I'm not excited about free roam anymore. This game is mean.
First, you know how detective mode in the Batman Arkham games was awesome, seamlessly turning it on and off, using it to trace the path to clues, and just generally being super useful? Yeah.... Undercover's version of it sucks. First, you can only use it standing still and in first person. Second it takes a second of a loading screen to go into it. Third, it's not used for for tracing paths or anything, just points. So you can use it to find where a collectible is, but not where the other end of the teleporter is to get into the area with that collectible. All that, and it has a range that's difficult to figure out, so searching for collectibles with it means using it, running or driving a short distance, using it again, rinse, repeat. It's slow, tedious, and very easy to miss things.
Now as to why it sucks traversing LEGO City:
- Helicopters can only land on helipads. There are like 5 in the city, at least one of which can only be reached by helicopter. Most aren't easy to get to at all. You can also jump out of helicopters.... but only onto special crash pads (or into another vehicle, though I don't think that's intended behavior.) So basically helicopters are useless as a form of transportation, unless you need to go somewhere that can only be reached by helicopter, in which case you'll wish you didn't have to go there at all.
- Boats are even worse. They're harder to find, except for the ones that are just boating around just out of reach. The water is not fun. Ever.
- Rooftops are hard to get onto, and sometimes the route to the roof a collectible is on is multiple city blocks away. It's not even always possible to visibly trace the path because teleporters, catapults, super chicken gliding, and other traversal methods can't be predicted. You can only hop on and hope they take you somewhere useful.
- There are no flying characters. Getting around New York in LEGO Marvel Superheroes is fun, because you can fly or web-sling. This makes getting some of the gold bricks trivial, but so what? LEGO City Undercover gives you a jetpack... that's less effective than Fludd from Super Mario Sunshine. The jetpack doesn't let you fly. It gives you a double jump with a limited amount of hovering. This makes traversal a lot easier, it's definitely welcome, but it doesn't fix the problems this game has with making it hard to get around.
- This game is obsessed with taking camera control away from the player. Especially on rooftops. Want to look to see where a catapult is aimed? NOPE. Want to get a better look at a nearby rooftop to try to figure out if it's part of a path to get somewhere? NOPE. Want to move the camera so that it's easier to move without falling off? NOPE. This is a problem in all LEGO games, but Undercover is so much worse about it, especially since you don't get any flying characters.
None of this makes Undercover a bad game. The story mode is still funny, and a lot of the elements that make LEGO games fun are still present, but if you like 100%-ing LEGO games, then you'll probably find this one to be highly frustrating.
