I suspected there was a brick multiplier.... Wanna hint where that one is at?

@DrFinkelstein
You know what? I actually meant stud multipliers. I don't THINK you can multiply your bricks until after the story. Collecting the bricks wasn't wasted after all, I was just a little confused.

Wait.. so you can eventually multiply bricks or no?

@DrFinkelstein
The only brick multiplier I got was unlocked after clearing the story. It is very helpful though, especially when you pick up a big'un.

@ploot

Okay. That makes me not want to spend forever hunting bricks for super builds until I just push through the story. I am about two thirds through if not more.

@DrFinkelstein
Yup, that's a good plan. In fact, most of the open-world stuff is way more fun after you unlock various things through the story (mostly the disguises, of course).

I've just played the game for 4-5 straight hours. I only stopped now because the GamePad ran out of juice. I am very, very addicted to the collecting.

Chapter 4 or so. The last costume I got is the Miner, and I'm headed towards the dojo.

The world of Lego City is so nice, I want to move there. Seriously. I want to find a way to transfer my mind into that game's world. Oh, you laugh now, but soon you won't be laughing so hard, oh no...

@Guillaume

Just let us know your home's address is so we can come over and drestroy it for more super bricks.

The game makes me laugh less than I expected from the trailers I've watched, as the pop culture references can get annoying. It suffers from the "look at that, a reference!" syndrome, Scary Movie or Family Guy style "humor", except inoffensive. Re-enacting an iconic scene of Titanic, just because you're on a boat, isn't terribly funny. Some of the lines of dialogue are truly witty, however, but they're few and far between.

That said, I'm still constantly smiling because the game's squeaky clean world is utterly charming. You're playing a cop cleaning up LEGO City during a crime wave, yes, but the criminals are really just pranksters. You visit Albatross Prison, but the inmates couldn't be less intimidating. "You can't keep me locked up inside! Not on a sunny day!", they protest. It's so frickin' cute. As I said earlier, I wish I could live in that world.

Given the amount of collecting that LEGO games usually have, and the amount of collecting open world games usually have, I kind of expected the collectathon aspect to be worse than ever, and yet, I'm enjoying it a lot. Instead of a collecting overdose, it now feels like the collecting makes more sense in this genre than in previous LEGO games. The collecting has even become the meat and potatoes of the game, since enemies are few and far between. It's the actual impetus for the gameplay. It's what makes you do platforming, climb up buildings, and solving simple puzzles.

Nothing of value is lost by reducing emphasis on combat in open world games. It just makes sense. I think back to Assassin's Creed 2 and the combat was more annoying than anything else. The archers on every rooftop were mere nuisances, they couldn't really hurt you. They were never threats. So why have them there in the first place? They just got in the way of the fun of parkour.

So LEGO City's de-emphasized combat may be a result of the kid-friendliness of the franchise, but I think the developer also accidentally tapped into the real fun of open world games thanks to this limitation.

I don't know yet where I'd rank it amongst the Infamouses, the Bullies, the Godfathers or the Assassin's Creeds that I've played, but it certainly is a very fun game.

My thoughts on the final chapter....

One of the most epic endings to a game ever!!! Wow it was fun and exciting like whoa. Great music too!!!

I'm just past where Guillaume is, and I'm enjoying the game quite a lot. I was using the scanner to listen in to conversations and heard a guy ordering a pizza. I laughed so hard...probably because I could relate to the person on the other end of the line way more than a person should be able to.

Got over 50% done and found a Mario hat

Karen has started her own game and has powered through to where I was at, she's got the color gun and we've just been loving the humor in the game together. She's really struggling with the controls however, especially when driving, but that might be mostly because she hasn't learned how to drive in real life, haha.

I've then played some more and got the astronaut costume, which is very cool. I had to stop playing soon after, but I can't wait to play more.

So the color gun... is there any point in the game where you unlock every color, accessible through a menu? Because it's kind of annoying to use so far. There never seems to be the right color near where you need to use it. At least allow me to find these machines on the map, goddamn it!

Also, it took me a while to realize this, but do cheats simply turn off whenever you resume your game? What the hell? For most of my playthrough, I thought I had 2x studs turned on, until I unlocked 4x studs and realized it was turned off.

@Guillaume

There is a red brick which allows you to upgrade the color gun. There is s hint from ploot to myself a few pages back. Get it asap as its very useful. It will... allow your gun to shoot the correct color anytime it is used. No more swapping at all.

And certain cheats like the studs multiplier will reset upon a reboot. Annoying. Yes. Though, you can turn on 2x and 4x multipliers for an 8x boost!!

Woah! Alright! I had no idea they stacked!

I guess it's a minor complaint. At least you just need to access the cheats in the menu and don't have to go through the police HQ every time.

edit - And now Big the Cat is sitting on my face, in a dress.

@Guillaume

And at least the cheats aren't DLC

There are some spots on the map that you can go to that has all the colors available but often they will still be far so going back and forth can be annoying.

@VofEscaflowne

The airport hangar was the only one I managed to find.

@DrFinkelstein

I have 2 spots that doesn't include the airport hangar haha.

@DrFinkelstein
If it's like every other Lego game, wait until you get the 6x, 8x, and 10x multipliers and get a x3840 boost going.

Too much stuff came out at once and all while I was on vacation so I'm only a couple missions in. I'm really enjoying what I've played so far.

59.9% complete. I'm having a hard time completing areas 100% because after there's only but a few things left to do, I have no idea where to even look. Especially when it's destroying random objects or painting others. There's just absolutely no indication whatsoever what you should be doing.