I’m not a Lego video game veteran by any means. My only previous experience is with a Star Wars game that came with my console. It was fun and cute but wasn’t very deep. My interest in Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes was the availability of more than just Batman and Robin as playable characters. I mean how often can one play as Aquaman (clearly the greatest Justice Leaguer of all time) in a video game? Well now you can and have a ton of fun doing it as well.
The story in Lego Batman 2 isn’t anything special and that’s not surprising since the main target demographic is children. Lex Luthor loses a “Man of the Year” award to Bruce Wayne and takes it personally. Being the old curmudgeon that he is, Lex ends up teaming with Joker to take over the world starting with winning an election. One thing leads to another and Bats needs help from the Justice League in order to stop them. Not the most original story or the longest but it serves it purpose and doesn’t drag on. The addition of voice over dialogue helps bring humor and personality to the story and everyone does a good job of voicing their respective characters especially Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor, a role he embodied during the Justice League animated series. The characters are varied with everyone from Green Lantern to, my personal favorite character of all time, The Flash. As you progress through the game more characters become available to unlock which includes villains like Captain Boomerang and Bane. Gold Bricks are required to unlock heroes, which can become a grind if you want to play as The Huntress or Batgirl as it takes hundreds of gold bricks to unlock some heroes. There’s an open world for you to explore between missions and at the end of the game, which is a new addition to the franchise. After each mission you can go back and play it in Free Play mode with whatever characters you’ve unlocked making each playthrough a different (albeit slightly) experience. I’m still running around the streets of Gotham trying to find Gold Bricks.
The game is much more fun with a friend. Playing with a buddy of mine was much more satisfying than with the computer for a number of reasons with the most important being that the AI is kind of dumb and lazy. When the computer is controlling your partner, it kind of just stands there and takes a beating (which could be the function of Robin in the whole Batman and Robin relationship). It’s not a big deal when the computer is using Wonder Woman or Superman since they’re neigh indestructible, but other characters just fall to pieces. Literally. Controls are tight for the most part. Sometimes the camera isn’t as free as I would’ve liked it to be which could be difficult in a platformer because it leads to miss jumps that can be frustrating. The other issue I had was with the flying. Sometimes I just want to float a bit higher or descend just a tad and I end up dropping down or flying way too far from my target. The combat isn’t a huge aspect of the game and there’s no penalty for death besides loss of coins but the puzzles were challenging enough to keep you guessing at times. One or two puzzles actually stumped me, which made me want to give up gaming altogether since these puzzles were designed for a child to solve.
Lego Batman 2 can be summed up in one word: fun. The game is a blast to play with a friend and even alone it is still remained a rewarding experience not just for kids but for adults too. There are some genuine laugh out loud moments in the story which should keep gamers interested. There’s a huge open world and the amount of gold bricks it takes to unlock Aquaman should keep you coming back after you’ve done the story. If this is the evolution of the franchise count me in for me. Oh did I mention you get to play as Aquaman? How awesome is that.