Zelda: Wind Waker HD, Animal Crossing 3DS Price Cuts, Mario 3D Land New 3DS Bundle Announced Nintendo's Deal Could Get You a Free Copy of Pokemon X or Y LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins Wiki » Nintendo Items and Easter Eggs LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Beings is a prequel to the Wii U game, and follows the exploits of Chase McCain as a rookie cop in the still-growing and developing LEGO City. E10+ for Everyone 10 and older: Cartoon Violence, Crude Humor LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes Harvest Moon: A New Beginning Pokemon Alpha Sapphire Version Pokemon Omega Ruby Version Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins is a sandbox-style action-adventure video game developed by TT Fusion, that was released on the Nintendo 3DS in April 2013.[1] Unlike previous Lego titles developed by Traveller's Tales, which have been based on various licenses, the game is based on the Lego City brand and was published by Nintendo.
It serves as a prequel to Lego City Undercover. Set about 2 years before the events of Lego City Undercover, Chase McCain, a rookie cop working for the Lego City Police Department, has one objective in his mind: to put the most wanted man, Rex Fury, into jail. As far as story connections go, it was Chase who accidentally revealed that Natalia Kowalski, who previously worked as a news reporter turned out to be the secret witness in the Rex trial, which forced her to go under witness protection. It also outlines how Chase managed to arrest Rex Fury. Furthermore, the game reveals that Mayor Gleeson, a character also featured in Lego City Undercover, was formerly the chief of police, and how Chief Dunby was just a common officer. The game was first announced during Nintendo's press conference at E3 2011 on 7 June 2011 with the tentative name Lego City Stories. On 17 January 2013, the game was revealed to be Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins, and that it would be a prequel to the Wii U game.
Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins received mixed reviews with aggregate scores of 64% from GameRankings and 65/100 from Metacritic.[3] IGN gave it 6.3/10, calling it a "decent" game that is marred by "a lot of fog, a lot of loading, no voice acting and a jarring framerate". Liam Martin of Digital Spy gave the game 3 out of 5 stars, commenting on the games lack of appeal but praising the game's visuals and stating that "Unfortunately, where LEGO City Undercover referenced movies and used voice acting to great effect, hardware limitations have forced TT Fusion to keep spoken cutscenes to a minimum, something which ultimately detracts from the hilarity. Despite its flaws, LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins is a charming release, packed with diverse missions, mostly impressive visuals and a great cast of characters." Chris Scullion of Official Nintendo Magazine gave the game 64% out of 100, commenting on the amount of cutbacks from the Wii U sequel (Undercover), stating that "The Chase Begins has far less funnier bones than Undercover.
The silly jokes, clever spoofs and brilliant dialogue between the characters have been replaced with a handful of average cutscenes and loads of text-heavy dialogue which, while functional, are rarely amusing and never hilarious. Loading times were frustrating enough in LEGO City: Undercover but are even more infuriating here considering the game's running off a cartridge and is designed for handheld play. It's lacking visually, too. Thick fog (to hide having to render distant buildings) smothers the city and roads and pavements are far less crowded, making it feel like you're wandering around a post-apocalyptic LEGO City. The characters' faces don't move, making in-game cutscenes feel awkward and the frame rate is clunky if you're playing in 3D. It's technically impressive(ish), but not as fun or funny as the Wii U game." On 12 September 2013 Nintendo announced that the game has sold 264,000 units in North America. LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins clearly has high aspirations to deliver a similar experience to its Wii U predecessor, but the roadblocks of the 3DS's portable hardware ultimately prevent it from getting there.
While it does hold the distinction of being 3DS’s first open-world adventure, countless concessions were made to get it here. What’s left is a story and characters that are charming, memorable and incredibly funny, but a game that is less than joyful to actually play. Despite plenty of compromises, there’s still a core essence to Chase Begins that retains appeal – particularly for younger gamers. This streamlined, 10-hour adventure follows rookie cop Chase McCain through a prequel to the Wii U story, where he fights gangs, engages in basic high-speed pursuits, tracks down collectibles, utilizes a variety of powers through different outfits, plus uses the tried-and-true smash-and-rebuild mechanic to navigate the world around him. All of this typically culminates in a boss fight for each region before moving on to a new area, new outfit and new gang. Largely due to the stellar voice acting and ability to riff on a wide range of movies and television series, Travellers' Tales succeeds in creating its first original world and characters (previous LEGO games are all based around series like Star Wars and Batman).
By and large, this formula works. Chase Begins paces itself well, never allowing any particular segment to outstay its welcome, and the addition of multiple bosses brings with it a sense of finality in each zone. Despite the fact that they are more of a cosmetic change than anything, the new outfits allow players to feel a small sense of accomplishment along the way. Each segment of the world effectively rinses and repeats what you’ve done before, but for a portable game (which almost demands brief, bite-sized play sessions) it works. Yet “sacrifice” seems to be the word that comes to mind again and again with Chase Begins. Everything in this 3DS version – from locations to characters to mission types – is ported over from the Wii U, albeit in a stripped-down, rearranged form. A heavy dose of visibility-limiting fog and long loading times between zones make LEGO City harder and less fun to navigate, and take away much of the freedom and sense of discovery you get from most open-world games.
And, unfortunately, that still doesn’t stop objects from popping into view or the framerate from swinging significantly even in modest settings. I just felt like I was wandering in some swampy, dismal harbor. More often than not, I just wanted to get out and move on to my next task. All of this is to emphasize one particular point: relative to the Wii U version, LEGO City Undercover loses much of its cleverness on the 3DS. Outside of a select few cutscenes, there's none of the voice acting which went a long, long way in allowing the Wii U version to effectively parody crime movies. In fact, this 3DS iteration seems to hope that you’ve played its predecessor, so that the witty characterization presented in that version will carry over here. There’s still some charm – a trace of what made the first Undercover such a success – but it’s so subdued that it just doesn’t work nearly as well. It might seem unfair to directly measure the 3DS version of LEGO City Undercover against its Wii U counterpart.