Lego City Undercover Switch Review

Lego City is a fun romp through a well thought out world.  Lots of hidden charm and personality make this game somewhat of a hidden gem from the Wii U.  Although it is now running on better hardware, the game suffers from many performance issues that prevent it from being the true masterpiece that it could have been.

If you have played any Lego Games in the past, you know what to expect when it comes from gameplay.  Tons of collectibles litter the environment.  Lots of hidden challenges in each scripted and linear level.  The last Lego Game that I played was the Lego Star Wars Trilogy for the Nintendo DS.  I was wondering if anything had changed since then and I was correct in assuming that it had not.  The lego formula for video games seems to be one the developers consider timeless based on their approach to game development.  While this game offers something that no other Lego game I have played has in an open world sandbox environment, it still ropes you into very scripted “Chapters” of gameplay.  Outside of these normal Lego levels, you will have the ability to explore the environment.  That being said, if you want to ignore the story, there is very little along the lines of side quests to get your attention and your “video call” ringtone will keep going off while trying to explore and have fun.  The game constantly is trying to remind you that there are better things to do than exploring its environment to find all the hidden environmental puzzles and pseudo sidequests.  And it is because of this that I never found myself wanting to explore for too long, as the annoyance from the constant mission reminders was unbearable.

I played the game on the Switch and I have to say, HOLY FUCK this game is broken technically.  In a play period of about 5 hours, I had 5 crashes.  Now, this isn't going to be standard.  Sometimes I played the game and got away with 1 or 2 crashes in the same amount of time.  That isn't a praise though.  For a game this old to be re-released and be this much of a mess is unacceptable.  Depending on where you are in the level when the crash happens, you might have to restart an entire 30-minute sequence to get back to where you were before.  While I have noticed that crashes happen in the open world at a much higher rate than in the individual chapter levels, I can say that I have had it happen in both.  I have heard the word that the PC port was broken as well.  Possibly even worse than the switch version but man that's pretty bad if anything released for 60 dollars from a big name dev was more buggy than this. It's worth noting that alongside these crashes, there was also some very frustration game breaking bugs that would set me back just as much as a crash.  Other than the crashes and glitches, this game TRIES to hit the 30FPS mark and fails most of the time. It makes my eyes hurt at times.  Most of these issues happen in the open world.  The chapter levels seem to have a much better time with framerate. I would normally say that this is due to the fact that it is running on the switch, but the PC version is having a crazy time as well and we all know that's the place to go if you want graphical prowess. It seems like the game and its custom engine have not been optimized well and this is causing the issues with framerate but this is pure speculation.  Suffice it to say that the performance, both in framerate, glitches, and game crashes, is subpar.  Phrasing it in this way is being kind of generous.  These performance issues are sticking points that kept the game from getting much higher marks in my mind.

The story of this game is about as wacky as you would expect.  You play as “Chase McCain”, a police officer that was sent away after an incident but is highly respected in the City.  The kingpin of crime in the city, Rex Fury, has escaped from prison and you have been brought back to the City in an attempt to bring him back to justice for the second time.  This game never really lets off the gas pedal with its funny antics and humor.  Even in a story such as this, there are some funny moments in dialogue featuring character self-awareness and parody of real life in a way that the modern Lego branded IP have been known to do.  It ends just about the way that you would expect and there aren't many twists that make you really take notice.  The entire story is really just a medium in which the gameplay is served to the player.  It's a paint by numbers undercover spy story.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just don’t go into this game expecting to be moved by the story in any way.

The gameplay is where this game really shines.  The core mechanic of this game is the disguise system.  It allows for you to change into different professions with different tools that allow you to access certain areas.  For example, there is a door in a level that is locked.  There is a little circle on the ground in front of it with the picture of a crowbar.  This is a signal to the player that switching to the “Robber” class will let you bust in and access the secrets within the room.  This is used in many different ways.  Earlier levels have different mechanics that cannot even be accessed on the first run through and must be replayed to access everything.  I think that this is a cool way to give replayability to the many chapter levels.  This mechanic is also used heavily in the open world.  A farmer disguise gives you a watering can that can be used to water different potted plants around town that make them grow into climbable vines or giant platform like flowers just to name a few.  This allows you to access certain parts of the open world that would not be accessible on foot or by other means.  All of this makes the world seem more alive.  While I would like for the open world to be a little more open feeling (fly, drive, or run wherever you want), this is a way to get the world to hide puzzles in plain sight that only the completionist or savvy player goes out of their way to look for.

The sound gets a pass. The voice acting is top notch in my opinion whereas the music is lackluster.  For a game that is trying its best to emulate GTA, it really lacks a lot of what GTA has in the sound department.  The radio stations in the cars isn't there, the fun music in different areas of the world isn't there.  The only really inclusion of fun music is around the disco area in town, and even then it seems downplayed.  The music and ambient noise does the bare minimum of what is required and does it to a passable level, but I really wish that the same effort that went into the funny voice acting would have gone into giving the sound a little more charm and character.

So overall, this game is a slightly above average Lego Game with that came out at the perfect time.  The Switch is having a hard time right now with a serious lack of big budget AAA games. If you are looking for a light silly game to play,  recommend buying it. With the performance issues also being in the PC version, I feel confident that the performance issues could be patched in time after launch (but this is warner bros, the same company behind Batman Arkham Knight, and after the PC disaster that was that game, It's also possible that they leave it a broken mess and never touch it again).  Final score 6/10