Day 84, Game 84 - Lego City: Undercover

Finally.

That's all that really needs to be said about the release of Lego City: Undercover for the Wii U last week.

Finally. Finally a new game for the Wii U which had a huge launch lineup of games (albeit a lot of ports from already released games), but since then hasn't had one decent retail release to speak of. In fact, I don't think a single new game for the system has been released retail since its launch at all until the release of Lego City: Undercover.

Now, there have been a handful of eShop games to be released for the console, and most of them have been anywhere from "good" to flat out "amazing." Without these random appearances of new games, I would swear that Nintendo had already quit on this system and chose to not even bother making anything else for it, focusing instead on the now uber-successful 3DS.

They couldn't keep Rayman Legends as an exclusive to their console, and lost the release date from "launch window" to "when everyone else gets it too." Even Aliens: Colonial Marines didn't want to come out on the Wii U... And that's saying something.

So, with the release of Lego City: Undercover, I hadn't been this excited for something from Nintendo since, well, the launch of the Wii U. At the point of this game hitting retail shelves, I was ready to buy anything - and I mean anything - that had that Nintendo stamp on the box art wrapped around that beautiful Wii U blue box. Seriously. I would have just bought an empty box, no game included, if it said "NEW WII U GAME (box)!!!!" on it. Seriously.

I am dead serious people. And I'm probably not the only one.

But I didn't buy an empty box, did I? No, I bought Lego City: Undercover. And thankfully, the game is as good as the wait for it to come out. It is your typical Lego game, but without the license of a movie or comic book franchise attached to it. It is a unique story centered around Lego City, and a cop that has the dubious task of keeping it safe from the recently escaped villain of the story. Everything you would expect from a Lego game is in here, from collecting studs and Lego blocks, to rebuilding broken Lego pieces into usable objects, to costume changes and everything in between. The humor has never been better, as it pulls from a countless number pop culture references to anchor down the overall feeling of this game: fun and funny.

Oh, and did I mention it is an open world, too? Lego Batman 2 tried this open world idea, but Lego City: Undercover put that attempt to shame. Think Grand Theft Auto, but in Lego City. There are dozens of different sections of the big city to explore, all equipped with their own set of collectibles and unlockables to search for during exploration.

The story is great, and constantly evolving styles as it progresses, but the meat of your experience is embedded in the free play exploration of the giant city. While I haven't beaten the game yet, I noticed right away that wandering off in between missions to explore isn't ideal early on, because of the lack of costumes you have, making everything you would need to unlock virtually impossible. Unless you just like doing your own thing, sightseeing and what not, I'm sensing that you probably want to complete the story before venturing out to satisfy your collecting/hoarding tendencies.

Overall, I am having a blast with this games, despite it's ridiculously long loading times. It's a Lego game, it's funny and humorous without being cliche, it's a completely open world city, and best yet, it is a new Wii U game.

Finally.

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