Love letter to cop tv series and movies
This game is quite different from everything TT did until then, it's obviously inspired by GTA, an open world with lots to do and explore.
But it really shines when you know the references to 70s to 90s cop tv shows and movies. You have your yelling police chief, cops liberating the world from donuts, your comic relief, the blonde damsel in distress. Columbo, Dirty Harry, Starsky and Hutch, Chips, you name it. If it was filmed, you find at reference to it in this game. While the music is mostly 70s funk and 80s rock, cut scenes are often done in 90s style, including slow mothon running and waving hair to rock music.
The game was designed for the Wii U and has very simple controls. Instead of having one character with multiple skills, you can (and have to) switch between costumes to change the skill you want to use.
While this is not a bad idea to keep it simple, later in the game it becomes a bit annoying, having to switch char all the time. Other Lego games do this better, here it is part of the gameplay.
The scanner to find hidden object is also useful to find objects in the world. Sadly you can't mark them and it's not always easy to determine how far they are away or where they are located. You basically only see the direction. So you either have en edeic memory or you have to pull it out the scanner over again if they are hidden behind other objects.
The game has a large range of vehicles, costumes to collect and there are the so called super builds, large attractions that you can build with the bricks you collect, sometimes unlocked by races or easy riddles. Hint: Build the roller coaster late, it is in the middle of the path for a stunt course and if you build it, it can get in the way, the collision detection at that point is not good and it is quite random if you make it or not.
Later in the game you get jetpacks, helicopters and what not to help you reach areas with more items to collect. One of TTs best Lego games for sure.
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