Lego Batman (XBOX 360)

When trying out the Lego games, I always have a moderate amount of fun, but the lack of online co-op has kept me from buying any of them. Until now, I hadn’t really had anyone to play with at home. Since Mary Magdalene has been showing an increased interest in trying the games out, I borrowed Lego Batman. Though it isn’t the first Lego game I’ve played, it’s the first that I’ve played any real amount of, and the only one, to date, that I feel comfortable giving a complete impression.

Lego Batman has a lot of things going for it, and many of those assets would be seen as faults in another context, most notably the game’s lack of difficulty. While sections can be frustrating, the penalty for dying is practically nil, as your character continually respawns. If you stick with it long enough, you can complete any section.

The game is designed around single screen co-op, with the first three levels featuring Batman and Robin and the last three giving you an alternate perspective on the same boards, featuring a pair of villains. Each villain has his or her own advantages, and Batman and Robin acquire different suits throughout the game, that alter their abilities. The game features seamless drop-in, drop-out co-op play and is a good way for an experienced gamer to play alongside a non-gamer or child. The gameplay is very basic, involving light 3D platforming, with melee brawling through spamming the x button, and simple puzzles, themed around lego blocks. Normally, you can figure the puzzles out by breaking everything in sight and building whatever the game will let you. Occasionally, though, the puzzles are not logical and leave you frustrated with an abstract solution. For such a simple game, I found myself checking FAQs more than usual for a solution, and often, the solution was disappointing, or my failure was due to the game’s not recognizing my intentions.

….which brings me to the greatest problem with Lego Batman – In its simplicity, it sacrifices control. You have extremely limited control of the camera, which sometimes puts you in a position of making blind jumps, or stuck at awkward angles, making even the most common tasks very difficult. We also found our characters getting dragged off of ledges, while the camera adjusted to fit both of us on the screen. While I’m a seasoned veteran of bad game design, and know the tricks around it, Mary Mags does not, and I saw her get painfully frustrated while trying and failing to do simple things. Something is wrong with your game if climbing a ladder is painstakingly difficult. We even found a fair share of glitches that forced us to re-start levels, as our characters got stuck in the map.

The presentation of the game is one of its greatest assets and it’s undeniably cute and charming. All of the major Batman villains are represented. Unlike the other Lego games so far, the Batman version doesn’t follow any existing storyline, and instead gives you a rather generic plot, involving all the different bad guys. It’s not quite as funny, because it’s not mocking an existing story, but for the most part, it’s good enough. I found the level selection somewhat confusing at first, though once I understood what was going on, it was no problem.

To change things up, a few vehicle levels are thrown in, but aren’t as fun as the rest of the game. I appreciate the effort in variety, but felt that in this case, the levels fell flat. In addition to playing through the levels as both good and bad guys, Lego Batman adds to its replayability by packing each level with collectibles that require multiple play-throughs to unlock. After you complete a level in story mode, you can replay them in free mode, which allows you to switch between various characters, and their subsequent abilities, on the fly.

The game AI is retarded, but it doesn’t matter, because you shouldn’t be playing this game by yourself, anyway. Game length alone should keep you from paying full price for this game, but because these games devalue quickly, it’s worth trying if you want something accessible for new gamers or kids. From what I’ve played of the other Lego games (Star Wars and Indiana Jones), through brief, I think that Batman is the weakest of them all, despite being the most recent. They all appear to have the same major flaws and benefits, though, so I recommend picking up whichever franchise most appeals to you. It’s a shame that it appears that the Lego games aren’t really progressing with each new release. When all is said and done, though these are not great games by any means, they’re still accessible, charismatic, and the fun outweighs the frustration.

Note: While I played the XBOX 360 version, there are comparable ports for every system under the sun.