Just wanted to say thanks for such a thoughtful in depth analysis focused on the design elements of Lego Racers. It was the 7th released game I worked on, but the first one I was given pretty much complete freedom to design whatever and however I wanted. It feels good to hear positive nostalgic memories highlighting and reaffirming those creative choices, even a quarter century later. The video was a pleasure to watch and made me smile, Thank you. 👍
I absolutely loved this game growing up. But I do have to ask a thing that's always bothered me. The track Knightmare Athlon doesn't have a shortcut. But the beta version apparently did according to people. We don't really have any photo or video of it though, apart from the entrance being blocked by some boulder, which was removed in the final version. They also seemed to have forgotten to remove the blocks, they still remain in the "shortcut", out of reach in the latest version. It would be the biggest lego racers find in hostory imo, if a cover art, or image, or video was found of the actual shortcut itself. I know many players spent hours on this track trying to find a shortcut that wasn't even there, it was removed.
@@otherlego The remnants of their original stuff has basically just been folded into city, and the only other original stuff they do is ninjago, also the city based stuff doesn't have strong core narrative/characters like the older themes did. Older themes had a lot more production value with things like tie in comics, their own websites and occasionally games or animated shorts, though admittedly those were on the rarer side. Look at something like Atlantis or Power Miners for example.
You're so right! When I heard that, I immediately felt like someone hit me in the head with a bat of forgotten golden memories. Makes me want to see if I still have the CD somewhere
Lego Island was such a fever dream, I've seen and heard so many other people talk about it, but im still 50% sure it was just a strange dream I had as a kid
Only through this video did I even unlock my memories of playing a lot of Lego Island. It's coming back now but I totally get that fever dream vibe of it.
I remember the absolute shock as a kid when Rocket Racer was outwarping me. Something the other boss characters don't really aim for. That really made him feel like the end-boss!
When you’ve barely made it past the other bosses on your first or second try and suddenly get crushed by Rocket Racer the first time you play him… and the second… and likely the third. Yeah, that was cool. “Oh, this dude’s actually really fast.” Then it feels great to beat him too.
honestly they should bring back some of these old themes, like rock raiders, aquanauts, western, medieval, adventure, etc, i think kids would still love them, and especially returning fans would
I like them more than licensed themes by a mile but let's be real, licensed stuff simply sells better. There's no way well ever see this more creative side of Lego so strongly present ever again. Just the odd nostalgia release every now and then like when they brought back the pirate ship for a while
@@PoppySquidJrYeah. Bionicle taught LEGO that they needed strong IPs to compete in modern toy stores. At the time, the only real licensed product they had was Star Wars, and the success of that was tied to the movies, so they needed other products for when there wasn’t a new Star Wars movie. Now LEGO has a plethora of IP licenses, so they can always put something relevant on shelves; they don’t need strong in-house IPs like Bionicle anymore.
Rock Raiders was kinda modernised back in the mid-late 2000s with Power Miners and it was perfect. It had interesting lore, badass sets, and monsters that toed the line between creepy, cute, and cool. It was discontinued and I’ll never get over it. It’s my favorite theme of all time, even above gaming themes.
@@PoppySquidJr I disagree that the creative side’s gone. Creator has very few licensed sets and is full of awesome builds, while their adult sets often employ weird and wonderful building techniques, not to mention the masterpiece that is Ninjago City, perhaps the greatest set they’ve ever made. It’s fun and imaginative, full of creative techniques, and just as fun to build as it is to gawk at and play with. There are still plenty of original themes too, with some being simple and others being too ambitious for their own good.
@@ShenDoodles i never meant to imply that the creativity is entirely gone, it's just not as omnipresent as the entirety of Lego's image as it once was. I'm not dooming Lego as forever ruined or anything, just not quite what it once was, at least for me and my preferences. I still have a lot of fondness for Lego even today, but my favorite things Lego has ever done are all things they don't do much anymore, especially their unique takes on "standard" themes like knights, cowboys, space, etc. with their quirky characters and playful stories hinted within. Ninjago is the closest thing we have but it's really not quite the same vibe at all
I never realized how unique Lego Racers was when I was a kid. As of today, I have yet to see a kart racing game that can top the warp boost. Also, literally no other racing game has shortcuts as unique as the ones on Magma Moon Marathon.
I played Lego Racers a bunch as a kid, and I don't know if I or my siblings ever really figured out that the shield is what opened up that shortcut. I thought it was another light sequence. Also, I'd thought my brother had created Joan of Kart, rather than just claiming her.
I genuinely didn't even know about the shield shortcut on that track until this video. I also haven't played the game since i guess the early 2000s though.
Rollcage came close, with a gimmick of its own: you could drive upside down in both senses, you could drive on the ceiling and if you flip over you can just keep driving.
@@SlimeBlueMS yeah but if you look past that and put yourself in the shoes of a kid there is some value, hell even some value as an adult. Sure it’s boring but if you’re a kid or someone who likes Lego you’ll play 2k drive.
I liked how in the second half, you re-analyzed lego racers with a more critical lens. Most videos like this would just end it at gushing over nostalgia.
Working on it. Aaaah ... So hard to get a cool gameplay (actually to get a gameplay) ... buuuuuuuuut .... Yeah I try to cook something. Maybe one day I could show something :) Just to be more clear, I'm not trying to get a HD version of the game, the idea is to make it with a more modern gameplay but to keep its soul as most as possible.
@@20coasTer08 Not sure I understand. What made the original LEGO Racers game so special was the fact that it wasn't like modern racing games. If you make a modern racing game, then it isn't LEGO Racers anymore. I'm not quite sure how you can do both. LEGO Racers 2 tried to bridge the divide, and we all know how that turned out. Don't get me wrong; I really enjoyed LEGO Racers 2, (and, in fact, I have never played the original LEGO Racers). But I was often frustrated by the randomness and unclear explanation of the power-ups in LEGO Racers 2. The original LEGO Racers sounds like it chose an identity and stuck with it, instead of trying to be all things to all people.
@@kentslocum Well, it's a personal project. But I didn't want to do a graphic remaster only because its obvious that the gameplay of the game turned old. I replayed it for the purpose of my project obviously. But all the idea is to keep the heart of LR and give it a fresh breath. Not making some LR2 style or something. So basically the concept is to modernize the racing gameplay itself to make something more smooth but still entertaining. It's a bit hard to explain in detail, I'm sorry. Just note that LR was maybe my first game ever and I love it and I want to make some kind of hommage to it by, in a way, making the Lego Racers Sequel I would love to get. But anyway there's a long journey to achieve to even get a small working gameplay thing yet. I just hope I could make it at this point.
@@20coasTer08 I just had an idea that might help for that : Have some "multicolor" bricks ? Basically those bricks would work more like mario kart's boxes (picking up a random item based on your rank), except here it'd just pickup a brick color based on your rank (such as 1st place gets no green, mostly yellow and blue bricks, with some red sometimes, middle ground get more ballanced of everything, and the low ranks get most of the red and green). That way the game has more control on how to balance itself and not being too easy. Now that doesn't remove the color or white bricks from the game, but you could put them at more strategic places (such as, a green brick in a hard to reach spot, a shield in a spot where you might get hit by the environment, or where you need it to get through a shortcut ...) Maybe you could also add more brick colors with some new effects, or add a new white brick tier (so now for the warp you'd need 4 white bricks), making the higher ranks harder to get. The AI and controls could probably get some polish as well, especially the way you turn, and the way the walls "bounce" back ...
No. I don't recall who did that. We used a lot of amateur theater actors for the vo. We had about 10 people run through all the character lines and then just picked the best one. It was a different time. lol @@joeywelander1833
I did a lot of boss bashing in this game. Where the goal wasn't to get first place, but to make the boss get last place. It was a fun way to spice up parts of the game that weren't a challenge anymore.
Agreed, the bosses not winning compared to the minor characters was a very fun secondary objective when you were so good at the game that winning became trivial. The best races were the ones where the minor characters had a chance to beat the boss without your help. I can't remember which tracks or championships this was, but there were instances where they'd beat the boss on merit. I remember monitoring the mini-map and getting hyped whenever the boss was being shuffled down the pack by them.
The challenge was in the fact you have to finish third or higher in order to progress to the next race so couldn't just say hit the boss with the wand until you were way behind the field
The indie industry in question: - Pixel art RPG that's a metaphor for depression - Pixel art roguelike - Pixel art deck builder We need a middle ground between pixel art slop and triple-A slop. We should bring back the PS2/Wii-era double-A slop. Cheap enough to mass-produce, but with enough production value so that ambitious and creative teams can achieve their creative vision in a reasonable amount of time.
Lego Racers was THE game of my childhood. I had all the tracks memorised down to every brick location and all the shortcuts, and when I was not playing it, I was going around humming the themes and annoying my mum by pretending I am Jonny Thunder. My best friend had it too and we often played together and when we were at school, we would troll each other by drawing the mummy curse into each other's notebooks sneakily which meant the one who got cursed had to act confused for a while 😀 So many fond memories!
I grew up playing both the old and the new Lego games, but the BEST Lego gaming experience I've ever had was Lego Universe. That game was such a gem and it introduced me to the concept of MMOs, I will never forget the experiences I had during those 2 years it was live.
Paying coins in Mario Kart for shortcuts could be awesome. I always used to hate getting the coin item since they introduced it since it feels so dead in the hand, but it if you could use them for more than a small passive boost then getting the item might become really exciting.
Coins increase your max speed by up to 10% which is far more important than it sounds. Also coins are one of the oldest Mario kart items, and the first items seen by the player in the series.
Great video - One underrated note is that Racers was robust and just ...worked. We had most of the 90s/2000s Lego PC games, and they were usually pretty unstable or wouldn't work at all. Racers ran perfectly on every PC I installed it on, and would run without the disc after installation. I'd put it on my friends' machines and we'd play it together - funnily enough on single player taking turns, or one friend driving and the other doing power-ups.
It's crazy how sonic racing games went to simplistic lackluster game gear games & a poorly designed saturn game to masterpieces that at certain point somehow crossed over with ralph and banjo-kazooie
Maybe the, by far, worst game in the trilogy isn't exactly a good example. ASRT was phenomenal, though, and it's unfortunate that it didn't quite get the recognition it deserved.
I think the thing that killed TSR the most was a lack of crossplay. People who bought the game on Switch couldn't play with friends who bought the game on PC, and so on. That's a really bad thing to do to a fanbase that is already pretty fragmented across different platforms.
i remember playing Lego Racers and the Lego Island games. I still dig up Lego Island 2 from time to time just to keep that feeling alive. Lego Stunt Rally and Lego Xtreme Stunts are also some of those games that captures something newer games havn't and won't be able to.
Wow such a great video man. That menu screen music blew me away, I hadn’t even thought of this game in so long but I played this shit out of it as a kid. UA-cam algorithm was on point with this one. I hope to see more great videos from you in the future!
Nice video. They actually had a system like you describe in Sonic R where you paid a certain amount of rings to access shortcuts. I never got the chance to play it in multiplayer, but it's possible it could have balanced things for people towards the back.
7:08 Wait, WHAT?! I’ve been playing this game since at least either 1999 or 2000 and I never knew the shortcut through the base shield had the code right there on the wall the whole time. I thought the coloured spotlight code for the shield was pure trial & error.
Yep, I figured it out pretty quickly and after haphazardly guessing I just said “okay what if I actually try that code it just showed me on the last lap?”
Loool duude 🤣🤣 it was one of my first shortcuts I found because of the red/blue high/low sound when you go through the doors before. And funny thing is, my last found shortcut was the shield triggered one on the same map. Because I never used the shield anywhere outside Basil's boss run (against homing missiles).
I loved LEGO Racers as a kid and IMO it's easily one of the best kart racers ever. I spent hours hunting for all the shortcuts. I'd run the races in reverse because they were often more obvious to spot that way. I think it's a brilliantly designed game and item system. I'm so happy that you covered every single reason why I've always said it is so unique and interesting. I can tell you loved it and the other LEGO games as much as I did, which feels like something special in 2024.
It is sad that the single player aspect of racing games have disappeared over time. Back in the day there was Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing with their adventure modes, and Mario Kart DS' mission mode (kinda). LEGO Racers doesn't really have an adventure mode, though in my opinion, playing through the circuits feels like more of an adventure than cups in Mario Kart. But when you win the circuit, you unlock the circuit champion's car set, and get more customization options for your car. You also have this in the older Mario Kart games, but to me this felt more special, there was a connection between what you got and what you did. Why do you unlock Funky Kong in Mario Kart Wii by doing some time trials? Nobody knows, but in LEGO Racers, you unlock Captain Redbeard and his pirate/imperial buddies when you win his circuit. As a kid I would replay LEGO Racers over and over again, with new cars and/or challenges, but I haven't touched the cups in Mario Kart DS or Wii in forever. Also, the car customization in this game is amazing, I've never seen something like it. 20:40 The tracks Athens Dash and Daisy Circuit also have the piranha plant plyboards. But the one in Athens is never worth it, and the one in Daisy Circuit is always worth it, so not much decision making there.
Diddy Kong Racing's adventure mode was something else. When I was a kid, I was absolutely blown away when I finally figured out to get to Future Fun Land, and as well as discovering I had to race Wizpig a second time.
@@angel_of_rust Because milking the masses for every cent as permanent consumer cattle is best done through “games as a service”. Single player sells, but it doesn’t eternally provide. Satanic really. These companies and the people in them are evil
There was this racing game that released in 2010 called Split/Second. It was published by Disney Interactive, and it wasn't a kart racer, but it was pretty close. Basically, you would earn energy for a meter by doing certain stunts and things during the race, which you would then spend to create hazards or shortcuts in different locations on the track. I feel like a spiritual successor or even a straight up sequel to that game would hit a lot of the points you talk about in this video.
Well to be fair, I played the game at around 2002 and I've never seen any of the Lego sets you've mentioned , but I still loved all the characters in the game. What I want to say with this is, that a Lego Racers game with only original characters could easily work in my opinion
Crazy how many people grew up with this game! I grew up with Lego Racers 2 and never really enjoyed Lego Racers 1 but I never realized just how different the 2 were
I loved Lego Racers 1 and playing it non stop. I got Lego Racers 2 and it wouldn't work on the family PC :( That was when i realized sequels aren't always better
I can honestly say that Lego Racers was the first game that ever scared me. So many things in this game caused 5 year-old me great distress. All the bosses, those Mummy things, the horror themed tracks, this game's got real jumpscares too. Can't recall playing any other game with the same sort of aesthetic as Lego Racers, and this video's the first time I'm hearing about that shield shortcut. Maybe an indie dev out there could work some of this game's ideas into their own thing
Fun fact about the shortcut in 20:14: You don't really need the shield to pass through that wall. The game checks if a human player has the shield active and if so, it blinks and lets anyone pass through it. A CPU can't do it of course, but a rival human player can. I learned this the hard way when racing my friend who used MY active shield to get through there. [Edit: This statement isn't accurate, read the reply from vincetauronward] One thing that annoys me a bit about the game is that the car building lacks green bricks (and other colors too, but especially green).
While this sounds like a programming error where it just checks on A player rather than it being player-specific, you do bring up a really cool idea with this; player-specific shortcuts that only work if you play with at least one other human player... 🤔
Hi, I'm a speed runner for this game. The AI actually CAN activate it! They just have to be within a certain proximity of the shortcut. It's unfortunately not a viable strategy to get an NPC to activate it for you, but it can be done!
@@vincentauronward347 Ah nice, so it depends on the distance from the CPU and the shortcut... That's pretty interesting honestly. The more you know! xD From a speedrunning perspective, I can imagine manipulating their path where they get a bit closer when they're near the shortcut might not be the only thing that's not viable but also how far behind or ahead (?) they are...?? Like some sort of "when the stars align" moment. It is really cool to see it is possible at least! 😄
@@vincentauronward347 That's cool, thanks for clarifying. I'm lurking in the Lego Speedrunning Discord server. I don't run the game myself, so I rarely post (I usually share funny characters I made).
Seeing the video of Rocket Racer challenging the player literally gave me strong goosebumps and took me way back in time. I played this game for over a decade. You made a great documentary about it!
Hearing someone talk about Lego Racers in 2024 gave some whiplash. Used to play the hell out of it with my cousin on the N64. I always thought the different parts had different hidden stat values, and would pick the fantasy theme cause it was the "fastest."
Interestingly enough, adding parts actually adds weight to your vehicle. It even mattered if you put more weight on the front or the back. I once ran a car that was just the base thing, and got hit by red bricks that knocked me up so hard, I got stuck in the ceiling, because my car was too light. Having replayed the game a couple years back, I also noted that when my cars had too many parts in the back, it'd struggle to tip back onto 4 wheels after being airborne. It's pretty impressive, considering how old and simple the game is.
The only recent game that was attempted like this was LEGO Legacy: Heroes Unboxed. It was a single-player focused, free-to-play mobile game similar to Raid: Shadow Legends. It had mostly classic characters like Basil, and you could unlock their sets for bonuses and trivia. But the game did poorly, they added Ghostbusters to try to get licensed IP in there, and now it shut down.
They revived the game for Netflix, now it's free to play with no pay-to-win! Although unfortunately still quite a tedious grind so I got bored of it quick.
@@aceman0000099annoyingly, often if you remove the unnecessarily frustrating parts from pay to win games it becomes pretty obvious that they're just not that good. I think as a free player, you convince yourself that the bored and frustration caused by a pay to win game is the result of you not having paid and you're much more forgiving about arbitrary count down timers and grindy gameplay. I can't say I ever played Heroes Unboxed, or even RAID, but when we were in highschool and android games were new it was incredibly easy to hack the games so we realised pretty quickly that these mechanics kind of suck. The crazy thing is, our smartphones are powerful enough to easily emulate the games we loved as kids, but for some reason we prefer to play "easy" app store games that suck up time and dribble out a steady stream of dopamine regardless of your effort level. It's crazy that you can't buy official ports of all the GBA games for example, or even just an official GameBoy emulator which you can buy official games for. I guess if they did that nobody would need a Nintendo Switch to play the old Nintendo catalogue, but honestly it's pretty easy to find the emulator and roms by yourself so I think they're losing money by not offering it.
In general I hate the term "Can't be made today" because usually it can be but the people behind it are too scared to do it. However, I do agree you make some compelling arguments. As a lego fan I do bemoan the fact that Ninjago is pretty much the only franchise theme that didn't exist somewhere else first. Sure, I love the Star Wars sets and I just preordered the Zelda set, but back in the 80s I loved the Pirates theme. It was so much fun. The Pirates of the Carribbean theme, not so much as they were just scenes from the movie. They didn't have their own identity like the old Pirates. I'd rather have Lion Knights than Lord of the Rings. I'd rather have Blacktron than Star Wars. Lego needs to get its identity back before something like Lego Racers "Smash Bros" style character setup again.
Especially considering how huge the Indie Game Scene is these days. Like, all it takes is some lone dev or small dev team wanting a modern take on the game to make a spiritual successor. It’s not that a Lego Racers-like game can’t be made. It’s that the major development studios are too focused on maximizing profits for their corporate overlords, and indies haven’t taken an interest in the genre.
Heck yeah, a video discussing in depth & with thoughtful analysis one of my favorite childhood games? How lovely. I have so many fond memories of this (in particular the OP warp)!
LittleBigPlanet Karting was also really good. It was basically ModNation 3 (same team & engine, I think), and it even allowed you to customize the kart handling and make the game feel wildly different.
I was about to comment that exactly. ModNation Racers even has the exact same kind of warp power up which you got by upgrading the turbo. Which is the same as what you do in lego racers.
The only other racing game I saw go this hard on the shortcuts was BEETLE ADVENTURE RACING for the N64. That game was built around opening up massive shortcuts and that is exactly why I loved it so much!
Fantastic nostalgia trip! I want to highlight the key feature of Lego Racers 2 not mentioned: Kart damage. For those who haven't played, in LR2, if you get hit with an item, blocks fly off your kart as you take damage. (Side note, because you can make custom karts, each kart will have unique damage states, impressive for 2001!) If you take enough damage, your kart completely breaks, and you're left to *run* as your little Lego character. You can repair damage or respawn your cart by driving through designated repair areas. The repair gates take you a slower route and usually make you skip an item box. So there's a tradeoff you're forced to make if you want to repair yourself. There's a compelling case for Lego game that combines: 1. The shortcuts from LR1 2. The damage system from LR2. (Optional: For a comeback mechanic, you take more damage if you're in 1st/2nd/3rd place) 3. Randomized items with a comeback mechanic like Mario Kart 4. (optional) Ways to upgrade items like LR1, but maybe the upgrades are more effective for "powerful" "last place" items. This can enhance the comeback mechanic. Brainstorming on 4: I'll put it in Mario terms. Let's say in first place you get an item box with a mushroom. You then get a "white brick" upgrade that gives you... a second mushroom. But last place gets a set of three mushrooms which upgrades to the golden mushroom (or maybe star or bullet). Or in first you might pull a banana upgradeable to two bananas. But in last you pull three red shells upgradeable to the blue shell.
@@theX24968ZThat's not exactly it, it's more like the target audience has expanded to include people who were huge fans as kids but have grown up. I'm sure the vast majority of their customers are still kids, or parents of kids but their grown up customers are willing to spend 5-10 times more on a given set than the kids are. I think it's really dissapointing how few original themes there are. Kids vastly prefer original themes to play with than licensed IPs. Original themes allow for much more creative play and playing with licensed IP means basically just re-enacting the show they're from. Much less creative, and much less compelling for kids. Unfortunately, when they're walking around the toy store, or browsing the catalogue in the lead up to a birthday, the licensed sets SEEM more fun. Kids are more likely to shell out for the brands and icons they recognise, even though they're ultimately less fun, because kids don't think about that sort of stuff. Telking the kids at school you got the new Star Wars set is more impressive a brag than saying you got a really good Castle or Police Station. If they're anything like me though, the generic sets were the ones most often rebuilt because they were easy to fit into the story of whatever the game happened to be about that day. When we played Lego Star Wars, you always knew the good guys had to win, you knew what ships belonged to what sides and what all their capabilities were. Sure you could use your death star to blow up a planet, but you can't ever kill Luke Skywalker and Yoda never gets to drive a mech. Way more fun if one of us played as the Martians while the other played as humans. Either side can have whatever you're clever enough to build from the pieces in the box. I remember racing my brothers to get all the cool transparent pieces out because those obviously made your guys the most powerful.
Sonic Riders and SR:ZG had some spunk as single player racing games! I have fond memories of the 1st one, even though it took me way too long to figure out the mechanics
For as much as I've played Lego Racers back in the day, I never new how in depth the item system was. It's still my favorite to this day, but never new it was this skill based and varied
Lego Racers is one of my favorite games of all time. I still remember the day we went out to the store to buy it. On our first day playing, we couldn’t even beat Captain Redbeard. When we first beat him, it was SO exciting to unlock the next level.
Holy shit I remember this game! My siblings and I would take turns trying to beat the timed tracks, huddled around whoever was on the keyboard. It's all coming back now lol. You're 100% right about the LEGO-owned IP thing, that aspect also carried Lego Battles, an RTS game on the DS that had six campaigns set in three themes: Pirates, Mars Mission, and Castle (although they had elements from many other themes that didn't make the cut, like a bonus Space Police unit for the Mars Mission army). That was my first RTS and holds a special place in my heart.
Kudos to you for presenting your views in the order you do. I was on track throughout the entirety of the video and your way of keeping viewers engaged is awesome.
Great video! To add to the list at 15:20: we have DREAMZzz now too. Still not a long list but it's something. I like that you went super detailed on the shortcuts. Never really thought about how it would work in a multiplayer setting. I love the fact that people still remember this game fondly. We can only wish that they create something similar for the modern times. I've recreated the intro animations of the game but with modern graphics, to hopefully show Lego how cool this game was and maybe it sparks a move from them. But we can only dream. 😋
Also as an addendum, we finally got Rocket Racer as a minifigure not once, but TWICE in LEGO City Stuntz. But sadly this goes back to the "LEGO City as one of the few unlicensed evergreen themes" argument.Even this year we are rumored to have Johnny Thunder, but not in a new Adventurers line, but rather a LEGO City Jungle line. LEGO City is a profitable aspect of original LEGO properties, but that makes every fantasy or action theme homogenized into itself and taking away most of its fantasy elements (even though Space this year opened with some lime-green aliens and more flashy spacecraft designs).
@@Maniac4Bricks I don’t understand the City theme anymore. Might as well remove the theme from the box if everything is City. 😜 They could do something fun with the Speed Champions theme. Having a cool Johnny Thunder style race car would be great. 😜
@@StudframeAnimationsI'm pretty annoyed that it includes aliens and other sci-fi elements when it seems to me that they could be two distinct themes. Aliens are a really easy theme to add some light plot and character details to sets in a way that Lego tries to avoid for the City theme. City should have space stuff, but I'd prefer if it was just realistic space stuff like rockets, rovers and a moon base. One of the harder aspects to designing a new lego theme is making it exciting while also keeping it accessible. Aliens are almost ideal villains for a kid's product because they can be scary but also silly. Villains give you an excuse to design some cool robots and tactical looking sci-fi vehicles. It's not that I don't think you shoulf be allowed to have aliens in your Lego City, of course you should, I just worry that we're missing out on stranger set designs because we're limited to things that fit the Lego City aesthetic. It seems unlikely that they'll bring out an alternative space theme when the current lego city sets include mechas, aliens and so on. Space/Future tech covers a lot of ideas and I don't think there's enough room within the Lego City label for all of it.
@@SineN0mine3 We’re lucky that LEGO has made a lot of cool space themes in the 90s. Seems like we have to keep updating those ourself to keep the interesting space themes alive. 😜
To make a Lego Racers style power-up system work for multiplayer, you'd need to make some changes, even more so than time trial did. Yes, you can give an advantage to players that lag behind: You'd just make the "initial" set of power-ups that spawn in one location different from the set that can replace them. And if you make lapping impossible, then that gives you a short period of time between rounds where you can reset power-ups from their "re-spawned" ones to their "initial" set. Obviously you'd use that to give the lead player(s) less greens (and 1/3 or so less yellows). Also, you can introduce randomness without completely abandoning the "pick your color of choice" system. Each spawn location can have a random spawn set (instead of always spawning reds or whites as in single player). Both of the suggestions so far make it so that you still get what you pick up, but what you can pick up will vary from race to race. And there's nothing keeping you from introducing a "rainbow colored" brick, that will turn into one of the 4 colors on pickup. And maybe a black brick, that has a chance to turn into either a white OR one of the 4 colors, making it a gamble to pick it up if you already have your color of choice. And nobody would complain if the chances of getting greens from those depended slightly on situation (you being in the lead/it being from an "initial" or "re-spawned" set, pick up location, ..., the date being April 1st or Friday the 13th). And finally, there's nothing keeping the devs from making the warp less powerful when you're in the lead. Nobody would complain if the warp seemed to take you random distances in MP. (And the speed boost multipliers could also be changed depending on where you were when you activated them. Nobody likes rubber-banding in normal drive mode; but speed boosts are something you get extra, and getting less extra feels less annoying than having something taken from you.) Also, everything you say about shortcuts is true, except for one thing: They can't really be hidden, because you can just see other players take them.
Im a big fan of nerfing warp if you are in first place I think adjusting the bricks can also be effective when done right Although i dont like the idea of the black bricks I would probably go for making it so there are less whites in the same location and make it so greens are more out of the naturally fastest path
10:50 "if we are going to copy Mario kart let's just play Mario kart" I actually really disagree all art is derivative and games are art, some of so called Mario kart clones like sonic transformed are legitmately great games. I want games to copy each other and be inspired by each other more not to shun derivative games on principle and to just say play the original
They could use characters from Lego City Undercover, there are some memorable characters there and the best part is, It's lego's own idea. Plus, they even had sets with some of the said characters.
Sadly, I don't think Lego City Undercover or any of the characters like Chase McCain, Frank Honey, Forrest Blackwell or Rex Fury are ever gonna be brought back.
Great video Tin Sensei! As a seasoned LEGO Racers speedrunner I can tell you you did it justice. Here's some memorable things I wanted to mention: 8:49 This is what we call a "Flakes moment" (Don't come after me Flakes😂) 12:41 I applaud you for this amazing joke. 13:22 "LEGO Racers was basically the Super Smash Bros. of LEGO." I never thought of this myself this way, but truer words have not been spoken about the game. It's truly how it felt playing this as a kid. I think I will quote this many times from now. As a fellow video editor I can only praise you for putting this video together so well. Cheers and I'll stick around for the future!
I agree with you about the living nostalgia that those early games had because of the crossover-ness of physical LEGO play. That's why I'm making my LEGO game concept so I can relive the old themes the way I imagined them to be. One of my back burner tasks was to make a simple racing mage so I might have to take some tips from LEGO Racers that you pointed out.
At Legoland on the Lego Racers attraction, I once won a race by using a shortcut and I've never felt so accomplished. I do wonder now what was different about that version of the game compared to home releases, beyond the controls being linked to the arcade cars and the different character creation sequence.
10/10 video! Love the analysis, and I also hope we get more Lego Racers style shortcuts in the future (also shout out the FTL music in the video, what a banger)
I mean the answer seems obvious to me. Have static power-ups, but you get upgrades upfront if you're behind. For something like Lego Racers specifically it'd probably be better to use distance instead of placing, so like First Place will only ever get the bricks they pick up, there's a range behind First Place that also only gets the bricks they pick up, but behind that range picking up a colored brick comes with a bonus white brick, behind that has two bonus white bricks, and at the extreme end behind that (like "you've already been lapped by first" behind that) gets three white bricks for free when getting a colored brick so that catching up with an insta-warp is possible. Alternately, spamming cages is possible if being a menace is more important than winning. Also, Triple A is very bad and I don't want it to exist anymore.
04:19 Wait with the first warp until you're close to the second green power-up and use warp a split second before driving into the power-up. So basically you'll warp into the second green power-up and when you come out of it you have it.
I feel like the game that probably came closest to this was modnation racers. It had a singleplayer story campaign, power-ups that could be leveled up (one was literally a warp that was the lvl 3 of the boost) and all kinds of shortcuts in all levels.
Seems the algorithm started recommending this video, and I am glad it did. I have always loved versatile or upgradeable power ups in kart games, it made me remember ModNation Racers as well.
7:38 WHAAAT I never knew about that one! 8:31 How did I never discover that one either?? I traced up and down that track all the time as a kid looking for a shortcut
Honestly, I always get very excited when I see people talk about the old Pre-LEGO Star Wars games. Sure a decent bit of it is because of nostalgia, and these games haven't all aged the best as you highlighted very well, but it's nice to see people still being passionate about them (myself included). Great video and keep up the good work ^^
18:38 For Diddy Kong Racing, not counting its re-release remake on DS, it is supposed to get sequel treatments. However, because its developer Rare was purchased by Microsoft, all of its sequel plans were canceled
ModNation Racers was an epic racer for me as a teen, because I'd spent years playing cheap-feeling PS2 "sim-like" racers, F1 championship edition and Wipeout. It's the closest I felt I had to a Mariocart on PS.
This is the first video game I have memories of playing. Having the NPCs never use the warp power so you have that edge throughout the entire game, sets up the "oh shit" moment of the first time rocket racer uses it against you SO well.
I have a core memory of being in daycare, crowded around a pc with a bunch of other kids my age watching somebody play and shouting “USE IT” all in unison whenever a warp was in play. I had no idea what was going on and was enthralled. This game was the original hype creator and is without a doubt what induced my love for video games
The closest another racing game came to Lego Racers was a game on PS3 called Modnation Racers. It allowed you to not only create your characters and karts, but you could also create tracks. All of which could be shared online in-game. It also had a similar 3-level item mechanic, but the way it worked was the item pick-ups were random and increased in level the more you collected. In addition, you gained energy by energy pads, drifting, and drafting. This energy was used for boosts, shielding from attacks, and to open certain gates for shortcuts. Unfortunately, the game no longer has the online functionality, and the company United Front Games was shut down and it doesn't seem Sony has any plans for sequel.
LR2 had shortcuts... it's been too long since I played to recall the exact tracks, but Mars and Arctic had some very notable shortcuts that were usually shorter (well, duh) but had no powerups or avoided the repair zones (and repair zones almost always involved taking a longer path than ignoring repair.) I think LR2 is really slept on, because it had unique mechanics of its own, such as the vehicle destructibility and how that played into map design. I never played LR1, but given the gameplay I've seen of it for all these years I think I'd basically always prefer LR2's setup and maps.
This is the best video I've seen in a while on game design topics. I'm glad I found your channel. I hope you'll do deep dives on other beloved video games, esspecially some of the other obscure racer games.
Another weird one was Crazy Frog Racer of all things. You collected coins on the track and purchased power ups with those coins as you raced. I think it was L1 and L2 to scroll up and down the menu at the side and then something else to use them (maybe Triangle?) Somehow it got a sequel and went more Mario Kart with it's power ups, but I liked that you had a skill option of choosing what you wanted versus collecting the coins to get it. Often the coins were on a racing line so if you were going around a corner smoothly you'd get a lot, but not always, and you'd have to sometimes choose between clipping the corner to be fast or going around the corner on the outside to get coins.
Come to think of it, this power-up shop could be the best of both worlds. There is skill involved, but you could scale it based on selected difficulty, race position, or both. Maybe coins could be worth more in last place, or power ups cost less in last, making it easier to get over powered tools to catch up. Set the game to hard mode and this difference reduces or even disappears, levelling the playing field.
Outstanding video. It did my head in having the clip of the warp transition to the mountain biking. I also loved the "hey!" from Voltage when Basil stile the green brick. Fun fact at 14:30 in the cinematic the colour of Rocky Racer's arms are reversed. Ingame his left arm is blue and the right is red. It's been a 2 and a half decade long debate about whether RR is Ausie or not and I guess we now have confirmation. I partially agree with your conclusions about why the LR powerup system won't (and hasn't) been created in a modern game. I think that a brand new IP called Rego Lacers could made and be everything Lego Racers was and more... It could be a truely amazing game... That no one would buy. It's not marketable at all in 2023. A single-player cartoon racer just won't sell. It may have a niche audience, i.e. just me, but LR was made when multiplayer racers were still being popularised and a single player cartoon racer was acceptance. Well done on the video and thanks for covering such an underrated game!
to be fair, I think it's good that they bounced around, like a young person doing different jobs to figure out what they like, they also did original things each time. we got new stuff., which is one of the biggest issues in games nowadays. Why not lego racers 2? I loved 2. Was 1 better? in its own way... but I think it was good that they branched out every time.
Both lego racers where really good. The second one was a different approach. Being shot to walking, the damage system in general, the Bosses that were really unique, the open world exploration. The power up system with the engine, tracks and the tornadoes. You had to go to mars and stuff like that. With the menue where you drive into the level and not choose it in a menu. Also some attacks were really nice. The rocket with high damage, you could also ride. The tornado you can keep and set. To me the second one was a continuation. And the first was next to dove the first game i ever played. Both sound tracks still get me tough.
![F-Zero X Can't Be Made Today [AGR Part 2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RG8ljpIwsgc/mqdefault.jpg)
![F-Zero X Can't Be Made Today [AGR Part 2]](/img/tr.png)
Just wanted to say thanks for such a thoughtful in depth analysis focused on the design elements of Lego Racers. It was the 7th released game I worked on, but the first one I was given pretty much complete freedom to design whatever and however I wanted. It feels good to hear positive nostalgic memories highlighting and reaffirming those creative choices, even a quarter century later. The video was a pleasure to watch and made me smile, Thank you. 👍
Lego Racers was my childhood, thank you
This game is why I am in school to build race cars. Thank you for an amazing game that changed my life.
You are a legend
your game rules and you should be proud of your effort.
I absolutely loved this game growing up. But I do have to ask a thing that's always bothered me. The track Knightmare Athlon doesn't have a shortcut. But the beta version apparently did according to people. We don't really have any photo or video of it though, apart from the entrance being blocked by some boulder, which was removed in the final version. They also seemed to have forgotten to remove the blocks, they still remain in the "shortcut", out of reach in the latest version.
It would be the biggest lego racers find in hostory imo, if a cover art, or image, or video was found of the actual shortcut itself. I know many players spent hours on this track trying to find a shortcut that wasn't even there, it was removed.
The worst thing lego did was stop making their original themes.
A tragic decision, to be sure, but certainly a profitable one.
@@JosephHarner Yup, I suppose it's naive to hope companies would have principles in today's age. Ones that come before profits at least.
I’m so confused because Lego… still has their own themes? Can you elaborate
It really takes away their own identity.
@@otherlego The remnants of their original stuff has basically just been folded into city, and the only other original stuff they do is ninjago, also the city based stuff doesn't have strong core narrative/characters like the older themes did.
Older themes had a lot more production value with things like tie in comics, their own websites and occasionally games or animated shorts, though admittedly those were on the rarer side. Look at something like Atlantis or Power Miners for example.
The menu music hits like a god damn truck loaded with pure nostalgium when you're not ready for it.
fr tho
Seriously! I had vague memories of the game but that title theme just absolutely floored me. I perfectly remembered that theme!
You're so right!
When I heard that, I immediately felt like someone hit me in the head with a bat of forgotten golden memories.
Makes me want to see if I still have the CD somewhere
Yep. I'd forgotten I'd ever played the game before the menu music started.
It absolutely kicks your balls when it starts.
Lego Island was such a fever dream, I've seen and heard so many other people talk about it, but im still 50% sure it was just a strange dream I had as a kid
There are youtube video(s) about people playing them, never having played before.
_Jimmy Neutron_ production vibes
Only through this video did I even unlock my memories of playing a lot of Lego Island. It's coming back now but I totally get that fever dream vibe of it.
I used to love it, went back and played it more recently and was very confused
Lego Racers? Everyone knows the skateboard is the fastest! lol
I remember the absolute shock as a kid when Rocket Racer was outwarping me. Something the other boss characters don't really aim for. That really made him feel like the end-boss!
When you’ve barely made it past the other bosses on your first or second try and suddenly get crushed by Rocket Racer the first time you play him… and the second… and likely the third.
Yeah, that was cool. “Oh, this dude’s actually really fast.”
Then it feels great to beat him too.
Man I got so annoyed by rocket racer as a kid. Holy moly even the thought of him now brings back a feeling of annoyance
That was my experience playing this game too.
Eventually I beat him by following him and doing what he did.
honestly they should bring back some of these old themes, like rock raiders, aquanauts, western, medieval, adventure, etc, i think kids would still love them, and especially returning fans would
I like them more than licensed themes by a mile but let's be real, licensed stuff simply sells better. There's no way well ever see this more creative side of Lego so strongly present ever again. Just the odd nostalgia release every now and then like when they brought back the pirate ship for a while
@@PoppySquidJrYeah. Bionicle taught LEGO that they needed strong IPs to compete in modern toy stores. At the time, the only real licensed product they had was Star Wars, and the success of that was tied to the movies, so they needed other products for when there wasn’t a new Star Wars movie. Now LEGO has a plethora of IP licenses, so they can always put something relevant on shelves; they don’t need strong in-house IPs like Bionicle anymore.
Rock Raiders was kinda modernised back in the mid-late 2000s with Power Miners and it was perfect. It had interesting lore, badass sets, and monsters that toed the line between creepy, cute, and cool. It was discontinued and I’ll never get over it. It’s my favorite theme of all time, even above gaming themes.
@@PoppySquidJr I disagree that the creative side’s gone. Creator has very few licensed sets and is full of awesome builds, while their adult sets often employ weird and wonderful building techniques, not to mention the masterpiece that is Ninjago City, perhaps the greatest set they’ve ever made. It’s fun and imaginative, full of creative techniques, and just as fun to build as it is to gawk at and play with. There are still plenty of original themes too, with some being simple and others being too ambitious for their own good.
@@ShenDoodles i never meant to imply that the creativity is entirely gone, it's just not as omnipresent as the entirety of Lego's image as it once was. I'm not dooming Lego as forever ruined or anything, just not quite what it once was, at least for me and my preferences. I still have a lot of fondness for Lego even today, but my favorite things Lego has ever done are all things they don't do much anymore, especially their unique takes on "standard" themes like knights, cowboys, space, etc. with their quirky characters and playful stories hinted within. Ninjago is the closest thing we have but it's really not quite the same vibe at all
I never realized how unique Lego Racers was when I was a kid. As of today, I have yet to see a kart racing game that can top the warp boost. Also, literally no other racing game has shortcuts as unique as the ones on Magma Moon Marathon.
I know for a fact there's still some shortcuts that I have not found
Last year I was replaying the game casually and found two
I played Lego Racers a bunch as a kid, and I don't know if I or my siblings ever really figured out that the shield is what opened up that shortcut. I thought it was another light sequence. Also, I'd thought my brother had created Joan of Kart, rather than just claiming her.
I genuinely didn't even know about the shield shortcut on that track until this video. I also haven't played the game since i guess the early 2000s though.
Rollcage came close, with a gimmick of its own: you could drive upside down in both senses, you could drive on the ceiling and if you flip over you can just keep driving.
kart racers that aim for multiplayer fundamentally cannot do what it does anyway
"Lego 1K Drive" would've definitely been a more appropriate name for the sequel
Lego racers 3 is real
Unfortunately 2K Drive is a smoldering pile of garbage, rife with insane amounts of MTX
@@SlimeBlueMS yeah but if you look past that and put yourself in the shoes of a kid there is some value, hell even some value as an adult. Sure it’s boring but if you’re a kid or someone who likes Lego you’ll play 2k drive.
MTX? @@SlimeBlueMS
@@user-vi4xy1jw7e Microtransactions
7:13 I NEVER KNEW ABOUT THAT COLOR PATTERN MACHINE!!!
I always memorized the sounds that play after going through to determine the pattern. lol
Same here!!
That means they had a failsafe if you where colorblind
Damn, this video essay was far far far better than what I assumed by the title and thumbnail. What a skillful narrative and voice.
I liked how in the second half, you re-analyzed lego racers with a more critical lens. Most videos like this would just end it at gushing over nostalgia.
I think what you're saying is that we just need a "LEGO Racers Remastered." 😊
Working on it. Aaaah ... So hard to get a cool gameplay (actually to get a gameplay) ... buuuuuuuuut .... Yeah I try to cook something. Maybe one day I could show something :)
Just to be more clear, I'm not trying to get a HD version of the game, the idea is to make it with a more modern gameplay but to keep its soul as most as possible.
@@20coasTer08 Not sure I understand. What made the original LEGO Racers game so special was the fact that it wasn't like modern racing games. If you make a modern racing game, then it isn't LEGO Racers anymore. I'm not quite sure how you can do both. LEGO Racers 2 tried to bridge the divide, and we all know how that turned out. Don't get me wrong; I really enjoyed LEGO Racers 2, (and, in fact, I have never played the original LEGO Racers). But I was often frustrated by the randomness and unclear explanation of the power-ups in LEGO Racers 2. The original LEGO Racers sounds like it chose an identity and stuck with it, instead of trying to be all things to all people.
@@kentslocum Well, it's a personal project. But I didn't want to do a graphic remaster only because its obvious that the gameplay of the game turned old. I replayed it for the purpose of my project obviously. But all the idea is to keep the heart of LR and give it a fresh breath. Not making some LR2 style or something.
So basically the concept is to modernize the racing gameplay itself to make something more smooth but still entertaining. It's a bit hard to explain in detail, I'm sorry. Just note that LR was maybe my first game ever and I love it and I want to make some kind of hommage to it by, in a way, making the Lego Racers Sequel I would love to get. But anyway there's a long journey to achieve to even get a small working gameplay thing yet. I just hope I could make it at this point.
@@20coasTer08 I just had an idea that might help for that :
Have some "multicolor" bricks ?
Basically those bricks would work more like mario kart's boxes (picking up a random item based on your rank), except here it'd just pickup a brick color based on your rank (such as 1st place gets no green, mostly yellow and blue bricks, with some red sometimes, middle ground get more ballanced of everything, and the low ranks get most of the red and green). That way the game has more control on how to balance itself and not being too easy.
Now that doesn't remove the color or white bricks from the game, but you could put them at more strategic places (such as, a green brick in a hard to reach spot, a shield in a spot where you might get hit by the environment, or where you need it to get through a shortcut ...)
Maybe you could also add more brick colors with some new effects, or add a new white brick tier (so now for the warp you'd need 4 white bricks), making the higher ranks harder to get.
The AI and controls could probably get some polish as well, especially the way you turn, and the way the walls "bounce" back ...
Why. It's playable today and it's still as fun as when it came out.
Great video! I made a lot of the sfx for this game, and that's actually me laughing as Johnny Racer. Oh the memories!
Did you also do the voice for King Kahuka?
No. I don't recall who did that. We used a lot of amateur theater actors for the vo. We had about 10 people run through all the character lines and then just picked the best one. It was a different time. lol @@joeywelander1833
That's awesome! Did you do any other character's voices?
Thank you for your contributions to this game!! That's so awesome to hear
He made his yt account 9 years ago, this actually tracks
I miss the old Lego games. Lego Racers and Rock Raiders specifically, they really were such a large part of my childhood. :'c
Rock Raiders is getting a fan remake, you can find the alpha on itchio :D
@@bl4cksp1d3r Oh, how cool! Thanks for letting me know!
@@kurdtcoben you're welcome!
@@bl4cksp1d3r There'a already a full remake called Manic Miners.
@@5chneemensch138 that is the Remake I've meant. 4 weeks ago I wasn't aware if it was already out, but it is out by now
As a kid I never had Lego racers 1, just 2, but I loved the open world shenanigans you could get into in LR2.
I did a lot of boss bashing in this game. Where the goal wasn't to get first place, but to make the boss get last place. It was a fun way to spice up parts of the game that weren't a challenge anymore.
Haha I did this too! It's a lot of fun setting up traps for bosses (Redbeard is always an easy victim)
Oh yeah, they always have a predetermined route so it's easy to get them caught up in traps
Agreed, the bosses not winning compared to the minor characters was a very fun secondary objective when you were so good at the game that winning became trivial. The best races were the ones where the minor characters had a chance to beat the boss without your help. I can't remember which tracks or championships this was, but there were instances where they'd beat the boss on merit. I remember monitoring the mini-map and getting hyped whenever the boss was being shuffled down the pack by them.
The challenge was in the fact you have to finish third or higher in order to progress to the next race so couldn't just say hit the boss with the wand until you were way behind the field
I would say that yes, this type of game is against what most AAA companies do. But remember, we have a bustling indie industry in gaming right now
More of a cottage cheese industry than anything booming
The indie industry in question:
- Pixel art RPG that's a metaphor for depression
- Pixel art roguelike
- Pixel art deck builder
We need a middle ground between pixel art slop and triple-A slop. We should bring back the PS2/Wii-era double-A slop.
Cheap enough to mass-produce, but with enough production value so that ambitious and creative teams can achieve their creative vision in a reasonable amount of time.
@@vlc-cosplayerlord of the rings Gollum is exactly what you're looking for
There are double A kart racers today like Stampede Racing Royale
Nightmare kart lol
Lego Racers was THE game of my childhood. I had all the tracks memorised down to every brick location and all the shortcuts, and when I was not playing it, I was going around humming the themes and annoying my mum by pretending I am Jonny Thunder. My best friend had it too and we often played together and when we were at school, we would troll each other by drawing the mummy curse into each other's notebooks sneakily which meant the one who got cursed had to act confused for a while 😀
So many fond memories!
awesome XD
I still hum the theme tune every so often haha
I grew up playing both the old and the new Lego games, but the BEST Lego gaming experience I've ever had was Lego Universe. That game was such a gem and it introduced me to the concept of MMOs, I will never forget the experiences I had during those 2 years it was live.
The idea of paying a shell or coins, with presumably other shortcuts requiring other items, is truly brilliant.
Paying coins in Mario Kart for shortcuts could be awesome. I always used to hate getting the coin item since they introduced it since it feels so dead in the hand, but it if you could use them for more than a small passive boost then getting the item might become really exciting.
Coins increase your max speed!!
Coins increase your max speed by up to 10% which is far more important than it sounds. Also coins are one of the oldest Mario kart items, and the first items seen by the player in the series.
Reminds me of Sonic R shortcuts and passage ways... If it increases your speed then it makes even more sense for them to be spendable on shortcuts.
Since they introduced coins? Coins have bin in Mario Kart from the very first game
@gon9684 I was expecting that to be brought up in the video! Sonic R is very rough overall but that idea was pretty good imo
Great video - One underrated note is that Racers was robust and just ...worked. We had most of the 90s/2000s Lego PC games, and they were usually pretty unstable or wouldn't work at all. Racers ran perfectly on every PC I installed it on, and would run without the disc after installation. I'd put it on my friends' machines and we'd play it together - funnily enough on single player taking turns, or one friend driving and the other doing power-ups.
Lego island 2 also has one section that just does not work
We actually DID get a single player focused kart racer with unique mechanics with Team Sonic Racing, but Sega refused to market it well.
All Stars Racing Transformed, the prior game in the trilogy, was even better and people only remember it for the wacky crossovers
the Sonic racing games in general are WAY better than they have any right to be
It's crazy how sonic racing games went to simplistic lackluster game gear games & a poorly designed saturn game to masterpieces that at certain point somehow crossed over with ralph and banjo-kazooie
Maybe the, by far, worst game in the trilogy isn't exactly a good example. ASRT was phenomenal, though, and it's unfortunate that it didn't quite get the recognition it deserved.
I think the thing that killed TSR the most was a lack of crossplay. People who bought the game on Switch couldn't play with friends who bought the game on PC, and so on. That's a really bad thing to do to a fanbase that is already pretty fragmented across different platforms.
i remember playing Lego Racers and the Lego Island games. I still dig up Lego Island 2 from time to time just to keep that feeling alive. Lego Stunt Rally and Lego Xtreme Stunts are also some of those games that captures something newer games havn't and won't be able to.
Wow such a great video man. That menu screen music blew me away, I hadn’t even thought of this game in so long but I played this shit out of it as a kid. UA-cam algorithm was on point with this one. I hope to see more great videos from you in the future!
Thanks so much for your kind words and support!
Nice video. They actually had a system like you describe in Sonic R where you paid a certain amount of rings to access shortcuts. I never got the chance to play it in multiplayer, but it's possible it could have balanced things for people towards the back.
I'm with you on Basil the Batlord - wish I could have had one of those sets too
7:08 Wait, WHAT?! I’ve been playing this game since at least either 1999 or 2000 and I never knew the shortcut through the base shield had the code right there on the wall the whole time. I thought the coloured spotlight code for the shield was pure trial & error.
There's also a sound code you can hear when you drive through it and use it on the next lap.
@@KejserKagespiser I know that but I forgot to specify it was part of the trial & error I mentioned.
Yep, I figured it out pretty quickly and after haphazardly guessing I just said “okay what if I actually try that code it just showed me on the last lap?”
Loool duude 🤣🤣 it was one of my first shortcuts I found because of the red/blue high/low sound when you go through the doors before.
And funny thing is, my last found shortcut was the shield triggered one on the same map. Because I never used the shield anywhere outside Basil's boss run (against homing missiles).
I too thought, for some reason, that that one would only ever open to a shock attack...
Lego racers, Jak X and burnout 3 were my favourites back in the day. If allways had a soft spot for combat systems in racers
I loved LEGO Racers as a kid and IMO it's easily one of the best kart racers ever.
I spent hours hunting for all the shortcuts. I'd run the races in reverse because they were often more obvious to spot that way.
I think it's a brilliantly designed game and item system. I'm so happy that you covered every single reason why I've always said it is so unique and interesting. I can tell you loved it and the other LEGO games as much as I did, which feels like something special in 2024.
Well, the silver lining is that 20-ish years later, our beloved Rocket Racer got real in one form or another
Wait, when and how?
@@thomascircle245 Lego City Stuntz
@@thomascircle245 Besides two versions in Stuntz he was also in one of the Minifigures series
@@ENKTDeeColon_and_randomnumbers😮
It is sad that the single player aspect of racing games have disappeared over time. Back in the day there was Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing with their adventure modes, and Mario Kart DS' mission mode (kinda). LEGO Racers doesn't really have an adventure mode, though in my opinion, playing through the circuits feels like more of an adventure than cups in Mario Kart. But when you win the circuit, you unlock the circuit champion's car set, and get more customization options for your car. You also have this in the older Mario Kart games, but to me this felt more special, there was a connection between what you got and what you did. Why do you unlock Funky Kong in Mario Kart Wii by doing some time trials? Nobody knows, but in LEGO Racers, you unlock Captain Redbeard and his pirate/imperial buddies when you win his circuit. As a kid I would replay LEGO Racers over and over again, with new cars and/or challenges, but I haven't touched the cups in Mario Kart DS or Wii in forever. Also, the car customization in this game is amazing, I've never seen something like it.
20:40 The tracks Athens Dash and Daisy Circuit also have the piranha plant plyboards. But the one in Athens is never worth it, and the one in Daisy Circuit is always worth it, so not much decision making there.
I always just unlocked Mario Kart stuff through cheating. I wanted to play with my friends
@@jackthatmonkey8994 OK.
Diddy Kong Racing's adventure mode was something else. When I was a kid, I was absolutely blown away when I finally figured out to get to Future Fun Land, and as well as discovering I had to race Wizpig a second time.
singleplayerisms have died in a lot of genres.
@@angel_of_rust Because milking the masses for every cent as permanent consumer cattle is best done through “games as a service”. Single player sells, but it doesn’t eternally provide. Satanic really. These companies and the people in them are evil
holy crap that was the biggest nostalgia trip ever
There was this racing game that released in 2010 called Split/Second. It was published by Disney Interactive, and it wasn't a kart racer, but it was pretty close. Basically, you would earn energy for a meter by doing certain stunts and things during the race, which you would then spend to create hazards or shortcuts in different locations on the track. I feel like a spiritual successor or even a straight up sequel to that game would hit a lot of the points you talk about in this video.
Well to be fair, I played the game at around 2002 and I've never seen any of the Lego sets you've mentioned , but I still loved all the characters in the game. What I want to say with this is, that a Lego Racers game with only original characters could easily work in my opinion
Crazy how many people grew up with this game! I grew up with Lego Racers 2 and never really enjoyed Lego Racers 1 but I never realized just how different the 2 were
I loved Lego Racers 1 and playing it non stop. I got Lego Racers 2 and it wouldn't work on the family PC :( That was when i realized sequels aren't always better
I can honestly say that Lego Racers was the first game that ever scared me. So many things in this game caused 5 year-old me great distress. All the bosses, those Mummy things, the horror themed tracks, this game's got real jumpscares too. Can't recall playing any other game with the same sort of aesthetic as Lego Racers, and this video's the first time I'm hearing about that shield shortcut. Maybe an indie dev out there could work some of this game's ideas into their own thing
The forest map was terrifying
I used to think halo was a gritty horror shooter back when I was 5 watching my cousin play... Makes me laugh now
Fun fact about the shortcut in 20:14:
You don't really need the shield to pass through that wall. The game checks if a human player has the shield active and if so, it blinks and lets anyone pass through it.
A CPU can't do it of course, but a rival human player can. I learned this the hard way when racing my friend who used MY active shield to get through there.
[Edit: This statement isn't accurate, read the reply from vincetauronward]
One thing that annoys me a bit about the game is that the car building lacks green bricks (and other colors too, but especially green).
While this sounds like a programming error where it just checks on A player rather than it being player-specific, you do bring up a really cool idea with this; player-specific shortcuts that only work if you play with at least one other human player... 🤔
Hi, I'm a speed runner for this game. The AI actually CAN activate it! They just have to be within a certain proximity of the shortcut. It's unfortunately not a viable strategy to get an NPC to activate it for you, but it can be done!
@@vincentauronward347 Ah nice, so it depends on the distance from the CPU and the shortcut... That's pretty interesting honestly. The more you know! xD
From a speedrunning perspective, I can imagine manipulating their path where they get a bit closer when they're near the shortcut might not be the only thing that's not viable but also how far behind or ahead (?) they are...?? Like some sort of "when the stars align" moment.
It is really cool to see it is possible at least! 😄
@@vincentauronward347 That's cool, thanks for clarifying.
I'm lurking in the Lego Speedrunning Discord server. I don't run the game myself, so I rarely post (I usually share funny characters I made).
That's hilarious.
As a kid I absolutely loved both Lego Racers and Lego Rock Raiders. They both have a special place in my memories
Seeing the video of Rocket Racer challenging the player literally gave me strong goosebumps and took me way back in time.
I played this game for over a decade. You made a great documentary about it!
Hearing someone talk about Lego Racers in 2024 gave some whiplash. Used to play the hell out of it with my cousin on the N64. I always thought the different parts had different hidden stat values, and would pick the fantasy theme cause it was the "fastest."
Lol you're crazy, the space themed parts were obviously faster!
Interestingly enough, adding parts actually adds weight to your vehicle. It even mattered if you put more weight on the front or the back.
I once ran a car that was just the base thing, and got hit by red bricks that knocked me up so hard, I got stuck in the ceiling, because my car was too light.
Having replayed the game a couple years back, I also noted that when my cars had too many parts in the back, it'd struggle to tip back onto 4 wheels after being airborne. It's pretty impressive, considering how old and simple the game is.
The only recent game that was attempted like this was LEGO Legacy: Heroes Unboxed. It was a single-player focused, free-to-play mobile game similar to Raid: Shadow Legends. It had mostly classic characters like Basil, and you could unlock their sets for bonuses and trivia. But the game did poorly, they added Ghostbusters to try to get licensed IP in there, and now it shut down.
They revived the game for Netflix, now it's free to play with no pay-to-win! Although unfortunately still quite a tedious grind so I got bored of it quick.
@@aceman0000099annoyingly, often if you remove the unnecessarily frustrating parts from pay to win games it becomes pretty obvious that they're just not that good.
I think as a free player, you convince yourself that the bored and frustration caused by a pay to win game is the result of you not having paid and you're much more forgiving about arbitrary count down timers and grindy gameplay.
I can't say I ever played Heroes Unboxed, or even RAID, but when we were in highschool and android games were new it was incredibly easy to hack the games so we realised pretty quickly that these mechanics kind of suck.
The crazy thing is, our smartphones are powerful enough to easily emulate the games we loved as kids, but for some reason we prefer to play "easy" app store games that suck up time and dribble out a steady stream of dopamine regardless of your effort level.
It's crazy that you can't buy official ports of all the GBA games for example, or even just an official GameBoy emulator which you can buy official games for.
I guess if they did that nobody would need a Nintendo Switch to play the old Nintendo catalogue, but honestly it's pretty easy to find the emulator and roms by yourself so I think they're losing money by not offering it.
In general I hate the term "Can't be made today" because usually it can be but the people behind it are too scared to do it. However, I do agree you make some compelling arguments. As a lego fan I do bemoan the fact that Ninjago is pretty much the only franchise theme that didn't exist somewhere else first. Sure, I love the Star Wars sets and I just preordered the Zelda set, but back in the 80s I loved the Pirates theme. It was so much fun. The Pirates of the Carribbean theme, not so much as they were just scenes from the movie. They didn't have their own identity like the old Pirates. I'd rather have Lion Knights than Lord of the Rings. I'd rather have Blacktron than Star Wars. Lego needs to get its identity back before something like Lego Racers "Smash Bros" style character setup again.
I guess there were similar franchises to LEGO Chima already. The series might be like if Thundercats was full on fantasy and not science fantasy.
Especially considering how huge the Indie Game Scene is these days. Like, all it takes is some lone dev or small dev team wanting a modern take on the game to make a spiritual successor. It’s not that a Lego Racers-like game can’t be made. It’s that the major development studios are too focused on maximizing profits for their corporate overlords, and indies haven’t taken an interest in the genre.
Let's not forget some original franchise from 2007 and forth, like Mars, the one with Mechas and Bionicle. Ninjago would come to life way later.
Heck yeah, a video discussing in depth & with thoughtful analysis one of my favorite childhood games? How lovely. I have so many fond memories of this (in particular the OP warp)!
The On Cinema reference made me sooo happy 😂🎉. Empty bottle
Wanted to point out ModNation Racers which is the closest we got to Lego Racers
Yep, great power up system, great customisation. The lucky elite who got to play both of these as a child...
I really feel like modnation took direct inspiration from lego racers.
LittleBigPlanet Karting was also really good. It was basically ModNation 3 (same team & engine, I think), and it even allowed you to customize the kart handling and make the game feel wildly different.
I was about to comment that exactly. ModNation Racers even has the exact same kind of warp power up which you got by upgrading the turbo. Which is the same as what you do in lego racers.
Still remember pushing other players from the rotating center piece in the lobby. Still miss it.
Hugely underrated channel, keep making amazing work dude.
what are you doing here josh?
@@fencingfireferret1188 watching a fantastic video about lego racers.
How in the world did this random channel get JoshStrifeHayes already commenting with less than 3,000 subscribers? That's impossible.
Oh hi Mister Dry Face.
@@MatthewCenance similar niche tastes?
The only other racing game I saw go this hard on the shortcuts was BEETLE ADVENTURE RACING for the N64. That game was built around opening up massive shortcuts and that is exactly why I loved it so much!
Fantastic nostalgia trip! I want to highlight the key feature of Lego Racers 2 not mentioned: Kart damage.
For those who haven't played, in LR2, if you get hit with an item, blocks fly off your kart as you take damage. (Side note, because you can make custom karts, each kart will have unique damage states, impressive for 2001!) If you take enough damage, your kart completely breaks, and you're left to *run* as your little Lego character.
You can repair damage or respawn your cart by driving through designated repair areas. The repair gates take you a slower route and usually make you skip an item box. So there's a tradeoff you're forced to make if you want to repair yourself.
There's a compelling case for Lego game that combines:
1. The shortcuts from LR1
2. The damage system from LR2. (Optional: For a comeback mechanic, you take more damage if you're in 1st/2nd/3rd place)
3. Randomized items with a comeback mechanic like Mario Kart
4. (optional) Ways to upgrade items like LR1, but maybe the upgrades are more effective for "powerful" "last place" items. This can enhance the comeback mechanic.
Brainstorming on 4: I'll put it in Mario terms. Let's say in first place you get an item box with a mushroom. You then get a "white brick" upgrade that gives you... a second mushroom. But last place gets a set of three mushrooms which upgrades to the golden mushroom (or maybe star or bullet). Or in first you might pull a banana upgradeable to two bananas. But in last you pull three red shells upgradeable to the blue shell.
It took me and my brother MONTHS to figure out what the white bricks did and we thought the game was impossible for a while
I wish they supported their original themes more now, I watched so many cool themes fade in favor of big IPs.
part of this is due to their target audience getting older
@@theX24968ZThat's not exactly it, it's more like the target audience has expanded to include people who were huge fans as kids but have grown up.
I'm sure the vast majority of their customers are still kids, or parents of kids but their grown up customers are willing to spend 5-10 times more on a given set than the kids are.
I think it's really dissapointing how few original themes there are. Kids vastly prefer original themes to play with than licensed IPs.
Original themes allow for much more creative play and playing with licensed IP means basically just re-enacting the show they're from. Much less creative, and much less compelling for kids.
Unfortunately, when they're walking around the toy store, or browsing the catalogue in the lead up to a birthday, the licensed sets SEEM more fun. Kids are more likely to shell out for the brands and icons they recognise, even though they're ultimately less fun, because kids don't think about that sort of stuff.
Telking the kids at school you got the new Star Wars set is more impressive a brag than saying you got a really good Castle or Police Station.
If they're anything like me though, the generic sets were the ones most often rebuilt because they were easy to fit into the story of whatever the game happened to be about that day.
When we played Lego Star Wars, you always knew the good guys had to win, you knew what ships belonged to what sides and what all their capabilities were.
Sure you could use your death star to blow up a planet, but you can't ever kill Luke Skywalker and Yoda never gets to drive a mech.
Way more fun if one of us played as the Martians while the other played as humans. Either side can have whatever you're clever enough to build from the pieces in the box.
I remember racing my brothers to get all the cool transparent pieces out because those obviously made your guys the most powerful.
This video was like being curb-stomped by forgotten nostalgia, in the best way. Thank you for making it!
a modern release of lego racers would be so unbelievably fire
Be careful what you wish for.
Besides, they'd probably once again shove live service microtransactions and stuff into it.
The FTL soundtrack at 18:30. True man of taste
Thank you, I was going crazy figuring out where that was from
Tunic music as well - good touch.
And FEZ! Man after my own heart.
Sonic Riders and SR:ZG had some spunk as single player racing games!
I have fond memories of the 1st one, even though it took me way too long to figure out the mechanics
For as much as I've played Lego Racers back in the day, I never new how in depth the item system was.
It's still my favorite to this day, but never new it was this skill based and varied
Lego Racers is one of my favorite games of all time. I still remember the day we went out to the store to buy it. On our first day playing, we couldn’t even beat Captain Redbeard. When we first beat him, it was SO exciting to unlock the next level.
inb4 this blows up, amazing vid! Great quality content
Holy shit I remember this game! My siblings and I would take turns trying to beat the timed tracks, huddled around whoever was on the keyboard. It's all coming back now lol.
You're 100% right about the LEGO-owned IP thing, that aspect also carried Lego Battles, an RTS game on the DS that had six campaigns set in three themes: Pirates, Mars Mission, and Castle (although they had elements from many other themes that didn't make the cut, like a bonus Space Police unit for the Mars Mission army). That was my first RTS and holds a special place in my heart.
Kudos to you for presenting your views in the order you do. I was on track throughout the entirety of the video and your way of keeping viewers engaged is awesome.
Great video! To add to the list at 15:20: we have DREAMZzz now too. Still not a long list but it's something. I like that you went super detailed on the shortcuts. Never really thought about how it would work in a multiplayer setting. I love the fact that people still remember this game fondly. We can only wish that they create something similar for the modern times.
I've recreated the intro animations of the game but with modern graphics, to hopefully show Lego how cool this game was and maybe it sparks a move from them. But we can only dream. 😋
Also as an addendum, we finally got Rocket Racer as a minifigure not once, but TWICE in LEGO City Stuntz. But sadly this goes back to the "LEGO City as one of the few unlicensed evergreen themes" argument.Even this year we are rumored to have Johnny Thunder, but not in a new Adventurers line, but rather a LEGO City Jungle line. LEGO City is a profitable aspect of original LEGO properties, but that makes every fantasy or action theme homogenized into itself and taking away most of its fantasy elements (even though Space this year opened with some lime-green aliens and more flashy spacecraft designs).
@@Maniac4Bricks I don’t understand the City theme anymore. Might as well remove the theme from the box if everything is City. 😜
They could do something fun with the Speed Champions theme. Having a cool Johnny Thunder style race car would be great. 😜
@@StudframeAnimationsI'm pretty annoyed that it includes aliens and other sci-fi elements when it seems to me that they could be two distinct themes.
Aliens are a really easy theme to add some light plot and character details to sets in a way that Lego tries to avoid for the City theme.
City should have space stuff, but I'd prefer if it was just realistic space stuff like rockets, rovers and a moon base.
One of the harder aspects to designing a new lego theme is making it exciting while also keeping it accessible. Aliens are almost ideal villains for a kid's product because they can be scary but also silly.
Villains give you an excuse to design some cool robots and tactical looking sci-fi vehicles.
It's not that I don't think you shoulf be allowed to have aliens in your Lego City, of course you should, I just worry that we're missing out on stranger set designs because we're limited to things that fit the Lego City aesthetic.
It seems unlikely that they'll bring out an alternative space theme when the current lego city sets include mechas, aliens and so on. Space/Future tech covers a lot of ideas and I don't think there's enough room within the Lego City label for all of it.
@@SineN0mine3 We’re lucky that LEGO has made a lot of cool space themes in the 90s. Seems like we have to keep updating those ourself to keep the interesting space themes alive. 😜
To make a Lego Racers style power-up system work for multiplayer, you'd need to make some changes, even more so than time trial did.
Yes, you can give an advantage to players that lag behind: You'd just make the "initial" set of power-ups that spawn in one location different from the set that can replace them.
And if you make lapping impossible, then that gives you a short period of time between rounds where you can reset power-ups from their "re-spawned" ones to their "initial" set. Obviously you'd use that to give the lead player(s) less greens (and 1/3 or so less yellows).
Also, you can introduce randomness without completely abandoning the "pick your color of choice" system. Each spawn location can have a random spawn set (instead of always spawning reds or whites as in single player). Both of the suggestions so far make it so that you still get what you pick up, but what you can pick up will vary from race to race.
And there's nothing keeping you from introducing a "rainbow colored" brick, that will turn into one of the 4 colors on pickup. And maybe a black brick, that has a chance to turn into either a white OR one of the 4 colors, making it a gamble to pick it up if you already have your color of choice. And nobody would complain if the chances of getting greens from those depended slightly on situation (you being in the lead/it being from an "initial" or "re-spawned" set, pick up location, ..., the date being April 1st or Friday the 13th).
And finally, there's nothing keeping the devs from making the warp less powerful when you're in the lead. Nobody would complain if the warp seemed to take you random distances in MP. (And the speed boost multipliers could also be changed depending on where you were when you activated them. Nobody likes rubber-banding in normal drive mode; but speed boosts are something you get extra, and getting less extra feels less annoying than having something taken from you.)
Also, everything you say about shortcuts is true, except for one thing: They can't really be hidden, because you can just see other players take them.
Im a big fan of nerfing warp if you are in first place
I think adjusting the bricks can also be effective when done right
Although i dont like the idea of the black bricks
I would probably go for making it so there are less whites in the same location and make it so greens are more out of the naturally fastest path
10:50 "if we are going to copy Mario kart let's just play Mario kart" I actually really disagree all art is derivative and games are art, some of so called Mario kart clones like sonic transformed are legitmately great games. I want games to copy each other and be inspired by each other more not to shun derivative games on principle and to just say play the original
They could use characters from Lego City Undercover, there are some memorable characters there and the best part is, It's lego's own idea. Plus, they even had sets with some of the said characters.
Sadly, I don't think Lego City Undercover or any of the characters like Chase McCain, Frank Honey, Forrest Blackwell or Rex Fury are ever gonna be brought back.
Videos like this is what makes UA-cam entertaining to watch, by no means easy to make either, an art form.
Great video Tin Sensei! As a seasoned LEGO Racers speedrunner I can tell you you did it justice. Here's some memorable things I wanted to mention:
8:49 This is what we call a "Flakes moment" (Don't come after me Flakes😂)
12:41 I applaud you for this amazing joke.
13:22 "LEGO Racers was basically the Super Smash Bros. of LEGO." I never thought of this myself this way, but truer words have not been spoken about the game. It's truly how it felt playing this as a kid. I think I will quote this many times from now.
As a fellow video editor I can only praise you for putting this video together so well. Cheers and I'll stick around for the future!
Eerm
I agree with you about the living nostalgia that those early games had because of the crossover-ness of physical LEGO play. That's why I'm making my LEGO game concept so I can relive the old themes the way I imagined them to be. One of my back burner tasks was to make a simple racing mage so I might have to take some tips from LEGO Racers that you pointed out.
Dude, THANK YOU. I forgot all about this game and you just opened a floodgate of memories. I absolutely loved this game as a kid.
At Legoland on the Lego Racers attraction, I once won a race by using a shortcut and I've never felt so accomplished.
I do wonder now what was different about that version of the game compared to home releases, beyond the controls being linked to the arcade cars and the different character creation sequence.
10/10 video! Love the analysis, and I also hope we get more Lego Racers style shortcuts in the future (also shout out the FTL music in the video, what a banger)
I could see an indie racing game with similarities to Lego Racers happening. Like the same kind of shortcut system and customization of that game.
Banger video, glad to have gotten this randomly recommended
I mean the answer seems obvious to me. Have static power-ups, but you get upgrades upfront if you're behind. For something like Lego Racers specifically it'd probably be better to use distance instead of placing, so like First Place will only ever get the bricks they pick up, there's a range behind First Place that also only gets the bricks they pick up, but behind that range picking up a colored brick comes with a bonus white brick, behind that has two bonus white bricks, and at the extreme end behind that (like "you've already been lapped by first" behind that) gets three white bricks for free when getting a colored brick so that catching up with an insta-warp is possible. Alternately, spamming cages is possible if being a menace is more important than winning.
Also, Triple A is very bad and I don't want it to exist anymore.
04:19 Wait with the first warp until you're close to the second green power-up and use warp a split second before driving into the power-up. So basically you'll warp into the second green power-up and when you come out of it you have it.
Yeah, this guy doesn't know the Lego Racers meta
I feel like the game that probably came closest to this was modnation racers. It had a singleplayer story campaign, power-ups that could be leveled up (one was literally a warp that was the lvl 3 of the boost) and all kinds of shortcuts in all levels.
Seems the algorithm started recommending this video, and I am glad it did. I have always loved versatile or upgradeable power ups in kart games, it made me remember ModNation Racers as well.
Lego Racers was and always will be my favorite kart racer, excellent work explaining how complex the game system is!
7:38 WHAAAT I never knew about that one!
8:31 How did I never discover that one either?? I traced up and down that track all the time as a kid looking for a shortcut
Great job on covering the history and legacy of Lego Racers. Thanks for an overload of nostalgia!
The music shift at 2:47 made this feel like an infomercial.
Honestly, I always get very excited when I see people talk about the old Pre-LEGO Star Wars games. Sure a decent bit of it is because of nostalgia, and these games haven't all aged the best as you highlighted very well, but it's nice to see people still being passionate about them (myself included). Great video and keep up the good work ^^
subbed after the DKR reference. great and intelligent vid!
Anyone who knows of the existence of DKR deserves to have a happy and prosperous life.
18:38 For Diddy Kong Racing, not counting its re-release remake on DS, it is supposed to get sequel treatments. However, because its developer Rare was purchased by Microsoft, all of its sequel plans were canceled
ModNation Racers was an epic racer for me as a teen, because I'd spent years playing cheap-feeling PS2 "sim-like" racers, F1 championship edition and Wipeout. It's the closest I felt I had to a Mariocart on PS.
This is the first video game I have memories of playing. Having the NPCs never use the warp power so you have that edge throughout the entire game, sets up the "oh shit" moment of the first time rocket racer uses it against you SO well.
I have a core memory of being in daycare, crowded around a pc with a bunch of other kids my age watching somebody play and shouting “USE IT” all in unison whenever a warp was in play. I had no idea what was going on and was enthralled.
This game was the original hype creator and is without a doubt what induced my love for video games
Kirby's air ride has the enemies in the same area but trying to catch them is the problem.
Got some great nostalgia out of this video. Thank you!
I remember this game, but I was a dumb kid and I somehow never figured out how to like...actually start a race. So I never actually played it
The closest another racing game came to Lego Racers was a game on PS3 called Modnation Racers. It allowed you to not only create your characters and karts, but you could also create tracks. All of which could be shared online in-game. It also had a similar 3-level item mechanic, but the way it worked was the item pick-ups were random and increased in level the more you collected. In addition, you gained energy by energy pads, drifting, and drafting. This energy was used for boosts, shielding from attacks, and to open certain gates for shortcuts. Unfortunately, the game no longer has the online functionality, and the company United Front Games was shut down and it doesn't seem Sony has any plans for sequel.
LR2 had shortcuts... it's been too long since I played to recall the exact tracks, but Mars and Arctic had some very notable shortcuts that were usually shorter (well, duh) but had no powerups or avoided the repair zones (and repair zones almost always involved taking a longer path than ignoring repair.)
I think LR2 is really slept on, because it had unique mechanics of its own, such as the vehicle destructibility and how that played into map design. I never played LR1, but given the gameplay I've seen of it for all these years I think I'd basically always prefer LR2's setup and maps.
Bro just slapped me with hardest slap of nostalgia i've ever experienced and i'm greatfull for it🙏
Not a Lego fan, more of a UA-cam videos on games fan, and this is top quality
This is the best video I've seen in a while on game design topics. I'm glad I found your channel. I hope you'll do deep dives on other beloved video games, esspecially some of the other obscure racer games.
Another weird one was Crazy Frog Racer of all things. You collected coins on the track and purchased power ups with those coins as you raced. I think it was L1 and L2 to scroll up and down the menu at the side and then something else to use them (maybe Triangle?) Somehow it got a sequel and went more Mario Kart with it's power ups, but I liked that you had a skill option of choosing what you wanted versus collecting the coins to get it. Often the coins were on a racing line so if you were going around a corner smoothly you'd get a lot, but not always, and you'd have to sometimes choose between clipping the corner to be fast or going around the corner on the outside to get coins.
Come to think of it, this power-up shop could be the best of both worlds. There is skill involved, but you could scale it based on selected difficulty, race position, or both. Maybe coins could be worth more in last place, or power ups cost less in last, making it easier to get over powered tools to catch up. Set the game to hard mode and this difference reduces or even disappears, levelling the playing field.
Outstanding video. It did my head in having the clip of the warp transition to the mountain biking. I also loved the "hey!" from Voltage when Basil stile the green brick.
Fun fact at 14:30 in the cinematic the colour of Rocky Racer's arms are reversed. Ingame his left arm is blue and the right is red. It's been a 2 and a half decade long debate about whether RR is Ausie or not and I guess we now have confirmation.
I partially agree with your conclusions about why the LR powerup system won't (and hasn't) been created in a modern game. I think that a brand new IP called Rego Lacers could made and be everything Lego Racers was and more... It could be a truely amazing game... That no one would buy. It's not marketable at all in 2023. A single-player cartoon racer just won't sell. It may have a niche audience, i.e. just me, but LR was made when multiplayer racers were still being popularised and a single player cartoon racer was acceptance.
Well done on the video and thanks for covering such an underrated game!
I'm not sure why we went with an australian accent for RR. I think I was just messing about and it stuck.
to be fair, I think it's good that they bounced around, like a young person doing different jobs to figure out what they like, they also did original things each time. we got new stuff., which is one of the biggest issues in games nowadays. Why not lego racers 2? I loved 2. Was 1 better? in its own way... but I think it was good that they branched out every time.
16:59 don't think I didn't notice the Streets of Sim City music 👀
Always love seeing small creators going this deep into such niche content and producing something so informative and high quality.
Both lego racers where really good. The second one was a different approach. Being shot to walking, the damage system in general, the Bosses that were really unique, the open world exploration. The power up system with the engine, tracks and the tornadoes. You had to go to mars and stuff like that. With the menue where you drive into the level and not choose it in a menu. Also some attacks were really nice. The rocket with high damage, you could also ride. The tornado you can keep and set. To me the second one was a continuation. And the first was next to dove the first game i ever played. Both sound tracks still get me tough.