Title: “LEGO Stunt Rally”
Developer: Intelligent Games
Publisher: LEGO Media
Released: September 2000
It’s been a busy week. I’ve been ill (with what would assume is/was a cold because the weather has been crap,) and I was part of the Torch contingent for the first national ‘UK Blog Awards’… while I was ill… Therefore, I’m falling back on to talk about an easy game from my childhood.
“LEGO Stunt Rally” is part of the old collection of LEGO brand games that was made before Travellers Tales/T2 starting making all of them. It was made by the now long-dead British game company, Intelligent Games. Or Graphic Slate Games who I think made the Game Boy Colour version. Wikipedia is sometimes blurry on these things. Is it me, or does game history just seems to be littered with ‘now defunct UK videogame developer’ citations on Wikipedia? It makes me sort of depressed. At least GTA is still made in the UK. Unless Scotland goes independent. Then we will only have Ninja Theory and “DmC” which no one but me seemed to like.
Like most of the other LEGO games of the time, the story is a bit thin. You are one of four racers, Barney (the brainy, buck-toothed one), Chip (the 90’s one), Wrench (the strong but stupid one) and Lucky (the girl one). Players had his or her own colour, (dark blue, orange/yellow, red, and green respectively) and his or her own car to go with their colour. When I say they had their own cars, they had different looking cars that drove exactly the same.
That’s the only and most glaring problem with the game. There are different cars but there is almost no discernable difference between them, making the drivers as interchangeable as the LEGO figures they are based on. That goes for the track as well. As long as you don’t drive into to the few traps or fly off the track in a freak but hilarious boosting accident you will be able to finish on the podium with the gold.
I feel like I am being harsh on the game. Maybe it is because I am nearly two decades out of the planned age range of the game. But I remember playing it playing it when I was a wee kiddie wink and easy even then. I had more fun playing “LEGO Rock Raiders” and “LEGO Loco”. I should review those some time. There more fun. If I can find where Loco went I’d play it now. Or I can play SimCity, the one for older people. I’ve digressed. Where was I? Oh, yes…
“LEGO Stunt Rally” was a game made for kids and it works for kids. For as along as it takes then to finish it or get bored. There are five different environments but because there is a track editor (where you can use all the pieces from all the tracks in any environment,) racing becomes very monotonous.
It is a game designed for kids but the pendulum as swung too far. It is simplified to the point it becomes easy, even for kids. Maybe that is why most of the developers of the 90’swent under. Maybe their games where just not up to standard… That is of course (message redacted). In an industry where “Ride to Hell” can be released and called a decent product in 2013, or the fact that nothing of any interest has been released in weeks, leaving me short on ideas for this, there is no standard. Just stuff. Sort of like LEGO’s. I miss my LEGO’s. Those small bricks that I can make stuff with and chuck at the screen where there is editorial to write and I’m ill and it’s the night before it’s due. Where was I?
Oh, yeah. “LEGO Stunt Rally”; meh to an apathetic sigh. Ok for kids, but may not last to long.
Retro Score: 2/5
Modern Score: 2/5