Lego Racers 2 is a Lego-themed racing video game developed by Attention to Detail and published by Lego Software. It was first released in September 2001 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2 and Game Boy Advance. It is the sequel to the 1999 game Lego Racers. This sequel was first revealed by The Lego Group on 20 August 2001. Unlike the original Lego Racers, the player has more "freedom", because the player can race or drive freely, and there are other characters that the player can talk to. Lego Racers 2 also has, like in the original, a car and characters designer. It has more bricks but fewer characters to make and edit. In Lego Racers 2, up to 11 opponents can be chosen. There are five large worlds, starting with the hometown, Sandy Bay. The player wins 4 races in Sandy Bay, then collects gold bricks to move on to Dino Island, Mars, Arctic, and finally Xalax. In Xalax, the player will face Rocket Racer, who when beaten, will hand over the title as the greatest racer in the galaxy.
Each world is based on a particular theme. In addition to racing cars in the Racers product line, each theme is based on an actual series Lego sets, and includes parts of those sets. Upgrades for players' car may be obtained by winning mini games. Each mini game is accessible by driving through a vortex while exploring the Lego worlds. There are two mini games per world, one on an easy level and one on a difficult level. The first vortex players go to will be the easy level. There are three categories of upgrades available: Grip, which improves how well players' car turns and how much their car slides; Power, which controls how fast players' car goes and how much climbing power their car has; and Shield, which controls how much damage the car can take before being destroyed. Powerups are various types of weapons that can be used while racing. Players obtain a powerup by driving over a white, spinning, glowing Lego brick. A counter appears that cycles through all of the powerups;
the one it lands on is the one players get. Players may press the "fire" button to stop the counter. Otherwise, the counter will automatically give players a bonus based on their position in the race. Persons in last place will receive the best powerups. Unlike Lego Racers 1, there are no power-enhancing bricks for their powerup. Lego Racers 2 was rated average to positive. The PC version was given a score of 7.8 out of 10 by IGN; the reviewer praised its graphics and gameplay,[3] but criticized the voice and talk which were derided as "cartoon gibberish". IGN rated the PS2 version only 6 out of 10, which corresponding graphics and gameplay were inferior to its PC counterpart. An additional note is that a copy cost $20 for PC, but $40 for PS2; the reviewer thought the latter to be poor value for money, while the PC version, at half the cost, was acceptable.Genre: Childrens, RacingRelease Year: 2001Developer: Attention To DetailPublisher: Lego SoftwareAge Rating: EveryonePlayability Status: PerfectTested On: Windows 8 x64Availability: Copyright retained - Out of print/unavailable
Kids these days eh? When I was a child, Lego races took place on the carpet and involved a lot of pushing around little Lego models and a healthy chunk of imagination. Nowadays of course, you can simulate said Lego racing on your computer, with a copy of Lego Racers 2. While the computer version can be fun, we can’t help but hope the traditional method still has its place. If you have a copy of this game and a modern PC, getting it going again is now easy and it’s a great way to keep the kids entertained on a rainy afternoon. The most difficult thing about playing Lego Racers 2 on a modern PC is getting the game installed. Using the installer provided on the CD, most users will get a “Not enough memory” error, despite having more than ample computer memory to run this title. The problem is due to a programming error, modern PCs have so much more memory now than in 2001 that the installer just gets confused. Various solutions around the web range from setting compatibility modes (didn’t work for us) to physically yanking memory chips out of your computer.
None of the proposed solutions seemed acceptable, so we’ve re-written the installer for the game. Our replacement installer will work on any PC, regardless of how much memory you have installed. You can download it here (link dead? Let me know here). Once you have downloaded the installer, simply pop your Lego Racers 2 CD-ROM in your optical drive and run the installer. Follow all the on screen prompts and the game should be installed within a couple of minutes. If you have any issues with the installer please leave a comment and let us know. Once the game is installed, you can launch it from the Start menu or Start screen by searching for “Lego Racers 2” and clicking the icon that then appears. Before you hit the race track, there are some visual quality options you may want to tweak, to stop the game from looking quite so blocky (except where it is supposed to, of course). From the main menu, choose “Game Options” and then “Graphics”. The following options will then appear (click on the picture to see a bigger version).
For best quality, crank up “Detail Level” and “Image Quality” to the maximum and turn down “Compression” to the very minimum setting. Screen resolution should also generally be turned up as high as possible, as long as your monitor supports the selected screen mode. Screen resolution maxed out on our rig at 1024×768, though the readme file included with the game seemed to suggest it should go higher. Lego Racers 2 is a 4:3 aspect ratio (non-widescreen) game and should run with borders on the sides when played on a widescreen monitor or TV. From the main menu, choose “Game Options” and then “Sound”. Simply make sure this is set to High. There are no surround sound soundtracks or other quality settings to configure this time. After you have configured game options, don’t forget to save. You can do this by selecting “Load / Save” from the games main menu. The game does NOT automatically save options or progress, so remember to save after you progress through the game too.
The games configuration files and save games are placed in your documents folder under “Games\Lego Racers 2\Saved Games”. The file “LR2.cfg” that the game creates contains all your preferences. Unfortunately, the file is not in a human readable format, so it’s not possible to edit the file by hand and reconfigure any hidden options this time. Lego Racers 2 fully supports analogue controllers, with only a couple of caveats which we will get to in a moment. To configure your controller, select “Game Options” from the games main menu and then “Controls”. You will now need to choose player 1 or player 2, since the game can be played split-screen by two players. The controls map fairly well to the Xbox 360 pad. Make sure to set the “A / D” option to “Analog”. We set up the controls like this:- Reverse – Y (Yellow) Fire Weapon – X (Blue) Brick Boost – A (Green) Talk – B (Red) Look Behind – Back Next Target – RB
Previous Target – LB When you configure the controls in game like that, it should look like the picture shown below. There are three problems we encountered when using the 360 controller. First of all, the dead zone (the amount the stick needs to be moved before registering any movement) seemed to be a little too small. While playing, our little Lego mini-figure seemed to always lean either left or right. Secondly, the D-pad isn’t recognised at all by the game. Thirdly, and by far the worst problem is that clicking the left analogue stick will pause the game. It is very easy to accidentally click the stick as you race and children in particular may find it too frustrating to play like this. If you cannot get used to not clicking your stick, you can switch to keyboard controls instead, though this limits you to digital controls only. You can still use a gamepad when the game is in keyboard input mode by using Xpadder or a similar tool. Remember, when you are done configuring controls, don’t forget to save your game from the “Save / Load” option on the main menu.