LEGO City Undercover

 Switch
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 183 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 129 out of 183
  2. Mixed: 33 out of 183
  3. Negative: 21 out of 183
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  1. Shawndroid
    Feb 26, 2018
    6
    It's not skill based: You follow the arrows and press A, then listen to a joke. Sometimes there is no way to know what you need to do, but the arrows point you in the right direction. It's not always clear the exact spot you need to stand to progress. It's very automatic, mindless fun.

    There are occasional 3D platforming skills needed. It's basically a parody of cop movies. The    It's not skill based: You follow the arrows and press A, then listen to a joke. Sometimes there is no way to know what you need to do, but the arrows point you in the right direction. It's not always clear the exact spot you need to stand to progress. It's very automatic, mindless fun.

    There are occasional 3D platforming skills needed. It's basically a parody of cop movies. The locations keep changing, the dialogue is funny and it's not hard, so it's amusing. The missions can feel pretty long, however. There were also a few bugs, like during the first chase where I couldn't steer until I reset the mission manually.

    Pros
    • Fun game with funny dialogue

    • Fun to play lego and destroy things

    • Looks simple but nice

    Cons
    • Go to location, press A (very simple)

    • Sometimes the Switch struggles to keep up (choppy)

    • So automatic that you rely on it knowing what you are trying to do    … Expand
  2. Retro_indepecat
    Aug 30, 2017
    7
    Not a bad game, nice history and graphics, a lot of secondary missions... but have serious bugs that erase your current progress, and i have had to save state every time because of them.
  3. SuperInkLink64
    Dec 3, 2018
    7
    This game's humor and gameplay are all very enjoyable to play through. HOWEVER, there is severe performance issues for it on the Switch. This game has dropped to frame rates among 15 or lower, especially in undocked mode. Plus, the loading times are insane. If the performance wasn't an issue, this game would easily be a 9 or 10. However, I have to mark it down because of it. If you aren'tThis game's humor and gameplay are all very enjoyable to play through. HOWEVER, there is severe performance issues for it on the Switch. This game has dropped to frame rates among 15 or lower, especially in undocked mode. Plus, the loading times are insane. If the performance wasn't an issue, this game would easily be a 9 or 10. However, I have to mark it down because of it. If you aren't the kind of person who is bothered by frame drops, then I recommend picking this game up sometime. Just do it while it's on sale.… Expand
  4. javi_741
    Mar 4, 2021
    7
    I'll say this game is good for the most part, not great but it is an enjoyable experience for the most part. One thing that this game nails out of the park are the story. It is a legitimately fun game for both kids and even adults with clever and cheesy humor. I love how the game doesn't take itself or the plot seriously by making fun of itself and making a parody of cop movies which makesI'll say this game is good for the most part, not great but it is an enjoyable experience for the most part. One thing that this game nails out of the park are the story. It is a legitimately fun game for both kids and even adults with clever and cheesy humor. I love how the game doesn't take itself or the plot seriously by making fun of itself and making a parody of cop movies which makes it a more lighthearted and positive experience all the way through. The voice acting and cutscenes are also a welcome addition as they add more to the experience with an interesting story and funny plot.

    The graphics tbh are a little underwhelming for me for a 2017 game on Switch, even in 2012 the graphics could've done a little bit of work. The lighting is poor as it looks like an early Xbox 360 game at times. Its draw distance is very limited be with the game looking very blurry looking long distances, and a slightly higher resolution would've been welcome. I know that this game has huge open-world with a lot of NPCs and buildings which makes it difficult to run the game at an amazing graphical fidelity and performance. However, we've seen other open-world games look noticeably better than this game like GTA 5, skyrim, and others and these were 7th gen games on the Xbox 360 and PS3 when Lego City was made for the more powerful Wii U and ported over again to the even more powerful Switch. While I wasn't exactly expectating Lego City to look as good asGTA 5 in terms of graphical fidelity since Lego City had a more limited budget, I think they could've definitely optimized the game more to have better lighting and resolution especially on Switch, which are my two main problems with the graphics. You'll also run some performance issues where the game occasionally stutters below 30fps during busy scenes, while for the most part it is still playable, these stutters definitely look disgusting to the eyes when they do happen. However, this performance problem is far worse in the 2 player mode where it legitimately looks like the game struggles to stay at 30 and mainly hovers around the upper 20s. I'd say its still a playable game in this form, but that frame rate in 2 player mode hurts my eyes at times. Overall, id say the graphics are right around average but could've been a lot better.

    In terms of the music, there isn't a ton of music in this game and a lot of it is reused in during missions however I'll say its pretty good. Not like Mario Galaxy type legendary of course but there are some good tracks here and there.

    As for the game itself, I really love how open and big the world is, it is like Lego GTA essentially without the killing and some of the grittiness found in GTA. It is just fun to just explore and drive around this world and do whatever you want anywhere, you could destroy cars , fly helicopters, and there are a ton of collectables in the world so there is a lot to do. If you want a child friendly type of GTA game or a GTA replacement on Switch, Lego City is definitely a great choice for that.

    In terms of the actual story mode and missions themselves, to me I'm being honest it felt incredibly meh to me. It isn't horrible yet i wouldn't call it anything great or either, the story mode feels average to me. In the missions it primarily consists of exploring for items to advance and solving some simple puzzles, which is somewhat enjoyable and satisfying to find something to advance or solve a puzzle through exploration which is the main thing I do enjoy about the missions. However, my main problem with the story mode is how easy and generic the actual missions are, there isn't much interesting gameplay outside the occasional puzzle solving or exploration and very little challenge. Platforming is very easy and simple which takes little to no skill at all to accomplish, the enemies are so easy to beat where all you need to do is spam press one button to arrest them with no complex dodging or other strategy required, and there is literally no penalty for dying with no game overs or lives that would make the game more of a challenge. Literally when you die you just lose Legos and respawn at the exact same point, and you could do that the entire time. For a kid this gameplay might be fine and encouraging for them since they don't need to have much skill to beat these missions. However, playing this as an adult the gameplay is feels too generic and easy most of the time. While I still do enjoy the story mode as a decent chill type of game where it encourages you to explore to solve puzzles, i feel like it fall shorts of being anything great and the story mode could've been much better.

    Also, Switching between costumes to unlock certain stuff is incredibly annoying.

    But overall I'll say this game is good, great story and world, good music and I guess a decent story mode, but falls short in the gameplay department.    … Expand
  5. FabbeFapFap
    Apr 12, 2017
    7
    I first gave this game a blazing bad review, giving it a score of 2 due to the obvious optimisation problems it have, the varying 10 - 20 fps in both handheld and tv-mode and bad performance in multiplayer.

    Though! After giving this review i played it through and its a really entertaining puzzle type open world of a game, though i wish there was a hard mode or something where it    I first gave this game a blazing bad review, giving it a score of 2 due to the obvious optimisation problems it have, the varying 10 - 20 fps in both handheld and tv-mode and bad performance in multiplayer.

    Though!

    After giving this review i played it through and its a really entertaining puzzle type open world of a game, though i wish there was a hard mode or something where it doesn't hold your hand through the whole story and makes you figure things out for yourself.

    And i don't know if it is that I've grown used to it or if it have gotten better but the frame drops seems to be less than when i started playing the game.

    Also after finishing the story the game started to crash. Ive played about 20 Hrs without crashes and 7 hrs with about 8-9 software crashes.

    The bad

    FPS Drops
    Locked crazy annoying camera angles in some areas
    The outrageous price
    Crashes

    The good:

    Fun story with a lot of fun references to games and movies
    Multiplayer is a blast even with the poor fps

    Verdict:

    Dont buy this game if you're not a big lego fan, until they hopefully adress the fps and optimisation problems in future updates and drop the price.    … Expand
  6. toonlinkman
    Apr 29, 2017
    7
    I never played the wii u version so I get some enjoyment from this. Having multiplayer co-op makes this game. It is like a grand theft auto for kids. The puzzles are the right difficulty level.
  7. peck324
    Apr 8, 2017
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Here is my review of Lego City Undercover [Switch] (Spoilers):

    Story - Story is hilarious, having many references of well known movies from past, present and future (ex. Frank Honey is referenced of the coming movie Baby, giving Honey bad at driving and people calling him Honey). It gives a good family fun for the story especially for the children who haven't seen most of the big hit movies that we know and love so far. The ending gave out the old hero saves the city and gets the girl cliche, but made it funny is that one of the Sentinels is still after Chase with a Unicycle from beginning to end.

    Gameplay - Much like Grand Theft Auto, except for the extreme violence and profanity of course, gives the player the open world of lego city to have fun with using disguise characters, collecting lego bricks, and re-performing parkour actions. But its just bad at the end as there are major glitches in the game. The game takes more than 2 minutes to load to the main menu after launching the game. Most of the time the audio cuts off during gameplay, having the player to force quit the game and re-launch. And I experience a non-progression after completing the free falling and start the parachute scenario when chasing Rex. After so many ways of maneuvering the free falling scenario I still get the result of non-progressing further in the game. But these situations are happening on the Switch only.

    Mechanic - Easy to input and memorize, since it is a lego game there's not much to over learn during gameplay simply destroying constructed legos and when the opportunity for reconstructing other buildings in order to proceed of finishing the chapter. The combat system is parody version of Batman Arkham games as there pressing Y to knock down enemies and reacting by pressing X to see some "Cool" animations of defeating enemies. Driving is not a bother as well especially the steering mechanic, it gets wobbly form time to time but the player will get use to it when progressing more missions.

    Characters - Chase McCain is just another Emmet from The Lego Movie, except he has a roll in the Lego Universe as a cliche cop who uses multiple disguises to finish his case of capturing Rex Furry. Frank Honey is the dorky characters that the player would just instantly avoid as he annoys Chase with his ignorant ideas and winds himself in trouble when helping. Characters from well known movies also appear either helping Chase or be cameos during cutscenes and gameplay (ex. Morgan Freeman helps Chase getting out of prison but does not want everyone to know its him because of copyright claim).

    Conclusion - Story is hilarious, Gameplay is bad on the Switch, Mechanics are easy and Characters are hilarious to remember upon interactions. Lego City Undercover is a game that is fun for family time when it comes to nostalgia of multiple movie references but overall the gameplay still needs some work to make the game well played.

    Final verdict:
    6/10 - The load times and gameplay is the reason I gave this score, but this is on the Switch I don't know how the other consoles are experiencing with their gameplay but I would not recommend this game on the Switch or PC right now until an official patch is set.

    Buy, Not Buy or Rent - Rent, this game is an excuse to spent more time with their child when it comes to lego games.    … Expand
  8. MrClassic05
    Jul 22, 2017
    7
    Disclaimer: this review is written by a person who played the Wii U version and dropped it for 2 years

    Lego City undercover is my favorite lego game right after Lego Worlds, the game is about chase McCain who is a police trying to save lego city from the popular robber Rex Fury (Again) The simplest way I can describe this game is a "Kid-friendly Grand Theft Auto" You won't be    Disclaimer: this review is written by a person who played the Wii U version and dropped it for 2 years

    Lego City undercover is my favorite lego game right after Lego Worlds, the game is about chase McCain who is a police trying to save lego city from the popular robber Rex Fury (Again)
    The simplest way I can describe this game is a "Kid-friendly Grand Theft Auto"
    You won't be comparing the 2 with each other
    The game is so huge that the story itself is 25% of the game( don't expect cutscenes outside story)
    I had some frame rate drops at multiplayer and I find the game to be really easy
    And. The most difficult parts are beatable from the 2nd to 4th try

    If you have the Wii U version there are 2 reasons to get the switch version
    1) Playing it on the go
    2) Multiplayer

    The game doesn't support online by any way
    The Nintendo reference requires an update to get and the Mario hat was removed(unfortunately)

    This game is worth a try if you haven't played the Wii U version and 100%ing it is fun    … Expand
  9. Ghazman2019
    Jun 6, 2019
    7
    This is a great LEGO game! Not the best in my opinion but worth checking out if you like LEGO and loves the free roam driving in GTA because it's a mixture of both GTA and LEGO!
  10. Ssd-_-bsS
    Apr 26, 2023
    7
    El juego esta bastante bien, mejor de lo que me esperaba. El doblaje muy bueno.
    Lo peor el control de los coches y que no tenga una radio para escuchar musica mientras conduces.
    The game is pretty good, better than I expected.
    The worst is the control of the cars and the fact that it does not have a radio to listen music while you drive.
  11. Bandom
    Nov 24, 2022
    7
    Great interesting game, for a Lego genre.. open world kinda like lego GTA, but way too long. Wayyy
  12. DoktarioMyst
    Oct 14, 2022
    6
    - er is alleen maar de final boss. aangezien er meer bendeleiders zijn is dit zeker gemiste potentie

    +/- de hele map is open wanneer je de game opstart. de game opstarten is duurt wel even though +/- er zijn verschillende intresante collectibles. wel spijtig dat er teveel "pak me" collectibles zijn - de radar die je helpt collectibles te vinden is te kort en helpt te weinig om    - er is alleen maar de final boss. aangezien er meer bendeleiders zijn is dit zeker gemiste potentie

    +/- de hele map is open wanneer je de game opstart. de game opstarten is duurt wel even though

    +/- er zijn verschillende intresante collectibles. wel spijtig dat er teveel "pak me" collectibles zijn

    - de radar die je helpt collectibles te vinden is te kort en helpt te weinig om nuttig te zijn

    + de missies zijn gevarieerd

    conclusie:
    ik zou de game geweldig tof vinden als de 100% toffer had geweest. als je alleen de story mode speelt dan heb je wel een OK game hier    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

60
#60 Best Switch Game of 2017
26
#26 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2017
34
#34 Most Shared Switch Game of 2017

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 17
  3. Negative: 0 out of 17
  1. Nintendojo
    Jun 1, 2017
    58
    Lego City Undercover is a solid offering from Warner Bros. and TT Games. It doesn’t offer an experience all that different from previous Lego titles, but the jump to the Switch hardware does make it a step up from many other Wii U and 3DS Lego offerings. The game does suffer from some technical warts, but for those that never made the trip to Lego City, this is certainly the best way to experience it.
    Read full review
  2. Switch Player
    Apr 25, 2017
    76
    LEGO City Undercover is an action-packed platformer filled to the brim with secrets and charm. Whilst the series as a whole has evolved - negating how impressive this was back in 2013 - you'll still find plenty to enjoy on its own merit.
    Read full review
  3. Nintendo Force Magazine
    Apr 24, 2017
    75
    A good port of a good game. Had it been given more time for extra bug testing, it might have been great! [Issue #27 – May/June 2017, p. 69]
See all critic reviews »