Build yourself a career on the track in this fun sandbox racing game.
There is something for kids of all ages, and the young at heart, to love in LEGO 2K DRIVE which feels fast and goofy.
With a broad range of activities to take part in this sandbox racing game might not keep the attention for older players, but is likely to become a huge favourite for the little ones.
You can take to the track in all manner of fantastic machines with a vehicle transformation that's reminiscent of the Spy Hunter series, instantly morphing your vehicle from car, boat to off-roader never ever slowing down.
Building up speed
If you're like me you'll spend a lot of time crafting your perfect ride before you hit the track at all, but if you're creatively challenged there are plenty of prebuilt instructions and completely custom vehicles to collect along the way.
The build mode is surprisingly robust, with a satisfying snap when you put pieces into place, but it could feel a little bit finnicky at times.
I spent a whole 2 hours in the garage building my Subaru so I could race around in my actual car, but I couldn’t spend all my time in the car builder bit so I selected some pre-built vehicles for my off-road and water racing needs.
If you're a fan of the classic kart racers we know and love, fans of Mario Kart and Crash Team Racing will be right at home here, with a very approachable racing format.
There are even a few powerups that feel like they've been taken directly from the mushroom kingdom, so you'll be up to speed in no time.
The drifting mechanics are great fun and pretty simple to pull off and the weapons blow chunks off the other Lego cars just like you’d imagine they would.
A highlight for me was smashing the roof off an opponent's ride after hitting a ramp, it exploded apart in such a satisfying way.
Smashing your way through scenery is satisfying and rebuilds your boost and health, so there is a big incentive to go a bit wide around the track.
Open roads ahead
Once I had my fill of racing I found that there was plenty to do in the overworld, with several different environments to explore, all lovingly constructed from a mix of real items and LEGO.
There are some strong LEGO Movie vibes in this game especially with the the jolty stop motion animation that mimics the film.
The arcade sandbox-style overworld is filled with RPG quests from finding and recovering Old Mate’s pet scorpion to taking down outlaws on the streets of the local town, these are the sorts of little quests that would feel at home in one of the Tt LEGO games.
I even found myself defending radio towers from alien attack at one point, not really sure how that happened but it was satisfying to take down robots as I darted between three different towers.
In another I strapped out of control missiles to my vehicle and once that was done I took on the role of detective as I searched for clues for a missing characth
As I was playing I really kept thinking about how I would have loved this game as a kid, replaying again and again with my siblings and building ridiculous(ly cool) machines.
While older players might find it a bit repetitive, if you're a fan of the other 3D LEGO games like STAR WARS or JURASSIC PARK you'll get a kick out of this.
A copy of LEGO 2K DRIVE on PC was provided to SIFTER for the purpose of this review.
