Lego Racers
What happens when the world's most famous construction set turns into a racing game? The result is a colorful, playful and surprisingly rich piece that enchanted an entire generation of young players. Lego Racers takes the classic concept of arcade racing with items and wraps it in the unmistakable world of bricks, minifigures and tracks assembled from familiar pieces.
The gameplay draws on the tried-and-tested recipe of arcade kart racing. Players speed around themed tracks, collect upgrades and offensive items and try to overtake their opponents. But Lego Racers adds its own layer of magic: from bricks you can build and customize both your own racer and their vehicle. This possibility of building from bricks fits perfectly with the brand's identity and gives the game a distinctive dimension that sets it apart from the competition.
The game's world is ruled by a character named Rocket Racer, and across the campaign the player fights through various themed environments inspired by classic construction-set lines, from pirates through the Middle Ages to futuristic worlds. Each area has its own visuals and atmosphere, so making your way through the racing championship feels like a journey across an entire box of Lego.
Lego Racers was released in the late 1990s for the PlayStation and personal computers and became one of the most successful and best-remembered video game titles based on the Lego brand from that time. For many children it was one of their first racing games ever, and the combination of accessibility, colorfulness and creative building made it a favorite of family gaming.
The game received a sequel and became a harbinger of the later huge wave of Lego games that dominated the gaming industry in the following decades. In itself it evokes strong nostalgia today: it is a title that managed to connect the joy of building with the joy of racing and to appeal to players of all ages.
Why play it: For cheerful, accessible kart racing with the magic of building from bricks, ideal for nostalgic memories as well as family gaming.
Game 79 of 215 for Sony PlayStation
The same title elsewhere (1)
The Sony PlayStation version benefited from its CD medium: a fully recorded music soundtrack and intro movie sequences gave this family racer a pleasantly polished feel for its time. The Nintendo 64 cartridge version had to compress its music more heavily, since cartridge storage was far smaller than a CD's capacity, but in return it spared players loading screens between tracks and used the N64's stronger graphics hardware for sharper texture rendering. Pick PlayStation for the fuller audio and cutscenes, or Nintendo 64 for quicker transitions between races and a snappier feel overall.
