking rocket that chases down and hits the racer you targeted.

In each race, you’ll be given a rival to beat in the race. While this seemed neat, I thought it was a little strange that if you beat your rival but lose the race, you don’t get much reward for it. You do get something, but nothing worthwhile in my opinion, and in order for the race to be considered beaten, you have to get first place. Only with a first-place position will you be given the checkered flag that allows you to progress the story.

When you are looking for a race, you will be in an overworld area where you can drive anywhere you want. While driving around, you can find speed challenges, quests, and hidden collectibles all over the map. Be sure to take time to gather these and complete missions because they will help you level up. During the first part of the game, you’ll be a C-rank driver meaning you’ll be earning C-rank race wins. In order to get into the second part of the game, after beating the first Arena race, you’ll still need to reach level 10 in order to unlock B-rank races. Once you do this, you’ll be able to go back to the races you beat and do it again with the higher rank or just visit the newly unlocked races to experience all the different maps the game has to offer.

Altogether, this game has four islands to drive around and each is full of the different things you can come across. The missions are pretty diverse, from simple “find this” or “collect that” to a whole objective-based level that loads up. This could be “save the people,” “defeat the zombies,” or “protect the generators from aliens.” So, they definitely make these side objectives entertaining to do, which is good considering they are pretty much mandatory to do a few of them.

Now, when it comes to your vehicle’s customization, this is where the game gets a bit pleasantly surprising. You’ll want to have all three of your vehicle types maximized as your car does automatically change between them as you reach different terrains. Altogether, you have a street racing car, an offroad racing car, and a racing boat. To change these around at all, you will need to go to a Garage (which is also used as a form of fast travel in the game) and update your options. They have a bunch of prebuilt options and you will even unlock more as you continue racing, but they also allow you to change the car in any way you want - literally.

The options for your vehicles range from simply changing the color of the vehicle to completely building one yourself! They give you the option to build it from scratch by offering a selection of bases to build on and as many LEGOs as you want. However, if you are just looking to make a change or two for a prebuilt car, you can also do that. The coolest aspect of all, you can take any vehicle in this game that you have unlocked in the garage and go to Instructions. Here, you will be shown how to make the car, step-by-step! This means if you have the physical LEGOs to do so, you can use this game to help you build any car in the garage in real life!

Audio and Visual

Just like most LEGO-based titles, the aesthetic of the game is fitting to that of a cartoon and an animated world of LEGO buildings, terrain, vehicles, and more. It all looks very convincing and can even be forgettable that you are looking at nothing but LEGO-built versions of the world, so it truly is nothing short of impressive.

The audio for the game is interesting as they have a neat sound effect for when the car changes into the different styles and that includes how the engine sound shifts accordingly. The music is pretty uplifting and keeps a light-hearted style which is fitting for a game like this. It helped blend the senses of this game’s visual and audible aspects into an immersively fun experience.

Replayability

While I’m not sure you’ll start from scratch again after beating the game, there is so much to do here! After focusing on main missions, beating the first arena, reaching level 10, and entering the second phase of the game, the island I had most completed still said I was only 12% done with it. If this isn’t an indicator that they have loaded this game with extra activities and side missions to do, then let me put it like this… Sure, you might not start over, but you’ll be racing for a long time!

This doesn’t even factor in the online aspect as you can always race with your friends or against random players online. Here you’ll be able to show off your favorite vehicles while displaying some skill on the track too!

What It Could Have Done Better

There were times I would try to take a shortcut by racing up a sloped mountainside or hopping over a rock, but the game would reset me as if I had gone out of bounds. I wasn’t in the middle of a race and was just in the open-world driving part, so why would the game do this at all? This should just be a button or pause menu option for when the player gets stuck and not a forced stop from having fun exploring. It’s a common error in game development - never limit the players unnecessarily.

Online microtransactions are pretty deplorable in this game. The balance between how many Brickbucks you earn in-game, either online or offline play, is very minimal and the prices for a lot of the online shop items are much higher. It would take a lot of time to earn even one car from the shop meaning they expect players to cough up more money for items in the shop. Personally, I just suggest ignoring the shop completely and enjoying the game for what it offers at base - even when it comes to playing online against others.

Verdict

LEGO 2K Drive is an amazing racing game that is easy to put hours into in a single sitting! There is so much to enjoy within this game and so many different things to do, both on and off task. I love how they added the multitude of aspects in racing games these days, put them together, and still managed to maintain simplicity in the overall design. This would be the perfect racing game for both new and old gamers out there to see if they like competitive speed-based games. Easily a title I recommend, especially for those who enjoy a single-player campaign experience over online competitiveness.

LEGO 2K Drive is now available for PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.