LEGO Batman: The Videogame (Wii)

Who is Bruce Wayne behind that hard, plastic exterior?
10/3/2008 6:25 PM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3

So, Holy Game Nerd, Robin, why is LEGO Batman: The Videogame so darn true to both Batman and LEGO and, even more, popular gaming culture as we know it today? It begins with the game box art. There, Batman and Robin are swinging through the demon night, bats behind them and an evil, looming moon behind the winged creatures. The Dynamic Duo have that look of grim determination on their faces. You know this is about Batman's inner turmoil raging to explode. Batman is full of sorrow and vengeance that goes back almost 70 years. Below Batman, on the tar-patched rooftops of Gotham, are the evildoers, The Joker and Catwoman, crazier-looking and sneering, ready to perform every sort of insanity upon the buffed heroes who hover above.

Most every console game released is about heroism or antiheroism, about saving someone or something. The reason LEGO Batman works is the same reason that Batman as a character works. There's the heroic aspect of Batman, someone to look up to in times of trouble. We all want to be lauded as heroes; after all we've been through, don't we deserve it, just for a little while? There's also the antihero, the part of Batman that doesn't want to be social, the delinquent who's outside of society. We all want to be bad, don't we, to be wicked and selfish just to get our way, to break all the commandments and jump criminally into that good night? Here, as the tagline says, "Gotham City is falling to pieces." Sure, they mean LEGO pieces as much as they mean that Gotham is going down to the criminally unstable. But still, a hero you are, and a hero you enjoy being.

Some very cool heroism manifests in gameplay in ways that aren't unique if you know the LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones series. You're still hunting down tens of thousands of LEGO pieces and picking up hearts for lives. And you're still making vehicles of LEGO pieces you find, too.

But there are new twists that make your missions more than palatable. First, look at the attention to detail. I don't just mean the backgrounds, which, even on the Wii, are as lush and dark as a description from a Clive Barker novel. At any moment, you feel that something wicked this way may come. Then, if you down a Red Bull, you'll see that the camera looks this way and that -- wary, even paranoid that enemies are nearby. And Robin won't just stand there. He'll look around too, maybe flex his muscles. Rats crawl around. Don't like 'em? Punch 'em out. The soundtrack uses the great Danny Elfman's music from the Tim Burton movies "Batman" and "Batman Returns," and it definitely keeps the excitement level high when you're bored with picking up the LEGO studs that allow you to purchase accoutrements and new characters via your store (which resides within the Batcomputer).

You'll also become enamored of at least some of the eight superhero suits you'll get to use -- four for Batman and four for Robin. After all, with Batman there's the fear of the costume itself, the idea of a monster emerging from the darkest of nights. Is he man or is he bat? Scarier, is he both? And there's the mask. Who is Batman underneath, behind the protective covering, beyond Bruce Wayne's mega-wealth? What do you see when you get right up close to the scarring of his youth? Me, you or the ugly Other we all hide away as our biggest secret?