I'm sure many of you had high hopes when you first heard of Stunt Rally. This game was released in 2000, two years after the amazing LEGO Racers. Unfortunately, the similarities are quite small. Think of LEGO Stunt Rally as a limited version of LEGO Racers, one where you can do many of the same things but the scopes of which are severely limited.

You can't actually build your car. Like in many racing games, you can choose the car and the color - and you unlock the cars of those you defeat (they do have different stats) and choose the tires (which increase or decrease your speed and traction) as well as the style. In contrast, LEGO Racers actually lets you BUILD your car - this game does not.

Next is the racing. The car building would not have been an issue in itself for me - I the build system in LEGO Racers isn't great and I usually just picked the default cars, but it turns out that the racing is made extremely easy by the game. Your car is auto-steered - you can adjust your movements a little to the left and right to pick up a power up or avoid a small obstacle, but for the most part, the only thing you need to control is your forward speed.

Boring. That's not to say that a few tracks don't require a few tries to win, but it's not nearly as exciting as LEGO Racers.

What does the game have over LEGO Racers?

The game has better graphics than LEGO Racers. If I'm not mistaken, they're significantly better in the race, probably because you're looking at it from above and everything is smaller. The interface also looks a bit better.

The game is narrated by Mr. X, which is actually pretty cool.

The cars are a bit better than LEGO Racers, as they use some techniques which make them more than just bricks on a plate on wheels.

The one important thing that LEGO Racers doesn't have that this game does is the ability to create tracks of your own. It uses a modular system where you use track pieces that you win from games. You gain access to any track piece from a race you participate in. The building system isn't great but it isn't too bad either.

Other Relevant Info:

The four racers you can race as are Lucky (Blue), Chip (Yellow), Wrench (Red), and Lucky (Green and Female). They have little sound bites but never speak.

On most races, other than the five boss fights, you race up to three of these racers: Brad Speedo, Sid Vacant, Mega Hurtz, and Sandy Surf. Beating them will unlock their cars and styles for you.

There are five bosses - in order: Radium, Baron Flambo, Snake, Glacia, and Mr. X. The number doesn't really indicate difficulty, and while I think Mr. X has the best car I'm had the most trouble with Snake. You race Radium at least four times and Baron Flambo and Snake twice.

There are a few power-ups: A beam which for a few seconds freezes anyone directly in front of you, a turbo speed boost which also helps you steer, no-skid tires which allow you to go at top speed without sliding off course, an oil drop, and a ring whose purpose I don't know (as I've always been too far ahead when using it) but which I assume prevents other racers from getting past you (or even knocking them back).

The races are set in City, Desert, Jungle, and Arctic (plus Race Track). The City theme has things from a number of Town themes, the Desert has one or two races with Adventurers Egypt stuff, the Jungle theme has at least one track with Adventurers Jungle stuff, and the Race Track with Mr. X has billboards advertising LEGO Loco.

Interesting tiles include: A loop-de-loop, a jump which causes you to do a spin while in air, a track with a whole in it out of which tentacles extend, whose purpose is to spin you around if you land on them, ice which will freeze around your car if you stop moving, and fans.

Overall?

A disappointment, I as I think I've indicated throughout the article. The entire purpose of a racing game is to race. The track building is a nice feature but they really made the racing into something far less interesting. If I had to give a numerical rating...

I would give it a 5/10. The fact that it's a LEGO Game, that the racing is a little more challenging than you'd expect with the gameplay, and the track builder make it worth getting, although not so much as other games.