Well the last couple of my posts haven’t been about games so I decided today to get back on track with a review of [amazonify]B000ZKBJYG::text::::Lego Batman[/amazonify]. I had actually gotten this game a few weeks ago but I put off playing it because I was busy with work, and then I needed to give myself time to play. I haven’t really played Lego Star Wars to compare it to that game though I have played for a few moments and watched my daughter play it. So this review is mostly from fresh Lego eyes.
First of all, I do think it was a fresh way to go as the developers of the game weren’t tied to the storyline of a movie anymore. So going to Batman was a good move in that respect. That being said, if you aren’t going to be following a preset movie storyline, you better have a decent storyline on your own and unfortunately I think Lego Batman fails in this respect. Basically all the criminal masterminds got together to steal something (for some reason I think they stole a giant key?) and now you are trying to catch them all and get it back. Really generic to say the least which is a bit of a disappointment from a series known for intricate plotlines. This plot could have worked for Superman but not as much for Batman.
One of the big things I think endeared so many people to [amazonify]B000R3BNDI::text::::Lego Star Wars[/amazonify] was the humor which often made fun of the series. Here this didn’t work as well because of the generic storyline. I didn’t get half of the jokes, and most of them felt really forced. I got the feeling that the developers didn’t really know how to make this one funny and were just putting in generic puns to make it work and dit just didn’t.
The gameplay itself was very solid, from what I have heard it hasn’t actually changed that much. I still thought it was good. Everything really made sense, the camera got in the way of some baterang so it would have been nice to have a little better control over the camera. You could move it from left to right with the contorl pad, but it was difficult to do that and aim and it was limited movement anyway. I also noticed a bunch of glitches in the game. For instance, my first time playing in the first board there are vehicles to get in right before the boss room. So I got in, went to the boss room, switched to Robin to get something and couldn’t switch back to Batman because he was in the vehicle. I then had to restart (which I didn’t bother for a week).
I didn’t mind that the graphics seemed somewhat aged. Given that it is trying to look like Legos I think an aged look works really well and the graphics were good. And while not spectacular they were more than sufficient. I have no complaints at all with this particular bit.
Overall the game was good, not great. It could do with better story and humor, but it did have its moments and was still a solid play experience. I do think that perhaps this lego series is better based off movies because then the devs have a reference to work off of. Perhaps this game should have been based off the two new movies? Though there isn’t much in the way characters yet. I would have liked a level where Batman had to be Bruce Wayne or something and I still haven’t found a Batgirl which is disappointing.
I’ll go ahead and give the game a B-.