Lego City: Undercover - Nintendo Wii U Reviews

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $49.99
Sale Price: $44.81
Today's Bonus: 10% Off

As a gamer and an adult Lego geek, I am really enjoying the game. Seeing everything being built out of Lego's just like in the real world is a real treat for me. Lot's of detail and it's fun picking out all the real life buildings and pieces. The story and dialog is cute and I have actually laughed out loud a couple of times. Some folks have mentioned some disappointment in the graphics department but I feel the game looks pretty good. Perhaps my expectations were just set a little lower than some other reviewers but I feel the subject matter of Lego's is presented well graphics wise. Could it be better polished here and there?...sure, but nothing that is taking away from the game for me, and some game elements are actually quite impressive visually. I could go on about some other positive aspects of the game but feel I might just be repeating some other reviews. What I do feel I need to address is the loading times. Now reading the reviews and owning a lot of WiiU games, again, I feel like I had realistic expectations going in. However, the loading times are excessive in my opinion. Some people have chalked this up to a WiiU thing with a patch to follow. There is in my opinion more to this issue than that though. This is the way this game was programmed. There are a lot of loading screens it's not just the loading times which are an issue (although they can be excessive too), but between the many cut scenes and game areas is a loading screen between every one. There have actually been blocks of time I've spent with the game where I've spent more time on loading screens than game play. It's to the point some times where when my wife is coming in and out of the room and sees the spinning shield on the screen and the boom chica wow music coming out of the speakers she chuckles because it seems like to her I spend more time staring at a loading screen then playing. It doesn't seem as if the programmers implemented any kind of pre-loading during the games off moments or allowed any Hard Drive installs to alleviate these issues. I still love the game but I'm sorry I had to knock off a star. It's literally some of the most excessive loading out of all the games I own on any system. I would buy it again, but anyone who buys it needs a serious heads up so they don't get frustrated. I'm getting used to it now, and also as the game opens up and allows for more free play the cut scenes are spread out a little further as I explore on my own, so that helps too. Anyway, that's my two cents for what it's worth. (PS, Reviews or Grammar, for that matter, are not my day job so my apologies if any of that was painful to read!)

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

I've always been a fan of the Lego series of games. I had high expectations for this game and it did not disappoint!

In Lego City: Undercover you'll be playing as Chase McCain, a detective armed with many disguises (each offering its own set of abilities) and a mission to put a stop to Rex Fury and his crime spree and restore peace to Lego City.

There's tons to explore and collect and I foresee getting many hours of enjoyable play out of this game. The graphics are what you'd expect from a Lego game and the GamePad is put to good use with the ability to use it for map viewing as well as a tool to spy on suspects and scan for items on the tv screen.

My main gripe about this game would be the loading times being longer than I'd prefer. I'm finding this to be the case with several Wii U games so it may just be par for the course with this system but I feel it's still worth mentioning.

Also, this game is single player. I typically play these games solo so this wasn't a deal breaker for me personally but is something to consider.

Overall I'm pleased with the design and concept of this game and the hours of game play it offers. I feel that this game offers something that appeals to gamers of all ages. If you're a fan of Lego games I highly recommend this one and even if you're not, it's still worth checking out. Great game!

Best Deals for Lego City: Undercover - Nintendo Wii U

I have played every lego game there is to play. My son and I have enjoyed them all, although I really didn't dig the Harry Potter ones personally. But all the different Star Wars games, the Indiana Jones, both Batman, Pirates of the Carribean, Lord of the Rings. We have played them all. This is by far the best yet.

I have not played it, as the one draw back to it is that it is a one player game, but have watched my son play it. Despite that, the use of the WiiU controller makes up for it. He has used it as a map. He has used it as a voice scanner to find bad guys (and if you target someone who is not a bad guy, the voice is usually saying something funny). He has used it to scan the city for bad guys (rotating around the living room 360 degrees sometimes to find them. I think it's cool, and as a kid, he loves it.

Your character evloves as the game goes on. Instead of multiple characters that have different actions to go back in free play and find new things, the main character gets different costumes that you can pick at any time to unlock new things. You collect bricks to build boats and bridges and such to open up new areas of the city. You can get into any vehicle and drive, almost like Grand Theft Auto, except instead of pulling someone out of their car and throwing them to the ground, you flash your badge and say "police buisness" and the people just give you their car. So very kid friendly.

I read a review that said the driving is horrible, and the guy only played the game like five minutes. My son struggled with the driving too and handed me the controller. I will say it was rough at first, but I got used to it in less than five minutes. There is this thing called a brake, that you have to use when coming up on corners and turning. Most of us do that in real life while driving.

Lego City Undercover is an open world Lego Game. Way bigger and better than the open Gotham City world in Lego Batman 2.

The load time could be better, that is true. But when it does load, and you get into that open world of Lego City, the complaint of the load time quickly vanishes.

If you or your child have played the Lego video games and enjoyed them, this is the best one yet.

Honest reviews on Lego City: Undercover - Nintendo Wii U

Lego City: Undercover is a very fun, very family-friendly game with lighthearted dialogue, vivid graphics, straightforward missions with clear objectives, simple controls, very subdued "violence", and plenty of "eye-candy" to look at. Although there is no cooperative play (only one person can play at a time), it's nearly as fun to watch as it is to play.

The controls are simple and responsive, and most significant actions require only a single button press or series of repeated taps to perform. The Lego world is bright, colorful, well rendered, and impressively expansive. There is plenty of variety so that you don't feel like you're constantly looking at the same recycled objects and buildings (which was a very common complaint with many older open-world games), and frankly, you could easily kill a few hours just walking or driving around to look at stuff. There are also a lot of vehicles (100+), as well as characters with distinctive personalities and smooth cut-scene animations with cute, clean dialogue and cheesy jokes that are sure to make you smile, if not laugh out loud. Clearly, someone had fun making this game and it was clearly made by a movie buff, since there are several obvious homages to movies like The Shawshank Redemption.

Essentially, this is a kid-friendly version of Grand Theft Auto (GTA) that doesn't take itself so seriously--an idea that works surprisingly well and that feels fun rather than obnoxiously childish. It is obviously set in the Lego universe and in place of GTA's vulgarity and abundance of adult content, this game is completely sanitized to make it family friendly. (The "E" for Everyone rating is certainly appropriate.) I especially like that you play a proper good guy (Chase McCain, a police officer) instead of a crook, and the dialogue is slapstick but never offensive. The action is also non-violent. You smash some lego objects to pieces in order to build new ones, but it feels more like puzzle solving than vandalism. And when you're fighting or arresting crooks, you simply tackle or throw them (in a gentle-looking animation) to the ground with a slow-motion effect for heightened drama. Then you toss handcuffs on them for the arrest. In short, feel free to let even very young children listen and watch while you play. My 3-year-old daughter loved watching me arrest three clowns on my first mission, and she got quite a chuckle from some of the jokes.

Other reviewers have covered the game's content pretty well, but a couple of important notes: If you play steadily through the story, the load screens occur every 5 to 15 minutes, and occasionally there are sequences where you go from one load screen almost immediately to another. However, they are NOT as bad as some reviewers have exaggerated. I timed them, and they vary from 25 to 70 seconds in length, with the average somewhere around 40 seconds. When you're opening up another whole part of the world (like going from the city to the countryside), you might have one of the longer load times (the longest I've come across so far was 1 minute 9 seconds). If you're just loading a new mission or objective in any already-loaded part of the open world, the load times tend to be much shorter (about 25 45 seconds). One reviewer complained that the load time for the title screen is over 5 minutes long. Not true. The very first time I loaded the game into my Wii U, the opening sequence played after just 45 seconds of loading. At that point, you start a new game or load a saved one, which triggers another load screen for about 68 seconds. Admittedly, this is the most obnoxious wait time in the game, and it will happen EVERY time you start up Lego City: Undercover to resume playing. However, it's certainly tolerable and takes less than 2 minutes (total) to start the game and resume the story wherever you left off. Some reviewers are clearly impatient and thus, grossly exaggerating the "load time" problem. Moreover, once a large section of the Lego world is loaded, you can roam around freely in that section with no additional load times, even if you walk or drive around for hours. You don't have to stick to the missions, and there's plenty to explore. The loads only occur between cut scenes, missions, and major sections of the Lego City world.

Another reviewer said that all the vehicles are basically the same, but again, not quite true in my experience. Obviously their appearances vary, but their acceleration rates, top speeds, and maneuverability also vary a little (sometimes a lot) from vehicle to vehicle. For instance, I found a tiny pink car that turned really sharply. I found a garbage truck that had a low top speed which made it easy to drive all over town and turn corners without ever needing to brake or slow down. Then I found a sportier looking convertible car that accelerated and drove so fast that I had to keep feathering the gas (or riding the brake) every time I approached a curve or turned through an intersection. It seems like they gave the vehicles just enough variation to encourage you to experiment, but not so much that they feel completely different either.

That said, a number of the vehicles do feel quite similar and most feel a little lazy in their responsiveness. In my opinion, this doesn't detract from the fun factor. You will adjust to the problem of oversteering fairly quickly after a little practice, learning to correct your course with quick taps to the left or right, rather than hard presses. Regardless, right from the start, if you're willing to feather the gas or tap the brake as you go into turns or near an obstacle, you'll have relatively little trouble getting around even in the fastest vehicles. It's also nice that you can pull over any citizen and take over his/her car at any time, instead of having to walk long distances. Especially for an open-world game, Lego City is very well designed and paced in order to minimize tedious activities or lengthy sections of dull, monotonous, uneventful gameplay. It also does a great job, with few exceptions, of making mission objectives and special abilities very clear by marking the paths and locations of items or events with conspicuous symbols, trails of Lego studs, shining beacons, and other tell-tale signs. There are some notable exceptions, such as when you need to find wheels for a police bike, and it isn't clear where the wheels can be found.

The Wii U's second screen is also very well utilized in this game. Characters sometimes call you to share information. When they do, they appear on the gamepad screen like a video chat, using the gamepad's speakers rather than the television (unless you turn the gamepad's volume all the way down, in which case their voice will come across on the television speakers instead). You also use the gamepad to scan the area for bad guys or "super blocks" (which are used to build objects or vehicles that unlock perks or new areas of the game map). This scanning feature works very similar to the way it works in ZombiU. When driving around the city, the gamepad screen becomes an active map, which includes the ability to set waypoint. When a waypoint is set, a trail of little green Lego studs appears on the television screen to lead you to your destination. At other times, you use the gamepad to scan for audio clips and eavesdrop on conversations to locate criminal activities. Certainly, this game rates as the smoothest, most intuitive effort to integrate the gamepad's second screen that I've come across in any Wii U title yet. I am never confused about which screen to look at, and none of the gamepad's second-screen functions feels obnoxiously "gimmicky" or disruptive to the enjoyment. The map and the scanner feel useful but not "over utilized" in a tedious way. And the idea of receiving video calls on the gamepad (instead of the television) helps you feel a little more immersed in the Lego world. Also, whenever your attention isn't needed on the gamepad screen (such as during a cut scene), it defaults to a Lego City: Undercover logo to make it obvious you should be looking at the television. Nice.

After many hours of play, I've only encountered one significant bug in this otherwise well-polished game: With the subtitles enabled, the voice acting disappears from some of the cut scenes. You can hear the rest of the ambient noises and sound effects, but not the character dialogue--which results in an oddly quiet scene. I've had this happen in other Wii U titles with subtitles also. It doesn't interfere with the fun of the game, and so far, it happens in less than 1 out of every 4 cut scenes. I'm guessing that if I turn off the subtitles, it may resolve the glitch, but I haven't bothered trying. My daughters like to talk and giggle loudly while we play the game, so often I don't hear all of the characters' dialogue anyway and thus, prefer to read it on the screen.

All in all, I think this is the best "compromise" I've found between a game with acceptable depth to please fairly avid gamers, as well as parents who need to be mindful of small children and thus, want to confine themselves to safe, family-friendly content. If you like open-world games, have a soft spot for Lego humor, and want a game that is family friendly, I highly recommend it!

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Lego City: Undercover - Nintendo Wii U

Sure load times may be long at times, but most seem short to me, and my patience level is sort of low. This game is awesome overall though! Lots of content and a fun game to play for all ages(Im 19). This is a must have for any Wii U owner. I highly recommend a physical copy and not a digital version, however the choice is yours. This is by far the best Lego game created to date, lots of thought and time went into the making of it, and provides countless hours of engaging fun. The gameplay is at an easier level so everyone can play it, but I feel that doesn't take away from the gameplay quality. Graphics are decent but not mind blowing, however this is purely for fun times and there are a lot of things more important than high specs, leave that to the PS4 and next Xbox if it bothers you so much, but don't expect to get these kind of fun games found only on Wii U.

Also, for those who don't know, the Lego City High Speed Chase building set can be purchased separately to unlock new items in game. Look for it on Amazon, kids will love to have the building set to go along with the video game, even I'm excited and I'm 19. Never too old for fun quality games such as Lego City Undercover. Now stop reading reviews wondering if its worth it, and GO GET IT!