LEGO Batman: The Videogame Review - PS3

7

Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 7
Audio: 7
Multiplayer: 8
Innovation: 7

Introduction

There seems to be no end to the Lego franchise. Starting off with the highly popular Lego Star Wars, sequels were released, later making way for a complete package. Following on from that success, Lego Indiana Jones soon found its way onto store shelves, well timed to coincide with the release of the latest movie. Now, Lego Batman: The Videogame is continuing the franchise, and moving the Lego series into the realm of superheroes for the first time. Unlike the previous two Lego games, Lego Batman doesn’t cover any actual movies from the series. Instead, a new, yet simplistic story is played out, featuring everyone’s favourite good guys, and bad guys.    

Gameplay

Another Lego game by Traveller’s Tales, and once again, not a lot has changed. Every Batman related character you could think of makes an appearance, but at its core, this is a Lego game, through and through. The saying of “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it” certainly comes to mind when comparing games in the series, but seeing as this is the third game in the franchise, a little more imagination would have been nice. All three games play very much the same, you run around, you punch enemies and objects, and everything breaks into Lego pieces which you collect. It goes without saying that, if you’ve played either of the game’s predecessors, this is almost exactly the same thing with a coat of Batman; non-fans won’t find a lot to interest them here. That said, the game does have some redeeming qualities that set it apart a little from the others in the series. The Lego series’ trademark humor makes its usual appearance, with Robin often giving Batman a reason to grimace. The cutscenes are generally quite entertaining, and you’re sure to get a laugh or two out of some of the baddies antics.

For the uninformed, the controls are as follows: Move with the left analogue stick or D-Pad, jump with X, attack with Square, grapple with Circle and switch characters with Triangle. Previously I’ve reviewed the Wii versions of the Lego games, and while I have to say the series was a little more fun when you had a bit of motion control involved in playing the game, it doesn’t make a big difference as the gameplay remains largely the same. While I made a point above of saying that Lego Batman is pretty much a carbon copy of the games that came before it, this is less the case compared to Lego Indiana Jones. The main difference between Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Star Wars was whether you used the force or Indy’s whip, but Batman manages to distance itself from the other two in more significant ways.

Lego Batman changes things in three distinctive ways. Firstly, compared to the other two games, the puzzle solving is much more complex. Not only do you have to assemble many structures to help you, but both Batman and Robin (the two characters you’ll be ...