LEGO Batman: The Videogame (Wii)
Who is Bruce Wayne behind that hard, plastic exterior?
10/3/2008 6:25 PM | 0 Comments | Page 3 of 3
What's Hot: Nice addition to Batman mythos; Be hero or villain; Background graphics are better than expected
What's Not: Similar to other LEGO games; No online multiplayer; So many damn pieces to pick up
Fly over hill and dale with Batman's Glide Suit.
Yes, each console version should have had some different suits to distinguish itself. But I liked the Demolition Suit (which allows you to place time bombs all around for fire-filled explosions) until I realized it didn't shatter glass. (Behind a lot of glass window panes are items you need to move forward in the game.) So they've made a Sonic Suit that shatters glass and lets you pick up what you need to progress. I love the sound of breaking glass.
But Traveller's Tales and Warner Bros. must feel that the biggest twist is the ability to become an arch-villain like the Riddler, Harley Quinn or that disgusting blob that once was a B-movie actor, Clayface. They hype this in the opening sequence, where a devilish crew of super-villains attacks Gotham, leaving cops slack-jawed and helpless or laughing hysterically from some Joker-induced gaseous ooze. So if you want to be bad, you can be as bad as you want to be. Just play through a level as Batman and Robin, then return to play as a supreme baddies, and face off against Commissioner Gordon.
That crazy Mad Hatter is one of the villains in
LEGO Batman.
is not a perfect game, and it's not completely new, either. I really wish there were online functionality here, too, instead of merely a two-player cooperative mode. Even if they added a fighting Versus mode for consoles, the game would be cooler. Add a few power fighting moves to each character and you'd have something that'd rival
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. I know why they didn't add online functionality: They think that the majority of folk who will buy the game are tweens who don't care about it playing online. But they do. And since a fair amount of adults will play the game, too, there's no reason not to add it. If the next LEGO game has no online functionality, critics generally will not be kind.
But there are more than enough thoughtful additions to excite and occasionally amaze, especially when you don the various costumes of super-villains. The background graphics are as detailed as those in the other console iterations, and the game makes you feel privileged to live in this cartoony world that's at once gritty and cute.
This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.
