After Mario Kart 64 was so successful, a kart-racing game wave took over the Nintendo 64, and many
franchises started making them, as they are easy to make and were very popular. Since then, it’s died down
a little bit, but you’ll still see some of these kart games. Lego Racers was one of them, and back at the time I bought this game, I still was collecting Lego sets. This game’s tracks are all based on Lego sets of the past and present (or at least present at the time), and so are the people. The nice thing about it was the ability to make your own racers... but I’ll get to that later.

This, like every other one of my many Reviews, is rated on a 0-4 star scale. I’ll hope that you all understand what that means.

Graphics: *1/2

The graphics, as expected, are not that pretty. True, you can see all kinds of little features on the tracks and racers, but the blockiness of them makes them unattractive. Of course, Legos are blocks, but that doesn’t mean even the non-Lego features of tracks should have that square look. I know this was a problem with the N64’s graphics altogether, the whole blocky-square-octagon type of thing, but this game didn’t make the N64’s graphics look any better than normal. You can tell from the way most of the tracks look pretty dull.

Sound: 1/2

The music in this game ranges from catchy to boring to annoying to inaudible. Probably the only good tunes
are the menu tune and the build racer tune. Then you’ve got some really annoying music at a couple of races, some that you can barely hear, and other tunes that just don’t have any more musical value than a
lawn mower.

Difficulty: ****

You should figure to see that high difficulty rating in any game I don’t like. Like Diddy Kong Racing, the races are near-impossible to win. The trouble is, you’ve got to finish third or better every race, and to win a Cup, you’ve got to finish first at least twice and second the other times. The trouble is, there’s one racer who does really well every race, and he drives at an incredible speed. You’ll never catch up if you hit one wall. And in this game, the walls are many, meaning winning is a very difficult thing. If you aren’t getting the best power-ups, you won’t stand a chance in the race.

Controls: ***1/2

I really love the controls to this game, as there’s no bothering with the B and Down buttons to go in reverse, just hold down B. The only complaint I have with them is that if you’re trying to brake, you might start going in reverse, which will make you lose tons of time. The rest of the controls are so easy to learn that I don’t need to explain them here. Want them? Fine. A is accelerate, B is brake, hold B is reverse, Z is power-ups or horn, R is power slide, B+R is super slide, and Control Stick is turn. Again, they’re really not that hard to learn, and it makes one thing about this game good so far.

Tracks: ***1/2

You know, the tracks to this game really aren’t that bad. They’re made with themes of Lego sets, and you’ll
see them as you drive by. There are even interactive features like lava bubbles and force fields. In fact, so much that I’ve got to give this category a good grade, because you’ll really enjoy this game’s tracks, if you can unlock them, of course. There are lots of shortcuts as well, but you’ll need certain items to open up the shortcuts.

Create Racer: ****

Simply the best portion of this game. You can make a person from hair to legs, with authenic-looking Lego
pieces. You can then name them, but here comes the kicker: you can actually build your car out of Lego
pieces! Pretty nice, especially since the way you build it affects your racing. You’ll want to keep it even on each side of your car, for balance reasons, and you’ll have a choice between high acceleration or high top speed. High acceleration comes with a light car. High top speed comes with a heavy car (lots of pieces to it). They’ll also affect how you get bumped around by others, or if you bump others around, and bigger is better for bumping. Of course, I just like putting a whole bunch of funny-looking pieces on my car, more than any of the strategy stuff. Still, it’s a lot of fun. It even lets you test drive your car on a practice track before you officially end the racer-making process. It’s one of the most innovative, creative options in a game I’ve ever seen.

Power-ups: ***1/2

I’ve seemed to have hit a good part of this game, as the power-up system is fantastic. You can make your
weapon/shield/speed boost better by collecting white blocks to go with your basic color, which is a red, blue, green, or yellow block on the track. Like Diddy Kong Racing, it lets you know what item you’re getting before you get it, so you can choose your item accordingly. Unlike Diddy Kong Racing, if you get your maximum of three white blocks and hit a different color block than your original (you had green but got a yellow), you still keep your item at the power-up level of your other power-up, meaning you don’t have to start over. The best and most useful item in this game is the warp, which can be used to warp ahead in the race by using three white blocks with a green one. Remember to press Z when you want to use it, but I’m sure you knew that already!

Steering: *

The party for this game is over, as I’ve come to the more serious stuff: the actual gameplay, racing without all the extras. It’s very hard to steer your car around bends, and the car just isn’t very responsive to the controls. More than that, there are so many awkward pillars of buildings just sticking out into the track that sometimes you’ll hit one of them, and then you’ll have a heck of a time just backing up and getting by it. The trouble is, hitting anything that’s a wall or like a wall will completely stall your car. So with it being so hard to steer, you’ll end up losing lots of time with your car stopping after hitting a wall-like object.

Replayability: ***

If you manage to unlock the courses, which should take several tries, you’ll enjoy playing this game quite a
few times, but be warned: it only supports 2-player play, like a PlayStation game. That means those of you
looking for a fun multi-player racing game have come to the wrong place if this is your game.

Fun Factor!: **

The trouble with Lego Racers is that it takes the fun out of racing. It makes it into a chore to win, when you’re so caught up in the intensity of trying to hold onto a lead on the last lap that you’re more frustrated than you are excited. However, that doesn’t mean there’s no fun. In fact, sometimes just building crazy cars is fun. So it’s a mixed bag of fun and no fun, leading to that 2-star rating.

OVERALL: *1/2

Well, it was a good try, Lego. But you came up short in the end. If you could have only made it easier to drive, improved the graphics and sound, and lowered the difficulty a little, I would have recommended this game to others. Instead, I’ve got to only recommend a rent, because it’s not much better than any other third-party kart-racing game. Still, you did put good effort into it with those interactive features like the building. Now if only you had a good company supporting this game, like EA or Activision or one of those, this could have possibly been one of the best kart-racing games ever, as it had potential. But you blew it, and I’ve got to tell everyone out there: rent it at the most. If you don’t like racing, then skip it altogether.

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