LEGO 2K Drive Review (Beau the Umbreon)
I do not care if the gameplay is great. This needs to be said, and developers need to pay attention to this.
Lego 2K Drive is an arcade racer and one of the more recent Lego titles in the franchise. It features the signature building bricks, wheels, and figurines we've all come to recognize, and you just race your way to victory in order to get stuff that you want! The game is chock-full of monetization similar to free-2-play mobile games where microtransactions are the dominant form of progression and the amount of intelligence needed to play the game is, in all honesty, almost nonexistent.
This game requires so little thought into playing and I really don't think it would've been acceptable to release this in the current state that it's in just so that 2K can milk the wallets dry of players!
I 100% do not trust mobile-type games, and even pure mobile games to be totally honest. While some people may argue that they do have a place in the market, they are the real reason many egregious business practices/models exist that have even leaked their way into console gaming due to them. I'm not a fan of mobile gaming, more power to others who are I suppose, but I just cannot put up with... whatever the hell this game's monetization is!
I made it 43 minutes into the game before I walked into the Unkie's Emporium shop, and the moment I saw what was in the Trade Center, I turned the game off immediately! That was it! That was more than enough for me to stop playing the game and uninstall it for good! I'm not giving in to that kind of deal, and Visual Concepts should be ashamed of themselves for allowing 2K's grubby hands to have this kind of stuff put in a game that had high potential!
Just to add insult to injury to this shit sundae, the first Hot Wheels Unleashed game did this much better by having absolutely NO microtransactions at all!
Pay-2-Win types of games aren't even games at that point because there's absolutely no sense of achievement in them! You either grind for hundreds of hours of your life to make so little progress that it's not even worth it in the end, or pay up hundreds and thousands of bucks to get what you want and have an easier time! What's the point!? I fail to see the good in either option!
Apologies for the sour reaction for a game like this that likely has its fans, but I'm not one of them, will never be one of them, nor will I give this game a single compliment aside from the gameplay! It's just as horrible as all other monetization heavy mobile games out there! It's PREDATORY. The content has items that are locked off and require in-game currency to purchase, and the freedom in this game is much more strict than even that Lego Racers racing game in 1999!
A game from 1999 had more freedom than this! This strikes me as nothing more than just a quick cash grab that preys on young kids who try to get their hands on their parent's wallets, credit cards, what have you just so that they can dump tons of money for content that is not even physical!
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but time and time again, the industry constantly gets away with this even over a decade and a half later and we shouldn't rest until something is done about it, that is IF something will be done about it in the first place!
Disney Speedstorm can also rot in hell for this kind of business practice, since both games are very similar! Lego 2K Drive is going into what I call, "The Arcade Racing Game Bargain Bin"! Do not get this game, seriously. Your wallet will cry so much with this one, and you'll be sacrificing your dinners for it.
These reviews for both games are identical because they're pretty similar despite the fact that one's an arcade racer, and the other a kart racer. They may not be exactly the same, but they're very similar regardless of the differences. Fuck you, 2K. You guys can F right the hell off for riddling this game with microtransactions!
Disney Speedstorm Review: https://steamcommunity.com/id/SpeedBumpVDrop/recommended/1537830/