Microsoft had recently unveiled its next round of ID@Xbox titles for Xbox Game Pass including Undertale and My Time at Portia. Turns out they’re arriving sooner than expected – both titles will be available on Game Pass today along with Monolith Productions’ Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. That’s already quite the steal.

But that’s not all. However, recent tweets by the official Xbox Game Pass Twitter confirmed that Blazing Chrome, Dead Rising 4, LEGO City Undercover, Timespinner, and Unavowed would also be joining the service on July 11th. So whether you’re seeking open world action, side-scrolling action or adventure, this month should have you covered.

Xbox Game Pass is also available for PC, having launched last month with over 100 titles. These includes games like Imperator: Rome, Metro Exodus and much more. You can also expect The Coalition’s Gears 5 to be available on the service when it launches in September. In fact, those who pick up Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $15 gain early access to Gears 5.

https://twitter.com/XboxGamePass/status/1146404224697171975

Lego City Undercover is something of an anomaly for it’s kind of Lego games. Rather than piggyback off a well-known franchise property like Marvel or DC, Lego City Undercover is an open-world action-adventure that plays off other well known games like Grand Theft Auto along with its associated tropes, and also parodies familiar Hollywood film iconography.

"The game for the most part is well-voiced and usually hits the right notes to get you invested in the main story, which can easily take upwards of 15 hours alone to complete. And of course, that’s not counting how much time it will take to acquire all the hidden collectibles."

You play as an undercover cop Chase McCain who is tasked with taking down escaped convict and master criminal Rex Fury, using any means necessary. Whether that involves you gaining favor with multiple gangs through a tempted life of crime, or acquiring lots of fancy new gizmos courtesy of your Police HQ, Lego City Undercover likes to flaunt its role reversal whenever the story sees fit thanks to its comedic tone and not-too-serious cast of silly misfits. And for the most part, it’s well-voiced and usually hits the right notes to get you invested in the main story, which can easily take upwards of 15 hours alone to complete. And of course, that’s not counting how much time it will take to acquire all the hidden collectibles.

What follows are the usual gameplay signs that accompany a Lego game. During the game’s chapters, Chase will have an objective marked on his HUD at all times. This objective is broken up depending on whether it takes​ place in the main world that is Lego City, or has you enter specific locations. For example, you may have to tail a criminal out in the streets, or solve some puzzles inside a building complex. Some of these objectives may even tie into one another, until finally a Chapter is completed and you’re awarded with the next set of objectives. Completing the main story is key in unlocking all of your character abilities, and will be especially vital if you’re looking to spend time hunting down those secret collectibles.

"The Wii U roots are obvious as some of the city backgrounds, while busy and flourishing with tons of characters and vehicles on-screen, can seem a bit muddy and lacking in color."

Some of these abilities include using your smart tablet to find hidden footprints, receive incoming calls from your support team, or use as a surveillance camera to eavesdrop or mark suspicious targets in first person. The tablet is a clear carry-over from the Wii U version and its use with the Gamepad but doesn’t quite detract from the transition to PS4. Your abilities are further expanded once you’ve acquired additional costumes. Again like in other Lego games, equipping different outfits will allow you to access certain areas or use character-specific abilities to progress and solve puzzles. Some of these abilities can be as simple as changing into a robber and using your crowbar for breaking into and entering marked locations with a crowbar icon.

Because of the patented silliness that comes with its territory, you never have to think too much about how you’re moving from area to area, whether you’re hijacking a civilian’s ice cream truck for the greater good, or changing costumes on a whim in front of your police cohorts. The world of Lego City compliments your actions and genuinely feels amusing enough to explore when you’re not sticking to the beaten path. And with the newly added drop-in, drop-out local co-op, you won’t have to bear it alone. Because having two Chase McCain’s speeding a down a highway away from the Chinese mafia can have its own perks.

The same can’t be said for the overall game performance, sadly. Take the framerate, for instance. It varies between 30 FPS while exploring Lego City, and 60 FPS while in-doors for specific missions. The Wii U roots are obvious as some of the city backgrounds, while busy and flourishing with tons of characters and vehicles on-screen, can seem a bit muddy and lacking in color. Sometimes, things will start to slightly chug when it gets a bit too busy in the big city. There was even an odd game crash on one of the missions, but it only occurred once and I wasn’t able to reproduce it. Add to that the wonky camera when outdoors, and it feels like Lego City Undercover could have a benefited from some further optimization and polish.

"Lego City Undercover is about everything you would expect from a Lego game, filled with its own unique story and entertaining world to explore."

Despite its technical problems, Lego City Undercover is by no-means a bad entry into the series. It’s story will have you trudging on just to see what ridiculous situations are cooking around the next corner, and there’s potential fun to be had if you’re planning to bring a buddy along. But it’s hard to justify a full-priced asking, especially when you consider just how many Lego games one can choose from these days. If you’re not already a die-hard enthusiast, it certainly doesn’t hurt to wait for a sale.

Lego City Undercover is about everything you would expect from a Lego game, filled with its own unique story and entertaining world to explore. If you’re not already suffering from Lego game series fatigue or just looking for a good starting point minus some magical wizards or hobbits, you’re in luck.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

The former Wii U exclusive LEGO City Undercover, the open world LEGO game that has widely been regarded as one of the best LEGO games, is now available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC players- and Nintendo Switch owners, as well. The game has launched today for these platforms in North America (it will launch in Europe this Friday).

You can check out the launch trailer showcasing what to expect from this game if you haven’t played it below- Wii U owners are likely to know what they are in for- but LEGO City Undercover was sadly never a big seller, so this should be new to most of you. But basically, think of it as a family friendly LEGO game take on Grand Theft Auto– not entirely accurate, but it gets the job done in terms of giving you an idea.

LEGO City Undercover is now out on PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

LEGO City Undercover was the first game on the Wii U that made people aware of its paltry storage space offered- it required so much storage that you flat out could not download the digital version on the Basic Wii U set, unless you had an external hard drive attached. And now, on the Nintendo Switch, that old specter raises its ugly head again.

Text on the back of LEGO City Undercover‘s retail packaging for the Nintendo Switch version suggested that the game requires an additional 13GB of storage even if you purchase the physical copy- suggesting that Warner Bros. had cheaped out and bought a smaller capacity cartridge to keep costs down, and pushed the rest of the game on to end users as a download. Given the Switch’s limited storage size, this led to outrage among a lot of Switch owners. Warner Bros. has since confirmed that if you buy a physical copy of the game, you don’t need to download anything to Eurogamer.

“Players who purchase Lego City Undercover on Nintendo Switch at retail do not need to download the game to play,” a company spokesperson said.

Which does not explain why exactly the box appears to claim that online connectivity is required for a single player game, or asks for 13GB of storage- but unless there is a gross misunderstanding somewhere, I think you should be able to buy LEGO City Undercover for your Switch without much worry.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

TT Fusion has made comments that the development team has been wanting to make a Lego game for quite some time. In order to do this, they worked on a kind of prototype that ended up being Lego City Undercover. This version of the game was first created back in 2010. The team has said the development for this first game lasted about a year and they didn’t really know what they wanted to do just yet so they created a game where people could just drive around a Lego city. Nintendo saw the prototype and approached the team about developing the game exclusively for the Wii U. The team had to find a way to get the game to take advantage of the Wii U gamepad as part of the development of the game.

In order to bring a kind of realistic look to the game, the development team used locations from New York and San Francisco, as well as other real world big cities as a model. The development team has said it included quite a few Nintendo themed Easter Eggs into the game in order for players to find. Now that the title is going to be on formats other than the Wii U, it’s unclear whether these Easter Eggs will be allowed to stay in the game untouched or whether they will be adapted for those other platforms.

The game was officially announced at the 2011 E3, and it was announced as coming to the Wii U in 2013. It was released across the United States, North America, and Europe, as well as Japan in November of 2013. For quite a while the game was expected to remain only on the Wii U, but it was announced it was coming to other platforms in 2016. On November 22, 2016, it was announced through the game’s official Twitter account that it was going to be remade for the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and the PC.

Story

The story of Lego City Undercover has players taking on the role of police detective Chase McCain. The officer is returning to Lego City after years of being away, because he has found that the city is under the grips of a crime wave, the likes of which no one has ever seen. Chase has his work cut out for him, because his old nemesis has somehow escaped from prison and is leading this apparent influx of crime. The police force is under fire for allowing this escape to happen and McCain has been called in under the nose of the chief. The Mayor himself has asked for the famed detective to get back into the game, and he will have to go undercover in order to figure out how to stop the explosion of crime.

Chase will even have to try and infiltrate the very group of thugs he’s trying to take down, using a number of different costumes in order to fool his enemies into thinking he is their ally. At the crux of the story is whether or not Chase can stay one step ahead of his old nemesis and take down the newly resurgent criminal enterprise.

Gameplay

Lego City Undercover utilizes a third-person point of view in order to help Chase McCain move about the city and take down criminals. There is the standard building mechanic that has been seen in many of the Lego games, though this is much more of an action adventure that takes advantage of a number of different combat systems. The most prominent combat system in the game is a special Lego version of hand to hand combat. Chase McCain will attempt to beat his opponents into the ground until he’s able to slap the cuffs on them and officially arrest them.

The game has also come up with a new way to get around the city, as the main character will utilize free running, as well as jumping, climbing, and otherwise getting around the city using specific blue and white bricks that pop up in various locations around the environment. Players will not only have to go through the city on foot, they will also be able to drive and fly using various vehicles that are set up in the bustling metropolis. For the Wii U, the game took advantage of the gamepad as a kind of tool that allowed Chase McCain to communicate with other characters. The gamepad also was able to bring up a map in order to help players get around the area. It’s unclear how these functions have been incorporated into the PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Chase McCain will also utlize a number of disguises and costumes, as well as vehicles that go along with those costumes in order to take down his enemies.

Characters

Chase McCain is the main character of Lego City Undercover and he is the chief protagonist attempting to take down a criminal gang. Rex Fury is the criminal mastermind who has escaped from prison and leads the criminals in Lego City. Frank Honey is a young cop who idolizes Chase and wants to help Chase. Chief Dunby is Chase’s boss at the city’s police force. Natalia Kowalski is an ambulance driver that will help Chase at various points in the game.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.

One of the Wii U’s very first exclusives, and honestly, a pretty great and underappreciated one at that, was Traveler Tales’ Lego City Undercover, an excellent open world action adventure game that served as good satire of other open world games as well as of pop media.

Lego City Undercover did reasonably well between the Wii U game and the 3DS prequel that it received- but sadly, it never got exposed to the wide audience that it deserved to be, owing to the Wii U’s failure (and to the 3DS at the time getting swamped with games). That will change this Spring- Warner Bros. have announced that Lego City Undercover will be making the jump to Nintendo Switch in Spring 2017, alongside the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Now everyone can (and should) play this excellent game.

Lego City Undercover is one of the first games explicitly confirmed for Nintendo Switch- Nintendo’s NDAs are apparently keeping most games and features of the console hidden until their Switch event in January 12. Hopefully Lego City is available on the Switch some time within the launch window. It’d be a good game to pick up around then.

Since 2005 the series has utilised outside licenses, but it is in returning to the Lego license alone that the series creates its most involving and original title to date. Lego City Undercover plays off a variety of film and TV clichés to create an original theme that eclipses previous Lego titles.

The plot is all cop stereotype, but it plays up all expectations of the genre so vibrantly that it’s impossible not to smile. You play Chase McClain, a cop returning after a lengthy suspension to put away the villainous criminal Rex Fury. A romance plot with a femme fatale complicates the matter and, between a bumbling side kick and an angry chief of police, it’s a recipe that merges the slapstick humour the Lego games are famous for with a more adult post-modern pastiche of cop drama.

Aside from relying on its own license, the big change from previous Lego games comes in the form of a large open world. Open world elements were first introduced in last year’s Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes to great acclaim, and they stand up well here. The standard platform levels are interspersed among missions on the larger maps and, regardless of the size, the levels are all designed immaculately. The open map is particularly impressive, hiding a myriad of secrets and skill jumps that prove hugely addictive and involving.

It’s a good thing the polished levels provide such addictive challenges, as the mechanics themselves are fairly shallow. Combat has been slightly improved over earlier Lego games by the inclusion of counter and throw mechanics, but platforming is still very basic. Variety is injected through a selection of costumes that give Chase new powers and, whilst these are welcome, it doesn’t totally correct the simplistic nature of City’s gameplay. This isn’t always a bad thing, as the accessible nature of the game will allow it to appeal to a much wider audience, but things can get a bit repetitive because of this.

Whilst great strides have been made with the open world and general mechanics, a step back has been taken with regard to the co-op play usually found in Lego titles. Drop in co-op has been a staple of the series for years, so it’s a shame City has done away it completely. I can understand it would have caused havoc to design co-op around the game’s open world elements but, for those levels that are more linear as in previous Lego games, the return of co-op would have been much appreciated.

The game’s place on Wii U doesn’t make a huge amount of sense for the gameplay though. The few Wii U Gamepad elements are cool but unnecessary and, though the lack of forced Gamepad gimmicks is welcome, there is nothing about the console to demand Lego City Undercover’s exclusivity. That said, the extra bit of graphical clout on offer is well used. Though the Lego theme doesn’t exactly lend itself to photo-realism, the visuals remain vibrant and crisp throughout. Even when the open world throws a tonne of rendering at the Wii U, it handles it well with little to no slow down. Granted, the draw distance isn’t exactly mind-blowing, but the visual package suits the game incredibly well and is complemented by an appropriate score.

Between the linear levels (all of which can be replayed when you have more costumes to access new areas) and the secrets harboured by the open world, Lego City Undercover is a massive game. Though the shallow gameplay may be a turn off for some, there’s a huge amount to sink your teeth into if the accessibility reels you in. The main story itself offers hours of content, but you can expect the title to seriously eat into your time if you’re searching for the elusive 100%.

It’s ironic that, in returning to an original Lego license, Lego City Undercover becomes one of the most relevant Lego titles in years. Its myriad film and TV references will endear it to all but the most stone-hearted and, though it may not have the depth and complexity of other titles, its charm and convincing open world make it one of the stand out Wii U exclusives currently available.

This game was reviewed on Wii U.

It was the first Nintendo published Wii U game since the system’s launch back in November. But perhaps most importantly, it was a fun and charming game, the kind that would appeal to all audiences across all demographics, exactly the kind of game that Nintendo is known so well for.

Now the promised 3DS edition hits the market: Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins is a 3DS companion game to the Wii U title. It is not a port of that game; instead, it acts as a prequel to the story told in the Wii U game, set two years before, and showing us cheeky protagonist Chase McCain’s rise to power. However, the game is a victim of its own ambition: in trying to faithfully recreate the living, breathing sandbox of the Wii U game, it flies too close to the sun and pushes Nintendo’s much less powered 3DS to its limits.

There’s just a whole lot going on, and it’s clear the 3DS cannot handle it all: NPCs and cars disappear and reappear as you move away or towards them respectively, a fog effect reminiscent of similarly ambitious N64 games is used to cloud a horrible draw distance, pop ins and bad textures are common; adding insult to injury is the fact that the otherwise faithfully recreated Lego City is rather sparsely populated to begin with.

There is no voice acting outside of a few cutscenes, and this perhaps hurts the game the most, because the voice acting on the Wii U game is what gave it so much of its charm, personality, and humor. Here, the lack of voice acting really hurts the otherwise tight script, and the game’s humor seems juvenile without the expert delivery of the Wii U game.

In addition to all of this, The Chase Begins commits the cardinal sin of a Nintendo published game on a Nintendo system, most importantly, a Nintendo handheld: loading times. Players of the Wii U game will probably remember the well publicized long loading times that characterized the game (and pretty well summarized the system the game was on in a nutshell), and they’re back here. The loading times can often be several minutes long, and this is inexcusable.

On a system that uses cartridges (and the older players among us will remember how cartridges aren’t supposed to have loading times… right Nintendo?), this is unacceptable. On a handheld, this is unacceptable. From a player’s perspective, being forced to wait for a new area or building to load really dampens the impetus to actually explore the lovingly crafted Lego City that has been realized here.

To the game’s credit, it does do certain things really well. The 3D effect in particular, is beautiful: it acts like a window into a fully realized game world, and you peek into this diorama, a city that seems to be truly alive (or well, would be if the 3DS could actually support it);  in addition, for all the other faults of this game, the frame rate seems to hold steady.

Perhaps even more impressively, this is truly a free roaming game, not segmenting the player to specific sections for specific missions. There is no hub anymore: Lego City is your playground, and you activate missions from there.

That might actually be the reason the game has so many concessions and compromises. The 3DS is a powerful little handheld, much more powerful than many people give it credit for, especially as games like Resident Evil Revelations and Kid Icarus Uprising prove. However, there are certainly limits to what it can achieve, and those limits are apparent here.

Maybe a different approach to making the 3DS game, maybe a more segmented approach, maybe setting it in an island suburb of Lego City that wasn’t quite as big, and therefore wouldn’t have taxed the system as much, would have been preferable here.

The Chase Begins’ shortcomings aren’t just limited to the technical side of things, however. They manifest themselves im other ways too. As mentioned above, the game’s humor and writing feel a bit flat.

This is a feeling that pervades the entire story of the game, which feels a whole lot more limited in scope and ambition than the Wii U game (an understandably frustrating feeling, considering that the justification for all the compromises the game makes is its ambition to be every bit equal to its Wii U sibling); and while this is a largely unfair accusation, the fact that the game’s first couple of hours, characterized by tutorial missions that have you performing such banal tasks as getting donuts, really further the illusion.

It’s a shame, because I really wanted to like this game. It’s beautiful when it works, it’s charming when the 3DS allows it to be, and it’s fun once it gets down to the meat of the matter. However, for once, a Nintendo funded game is a complete compromise on its handheld compared to its console sibling; the 3DS’s power has so far been enough to suffice for almost every kind of game that has been on it.

However, now, for the first time, two years into the system’s lifespan, this game may be the first indication that Nintendo needs a hardware refresh if it really wants its handheld to be a companion to its console.

Get Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins for really young kids who don’t have access to the Wii U version. Otherwise there are multiple other, much better games on the 3DS for you to feasibly invest in.

This game was reviewed on Nintendo 3DS.

Game Overview:

In LEGO City Undercover, Chase McCain is trying to arrest the dangerous Rex Fury who is responsible for the recent  crime wave in LEGO City. To do this he goes undercover, exploring the sprawling open-world LEGO City and donning a range of different costumes for special abilities; for example, dressed up as a miner he can utilise dynamite, while becoming a robber lets him pry open doors.

The game was published by Nintendo for the Wii U.

The newest trailer of LEGO City Undercover reveals that you won’t be going it alone in the upcoming sandbox style adventure game from TT Fusion. The uber awesome (and uber clumsy) Frank Honey also has your back. And in his hands, you can count on it being all the worse for wear.

As part of an on-going webisode series, the newest trailer introduces us to Honey who has all the mannerisms of an honest, upstanding citizen when he’s not bumbling around trying to get you killed. In the trailer, Honey lands in even bigger trouble than usual behind a Police truck. The webisode ends with a sense of foreboding for protagonist Chase McCain.

TT Fusion has also released several new screenshots showcasing the gameplay for LEGO City Undercover. Take a gander at them below.

Published by Nintendo, LEGO City Undercover releases exclusively on the Wii U for North America on March 18th and for Europe on March 28th. It will also be followed by a 3DS prequel called LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins releasing in April.