"Have you ever played the Lego Star Wars game?" a friend asked me the other day. "When Luke loses his hand, it's so strangely …cute…like how bad could it be? He's a Lego!"
For that reason, Lego videogames seemed a bit silly to me, though strangely inviting. When Travelers' Tales announced the Batman videogame, I knew I was going to have to bite the bullet and dive in. Yes, it's strangely cute, even when you take things a step further in your mind. The Lego Joker must be killing all those Lego people with his laughing gas, but it's just so innocuous.
Even Killer Croc seems little more than misguided. Then again, I haven't yet seen him try to eat any Lego men.
For Batman, it works surprisingly well. This game takes a little bit from several visions of the Dark Knight, and plasticizes them. Yet it all works to create a satisfying game that's really for all ages - those older fans who want it to be darker just have to take an extra step or two in their imaginations.
From a storytelling point of view, about the only thing that could have made this better was if the developers had hired Kevin Conroy to do the grunts of Batman. Like their other Lego games, this visit to Gotham City occurs sans dialogue, which works almost too well. Others have remarked how effective Batman communicates solely via guttural threatening sounds, but that definitely applies to his villains as well. All most of them need is a unique laugh.
The game provides laughs in and of itself, never taking things too seriously. Despite the presence of Danny Elfman's brooding theme, this Batman makes sure that fun takes precedence over everything else.
That goes for the cut scenes, which feature some sort of pratfalls, whether it be Robin showing off to Batman's disgust, or a villain taking a pratfall. Then there's the game play itself, which allows for a lot of variation out of the gate.
By accessing the Batcave early on, players can move around the story with a surprising amount of freedom. Don't like taking on Clayface (who really doesn't do much in the game besides look clay-like)? Then move to another chapter and face Mr. Freeze or Catwoman.
After playing each level successfully, you then have an
option for free play, turning it around and battling as
another character, hero or villain.
Some extras also can be unlocked by possession of the recent
McDonald's Happy Meal toys, but unfortunately for me, when
I was able to play unrestrictedly, the toys were all in
my son's bedroom and I didn't want to wake him. So I'm not
sure how that option actually works, but I'll be following
up with that at a later date for sure.
The game itself offers a reasonable amount of challenge, though it's also clearly easier than any previous Batman videogame. Considering that the previous games all put you through a ridiculous amount of effort to achieve very little (someday, I'll return to Batman: Vengeance), this is an obvious improvement.
I compared notes on this one. Extended family members have the game on PS3, and they've been having a blast, finding the controls fairly intuitive and very responsive. The version I played was for the Wii, which had a little bit of oversensitivity on targeting some weapons. However, the strength of the Wii for those who've hoped for this sort of thing - being able to really punch in order to punch a bad guy.
Sure, they break up into little Lego pieces and …awwww, isn't that cute? But it's still viscerally satisfying to be the Dark Knight, even if he is short, squat and tends to fall apart when hit too many times. It's Batman, man, it's Batman.
And Lego Batman: The Videogame is the one that finally gets it all right.
