Wayne County?
What really holds DC Super Heroes together in this rambling world is the narrative. Yay, for the Justice League busting out the moves to help Batman take on not only The Joker and his crew but Lex Luthor.
Questionable behaviour
This nefarious duo team up after The Joker crashes the Gotham Man of the Year awards demanding that he is a fitting recipient. This intrusion forces Bruce Wayne to don his cape, grab Robin and drag The Joker back to his rightful home in Arkham Asylum. But he’s not there for long as Lex Luthor decides only The Joker and his mind altering gas can help with his misplaced Presidential bid, and busts him out.
It is refreshing that Lego Batman doesn't have to follow worn out plot lines – the likes of which we see in Lego Star Wars or Indy – and can build new narratives in the DC universe that basically contain everyone.
Attack the block
The new, open world Gotham gives the game a stunningly wide appeal, despite any navigational issues. Collecting studs or completing missions unlocks the ability to explore the world through different characters from the Justice League. Choosing Superman, who's all about the heat vision, means I get to immerse myself further in the DC Heroes universe.
The nuances of the plot give a nod to previous cape crusaders – going all the way back to the 1960s – and gives this game a sense of depth, context and history. Personally, I would have liked a Batman vs Superman fight to the death, like in The Dark Knight Returns. However, in DC Super Heroes they are resolutely working together, but be sure there is plenty of back biting and bitching.
It's all kicking off
The ability to smash and rebuild a huge interactive world – especially in Batman's Power suit – lends itself to a hands-on type of game play that's fun and will appeal to any age range. The different suits for Batman and Robin with special abilities – such as a magnetic outfit for walking walls – are essential to solve all the puzzles and to collect every last stud – and I thought I looked pretty sexy as Robin in that acrobat gear.
Next page: Knight shift
COMMENTS
One Downer
Unfortunately they have kept the Compulsory Dynamic Split Screen thing. In the latest Lego Star Wars, you can select a fixed split screen, which works much better than the dynamic thing.
Who would have thought that Lego would come out with video games? As a child I grew up with lego. I was so into the idea of Lego video game. The best experience would be playing the game 3d. Ever since I was introduced to 3d gaming, I got addicted. Nothing can get better than Lego plus batman on my LG LM660T.
Slightly off topic I know...
...but sorry girl I have to disagree - although a real game changer in comic book terms a far superior aged incarnation of Wayne/Bats can be found in the Waid/Ross classic 'Kingdom Come' series.
Best Bats ever? Loeb/Sale 'The Long Halloween'. And that one isn't even up for discussion.
Seminal Performance!
Surely Clancy Brown must truly be recognised for his portrayal of Eugene H Krabs in SpongeBob Squarepants!
I'm not convinced on the whole 'everyone in the DC universe' shtick. I mean... most of the villains are basically name-checks and included for the sake of inclusion and given stupid mechanics to 'justify it'.
Aquaman is there. Yes, really. But the only use for him is to use his ability to spray a jet of water much as Robin does with one of the suits, except just in the places where you don't have Robin + his suit or it would be really inconvenient to do so (like in parts of Gotham City)
The Flash is there too. His only reason for inclusion, other than a name check, is to 'reassemble' the things that Lex's deconstructor ray has disassembled.
I mean, just by the conclusion of the main storyline, you'll have Batman, Robin, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Cyborg, and The Flash to play with.
Don't even get me started on the number of villains they included, all of which are on roof-tops and need to be duelled, and serve little or no real other purpose in the game other than that.
As far as navigation goes, that was handled surprisingly poorly, I thought, but turn on all the remote Batcomputer terminals (look for the red beams of light, can't really miss those) and then you can be shown a map with everything on it, and after that it isn't really hard to find, especially since you have multiple characters who can fly and thus float and look down on things... and this follows through for the roof-top duels: if you can find them and get to them, you almost certainly have Superman who can fly - and is invulnerable.
Completion of the main story campaign and only getting 20% is absolutely par for the course. Though I too felt unsatisfied - I was kind of hoping for the same as Lego Batman, having the villains' story to play too or at least more than 15 levels.
I like the idea of the massive Gotham City area to explore; it's done even better than Hogwarts was in the first Lego Harry Potter game (years 5-7 was quite poor by comparison, IMHO), but doing it this way is way too linear, it's one overall storyline and one huge area to explore, though there is a lot to do there.
If you liked the series thus far you probably won't be too disappointed, but you probably will be a little disappointed.
Not sure this should have had 85%, I'd have given it about 75% myself, that's after 25 hours thus far - it's a lot of fun, of course, but I'm not sure it's as polished as has been stated.
