When it was first announced, it's fair to say the LEGO City Fun Pack was one of the Year 2 expansions we were most looking forward to. After all, it had been a while since we'd first visited LEGO City in the fantastic Wii U detective adventure - and having always had a bit of a soft spot for the original, non-film inspired LEGO games, we couldn't wait to get back to catching baddies with the hottest cop on the LEGO City force.
Of course, that was all well before the LEGO City re-release had been announced - but while the game's recent re-release on current gen consoles may have somewhat dampened the nostalgia value, that doesn't mean this isn't one of the better value LEGO Dimensions packs out there.
The LEGO City Undercover Fun Pack contains:
- Minifig: Chase McCain
- Vehicle: Police Helicopter
And buying the pack gets you access to:
- LEGO City Adventure World
- LEGO City Battle Arena
The Minifig
With just the one minifig on offer, the LEGO City pack is led by Chase McCain, a perfect LEGO recreation of everyone's favourite LEGO City officer. Coming complete with his grappling gun, Chase is perhaps unusual for recent LEGO Dimensions releases, in that he only has one face - meaning there's no scope for any good cop/bad cop action here.
If you were lucky enough to pick up the LEGO City Undercover Limited Edition when it launched on the Wii U - a bundle which came with its very own Chase McCain minifig - you may be interested to know that this version of Chase is actually surprisingly different. Rather than just re-using the same minifig, LEGO Dimensions has instead gone down the usual route of creating a brand new one especially for the game, as you can see from this comparison gallery below (the original LEGO City Limited Edition Chase is on the right)
However, while he may have a bit of an unassuming face (not to mention a generic haircut), Chase is actually one of the most well equipped figures in the entire game. With LEGO Dimensions being a game all about the abilities, Chase comes packing a whopping 17 skills, making him one of the best value figures money can buy. If you're something of a completionist (and let's face it, if you play the LEGO games, you probably are), you'll know the abilities are the things that really make the figures worth buying, as the more abilities a figure has, the more hidden gold bricks you'll be able to puzzle your way to in the levels. As an undercover cop extraordinaire, with so many disguises on offer, Chase has access to an incredibly wide range of abilities, with his full ability list being as follows:
- Acrobat
- Cracked LEGO
- Drill
- Flying
- Glide
- Grappling
- Growth
- Hacking
- Hazard Cleaner
- Illumination
- Relic Detector
- Rope Swing
- Silver Lego Blow-up
- Super Strength
- Target
- Tracking
- Water Spray
Phew! Needless to say, that's one heck of a list, with some fairly rare abilities like Water Spray and Relic Detector in there - but perhaps unusually, Chase won't have access to all of his abilities to begin with. Much like in LEGO City Undercover proper, many of Chase's abilities are linked to his disguises - and with only his cop clothes on him when you first start playing, you'll need to head to the bundled Adventure World, and hunt down the disguise booths if you want to unlock both his many disguises, and his full range of abilities.
The Adventure World
Yes, the chicken gun is still here in Chase's farmer disguise! Pelt your enemies with eggs fresh from the source!
At the time of writing, the LEGO City Fun Pack is the only way you'll be able to access the LEGO City Adventure World, which is unlikely to change in the near (or distant) future (unless there's a secret Frank Honey figure in the works, but that does seem unlikely). An open world crammed full of quests, crooks and collectables, the LEGO City Adventure World is actually a stripped down, crammed together version of the same city from the full game, packing in many familiar landmarks and sights, but in a totally different order.
As a quick example of how the new town fits together, if you head to the top of the police station, while you'd usually be able to see a corner shop and a train station, now you'll end up copping an eyeful of both the space station (which used to be on an offshore island), and the prison (ditto), which have seemingly upped foundations and moved in next door.
It's a bit of an unusual mix, but it's one that works pretty well, helping cram all the fun of LEGO City into a much smaller space. If we're honest, we had been wondering what the team at TT were going to do for this one, as with it likely being tricky, if not technically impossible to fit the entire LEGO City world into one small download, we were a bit concerned we'd be left exploring just one small chunk of the full world. Luckily, by cramming so many familiar sights into one Adventure World, just in a totally different order than you're used to, it all manages to feel fairly new.
Of course, it wouldn't be an Adventure World without plenty of quests, and the LEGO City Fun Pack doesn't let you down here either. Whether you're helping Chief Dunby solve one of the most serious cases the force has ever faced - a phantom doughnut flincher! - or helping an Arnold Schwarzenegger-alike take down the prison's walls, there's plenty to do - and even a fair few random crimes you can put right, as you tear down the streets after someone's who's just pinched a lady's handbag. That said, as fun as the quests may be, it is a little bit off putting that you can't just pinch someone's car and drive off with it, like you can on LEGO City Undercover - sadly, if you want to get around this LEGO City, you'll need to use your own set of wheels...
Outside of the quests, the most important part of any Adventure World is the red brick, and here the LEGO City Fun Pack sits a little bit in the middle. When you catch it, the red brick here will let you enable a cheat called "Stud Chest Master" - a handy little feature that dramatically slows down the rate at which the hidden bonus stud chests cycle through their various colours. Making it much, much easier to hit them when they turn purple (netting you a chest full of the game's most valuable 10,000 stud purple studs), this goes some way towards making the Adventure World stud targets that much easier to reach - although perhaps not quite as much as the Goonie's 4x stud mulitplier...
The Vehicle
Of course, no fun pack is compete without its vehicle, and the LEGO City pack comes complete with its very own special Police Helicopter.
If the first thing to pop into your head was "Man, not another helicopter", you're certainly not alone - but at least it goes with undercover action hero Chase McCain's gimmick. Luckily, the rebuilds are at least a little bit more exciting, as you get to build both a plane (which is OK), and a hovercraft (which is much cooler) - especially as it can still use the boost/stunt pads that litter the game's roads. As much fun as the hovercraft may be, though, it is a little bit disappointing that the actual model you'll be making ends up looking nothing at all like the thing you'll be driving around in game, robbing it of a lot of that "toys to life" magic.
Still, as the only way to access the LEGO City Adventure World, and with Chase being a man of so many talents, this is still well worth picking up if you're missing more than a handful of Chase's many abilities. With a decent red brick, at least one fun rebuild, and a fun open world to explore, this is one of the better LEGO Dimensions expansions.
