So both Lego and Batman are awesome, but what's better than Lego and Batman? Why Lego Batman of course! If you've been living under a rock, here's the basics of the Lego (Insert name here) games. It all started off with 'Lego Star Wars', which was truly a fantastic game, as was 'Lego Star Wars 2'. Then along came Lego Indiana Jones, the first Lego Batman game, Lego Harry Potter, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, and Lego Rock Band. Now, while the games have been enjoyable, they had been starting to strain; 'Lego Pirates of the Caribbean' started to get boring around the third film, while 'Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7' just felt forced.
But there was something different with this game straight away; the figures are going to be voice acted. And, to be honest, that has breathed new life into this game. It makes such a change after hearing the characters say something other than "grunt" and "sigh" after all these years. It gives the...miniatures more personality, more emotion. And while I was disappointed that they could not persuade Mark Hamill to do the Joker again for the sake of Lego, they did get the Highlander himself Clancy Brown to reprise his role as Lex Luthor, which was pretty awesome.
And I do love how the Riddler is portrayed in this. Actually, before I get this started, I do love how all the characters are portrayed in this, how they are written, how they interact with each other. Especially the relationships between Joker and Luthor, and Batman and Superman, I love the relationship between them. The game appears to have kept their relationship to how we'd expect it, Superman respects Batman but can't help that his powers enable him to do everything better, whilst Batman also respects Superman, but he keeps up his isolated personality while being annoyed as to how everyone craves Superman. It also keeps the relationship between Batman and Joker.
Loading up the game we're introduced to Vicki Vale (Who does a news report for each level) announcing that Bruce Wayne is up against "some bald guy from Metropolis" (Reinforcing my belief that all bald people are evil simply because the rest of the world has hair). However the Joker (In typical Joker fashion) crashes the party with the Arkham choir group, including the Penguin, Harley Quinn, the Riddler and Two-Face, with Joker claiming the award for himself and mugging everyone else, including Lex's watch.
Batman and Robin, who has suddenly appeared from somewhere, then fly through the wall. Joker, Two-Face, Penguin and Riddler escape under the stage whilst Harley Quinn stays to be our first mini boss. First of all though I used this opportunity to get used to the controls once again, by beating up henchmen, collecting studs, saving a citizen in peril, destroying stuff and building things. Once we finally get to Harley, she's fairly easy to beat, you just throw your batarang at her three times.
Going under the stage we find the musicians are still playing. They are dedicated. You can destroy their instruments to collect more studs and to advance onto the Riddler mini-boss. Wow, I can only wonder what goes through those musicians minds after that. I mean, Joker, Two-Face, Penguin and Riddler leave these guys alone, and then Batman and Robin come down and destroy their instruments! They must think Batman is a real jerk now.
Anyway, Riddler decides to play hide and seek, so this is effectively a puzzle room. We need to get past a camera without being seen. This involves using the grappling hook, travelling across the platforms, and knocking over a box so that we can build a suit pad, giving us the sensor suit; allowing us to turn invisible and to see other characters as skeletons. Upon getting past the sensor, we then come across a point where both characters have to use their grappling hooks to progress onto the next part.
Now it's here that I noticed something off with the A.I While I did the first one, I was expecting the other character, played by the A.I, to automatically go onto the other hook, since I recall the previous games doing that, to an extent. The A.I. did not. It was a minor thing, but annoying. Now, while I am going over the first hour of gameplay, I have played beyond that. And, the A.I is one of the worst I've ever seen. Even worse then Sheva from 'Resident Evil 5', at least she moved to the other place where you needed her to use the co-op function. In 'Lego Batman 2' (LB2), the A.I doesn't even fight, it just allows the henchmen or boss or whatever to attack it. There's a later level where Batman and Robin are separated, and you need to do something with each character to help the other to progress, however, you will find that when you swap characters, you'll be sent all the way back to the last point you swapped. Sometimes the A.I may follow you, but it is generally useless most of the time.
Back to the level, we'll eventually come across a point where Batman needs to use the x-ray vision that the sensor suit provides him, on a section where the Riddler is hiding. This reminds me of one of the Riddler's puzzles in 'Arkham City', but I'll come back to that later. After finding him three times we get to fight Riddler who, like Harley, is quite simple to beat.
Moving on we come across a bit where we unlock Robin's acrobatic suit, which enables us to get to the upper level where Two-Face appears. He then annoyingly shoots at you while you help Batman get up. Using the Batman sensor suit to destroy some things beyond the two sensors, we unlock a bit for something which requires Robin to become bubbleboy. After taking on Two-Face, who was slightly tougher than Harley and Riddler, we see Joker at the top of the stairs.
We then take on Joker (Apparently Penguin got lost) who uses his patented joy buzzer against us. Again, fairly easy, but it does end differently since you need to use x-ray vision again to send Joker flying through a wall. Upon using the zipwire however we see Joker is making his escape. Oh there's Penguin!...oh, never mind. And that's the first level.
After seeing how stunning Gotham looks in this game, we come across Batman and Robin on top of the building, whilst Joker goes round in a circle in the water in his boat. Now, unlike the previous Lego games, albeit the Lego Harry Potter games, LB2 is open world. Again, it's referencing 'Arkham City' again, and, as stated earlier, it isn't the only one. LB2 does reference 'Arkham City' numerous times, from one of the opening into logos for Telltale and Warner Brothers, the x-ray mini-puzzle involving the Riddler, a news report later, and of course the open world, heck, even promotional posters spoofed 'Arkham City'. While this was used in 'Lego Harry Potter', it does still need some getting used to. The ghost studs returning to tell you where to go though is a big help. There are mini-boss battles as well in this open world, the first being Captain Boomerang as far as I'm aware,where they can be available for purchase upon defeat. This, really was a great addition I feel, it makes you want to explore the open world.
After collecting studs and changing Batman and Robin into the sensor and acrobatic suits, we can finally unlock the terminal which allows us to use Robin's helicopter. Yeah, in a Batman game I really want to use Robin's helicopter first and not the Batplane. Doesn't matter though since Robin crashes it a few seconds later due to a searchlight. So this level involves fixing his helicopter, and once again the level starts off with the henchmen beating up the already damaged vehicle. I suppose they think they can do more damage to the vehicles than the flesh and bone Batman and Robin.
And in this level, I really got annoyed with Alfred's voice. His cough and "excuse me sir" are to draw your attention to hints throughout the game, but they also come up to tell you when you can't do things, and they kept popping up telling me I couldn't destroy the shiny objects for the time being. Well, at least not until you unlock Batman's power suit, which is in a television trailer. For some reason. Anyway after blowing stuff up we can unlock Robin's magnetic suit, which allows us to climb up the building.
And this was one of the most frustrating bits of the game, since every single time I tried to go round a corner, Robin jumps, which means he drops back to the ground and I have to do it again. It took some getting use to, but eventually I got the hang of it. Which is good because it's so easy to drop off the ledges, meaning you need to climb again. Then again climbing up the side of the building was more fun than it should have been. After doing that and getting the bits for Robin's helicopter, we see a cutscene where Batman gets his batplane, and apparently the waters surrounding Gotham have sharks. Since when did the water surrounding Gotham have sharks? Wait...Gotham has the likes of Batman, Joker, Killer Croc, Mister Freeze, Ra's Al Ghul, etc, and my main complaint is about sharks............
Anyway we then enter a vehicle type boss battle, and it's really good, I can't really remember a boss battle like this since the old Lego Star Wars games. There have probably been vehicle boss battles in the other Lego games but I can't think of them right now. It is fairly straight forward, just shoot anything that moves. We then get another boss battle with Joker, this time on land, and this one is a lot more tricky, since it involves building things, aiming, and using suit powers, while not being helped by the AI and while being shot at by Joker's missiles.
And upon defeating the Joker and hearing that Superman had fixed the hole in the wall and had put the batboat back in the water, making Robin starstruck and Batman slightly annoyed, the hour is up. And this is a great Lego game. Sure, some of the mechanics, especially the partner AI, need some work, but apart from that this is a truly enjoyable game. The voice acting delivers some new and much needed humor, the characters personalities and attitudes are brilliant, the graphics are fantastic and the story is captivating. Is it the best Lego game yet? Maybe, but it's definitely a strong contender.
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