We all have a cart racer of choice; some prefer Mario Kart, others prefer Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, and others still prefer Rascal Racers. There are so many cart racers out there that it’s impossible to name them all. There are a few though, myself included, whose cart racer of choice is something so outlandish and awesome that it could have only come from Lego… Hands up for all of those who remember Lego Racers. This is probably the most recent game I’ve covered so far and only my second foray into the world of polygonal gaming, but this game is worth it. For the younger readers, this will illicit childhood memories, I was still rather young when I played this on the family PC (don’t ask me what machine it was because I have no clue), and it ate up my life. I have beaten this game more times than I would care to admit, and have probably partaken in thousands of laps around those tracks. Lego Racers was one amongst the first batch of games Lego released, alongside titles like Lego Island, Loco, Creator, and Chess (I wasted a lot of time on this one too). A while back I found the old install of Lego Racers on one of the old family PC’s and amazingly enough it booted up without needing the disk, and even more amazingly it works perfectly with Windows 10, I’ve heard after the fact that this game in particular works poorly on modern PC’s, but I don’t get it.

This review will be a bit different that a normal one; instead of doing a blanket review, and mashing all the tracks into a single paragraph I’m going to do a paragraph on the first four tracks in the first circuit, just to give you a taste of what’s on offer. But before I get to that I need to talk about the start of the game, and the music. Since this is a Lego game you are given a large amount of customization options to play around with, starting with creating your racer. My racer is named Turdman Jones, and fun fact I actually own this figure, you then make his license where you actually give him his name. The best part about making your racer is actually building your racecar, the options are rather limited initially, but as you beat circuit races you will unlock more pieces and chassis to build with. Lego claimed that the way you built your car would affect handling and performance but as far as I can tell that was a lie, if you build a solid wall on one side of the car and leave the other side empty it will still handle the same.

The music in this game is fantastic, fun and quirky. The menu music has been etched into my brain, as well as the build racer music. Each track has its own unique piece of music, and since this was 1999 it had to be MIDI. Kudos to you Eric Nofsinger you have constructed some of the greatest game music I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to.

You have four options on the menu (there are more but these are the three that pertain to racing so shush), single race, circuit race, versus race, and time race. Single race is rather obvious, with this option you will race three laps (you can change this in the options menu, up to five) on a single track of your choosing, this is handy for learning the tracks and finding the locations of the many shortcuts. Circuit race is basically the grand prix mode; you will race all four tracks in the circuit in order against the reigning champion, get third place or better and you unlock the next circuit, get first and you publicly shame your opponent and steal their car. Versus mode is something you’ll never do on PC, because you NEED to use a controller for player 2, you can’t share the keyboard, and besides it’s just split screen against each other, no NPC’s to be seen. Time race is the time trial mode, you will race against Veronica Voltage, if you beat her on all of the tracks you will be allowed to steal her car as well, apparently it goes faster. If you’ve already beaten the game this is a good way to keep going because, like you, Veronica will use shortcuts, increasing the difficulty by quite a large margin. Without further ado though, lets look at the tracks.

First Circuit

Reigning Champ: Captain Redbeard

First Track: Imperial Grand Prix.

This is the pirate track, if that isn’t apparent by the name, and an excellent intro track. The colorful graphics are at their best on this track (the graphics are great for all the tracks but we have to start somewhere), there are several noteworthy set pieces on display here, you have the giant swinging crate on the docks, don’t hit it or it’ll spin you out, there is also the mineshaft with mine carts trundling around in the walls beware of explosives they might just blast the level apart. This track is full of hairpin turns that really acclimate the player to the control style. A handy hint that I never knew until recently, you can drift in this game by holding SPACE, I wish I knew about this before, it makes things much easier.

Second Track: Dark Forest Dash.

This is one of the medieval tracks, and graphically it is spectacular. The lush green forest fading to a murky gloom is a treat to the eyes, two notable set pieces are the giant and extremely loud waterfall, that I always wanted to drive into, and the spooky ghost the will spin you out if you come into contact with it. The track design is quite different from the last one interspersing shallower and longer corners to offset the sharper hairpin turns. The sound design for this track is one of my favorites, with the wailing of the ghost and the howling of wolves in the background coupled with those kick-ass tunes make this one of the best looking AND best sounding tracks.

Third Track: Magma Moon Marathon.

This is the first of the space tracks, and out of all the tracks this is my favorite, it’s also the easiest, it’s also hosted by Turdman Jones’ twin brother. The first thing you’ll notice is how blue the whole thing is, don’t worry the other space track is incredibly green. A few notable set pieces are the magma bridges with laser gates preventing you from taking a swim, and the… uh… laser gates that you drive under, if you drive under them in the correct order you’ll open a secret shortcut. Unlike the previous two tracks this track has no hairpin turns allowing for the accrual of some serious speed (this is the only track I can lap the NPC’s on), it also has one of the most cleverly hidden shortcuts in the game, to unlock it you need brains rather than brawn.

Fourth Track: Desert Adventure Dragway.

This is the first adventure themed track, and it takes place in one of my favorite periods in history: Ancient Egypt. This track has some of my favorite set pieces, including a giant sphinx, a weaving track through a campsite, and a crumbling obelisk that will block your way from lap two onwards. This track focuses mainly on straightaways and chicanes which allow for some serious carnage if you have the correct power-up. This track has one of the most well hidden shortcuts in the game, you’ll have to comb every inch of that desert to find it.

One thing I’ve neglected to mention until now is the power-up system and how you can build up your power-up’s strength. There are four colored bricks that you will find interspersed throughout the tracks; there are, red, blue, yellow, and green bricks. There are also white bricks that you can collect, you can collect a maximum of three at a time, and with each white brick you collect your power-up gains strength. Red bricks are offensive weapons, starting with a cannon ball, up to a grappling hook, then to a beam of lightning shooting out from the front of your car, and finally you release three homing rockets that will target the racer ahead of you. Yellow bricks are obstructive weapons starting with the classic oil slick, up to an explosive barrel that floats around the track where you left it, then there is a tractor beam that will hold a racer in place for a brief period of time, and finally there is the Mummy’s Curse that reverses the steering and makes the screen zoom in and out obnoxiously. The blur bricks are defensive shields, the first is the blue shield, it lasts for a short period of time and can deflect attacks, the second shield is green and simply lasts longer, the third shield is yellow and lasts even longer and can reflect attacks, the final shield is red and lasts the longest, reflects attacks and will spin-out other racers on contact. The final power-up, and the only one you’ll be using is the green brick which is a speed boost, the standard brick is a short speed boost, the second tier is a longer speed boost, the third tier is a pair of rocket boosters that lift you of the ground as well as boost you faster and lasts longer than the other two. The final green brick power up absolutely breaks the game, it is the Wormhole, it will literally skip you a short way across the level instantly, this is how you win, I’ll admit that it’s graphically interesting, but you’re skipping so much of the beautifully crafted tracks, I kinda wish that it wasn’t in the game and you had to rely on your driving skill and power-up usage to get you across the finish line, not just collecting three white bricks and getting a green brick and skipping a large chunk of the level and repeating the process until, you win.

Overall this is a fun but flawed game that still delivers a charm and style unique to the Lego brand. I almost forgot to mention that despite there being six champions to race against there are only twelve tracks, the other twelve are just mirrored versions of the same tracks… LAME!!! Thankfully Lego Racers is a fairly cheap game, I’m seeing copies on Ebay 15$ or less all day, I’m actually considering buying a copy just to have a disc to go with the game. I will spare this game the wrath of the Collector’s Zone mainly out of nostalgia, but c’mon it’s impossible to stay mad at a Lego game.