Lego Batman

"Better than expected!"

If you're familiar with Lego or ever browsed a Lego toy catalog, you'll know that Lego has many product lines. Besides the classic “Lego City”, Lego covers the gamut with many creative product lines such as Lego Creator, Lego Racers, Lego Knights, Technic, Mindstorms, Exo-Force, Bionicle and Mars Mission. Aside from their original product lines, Lego also has toys based on popular movies such as Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Star Wars and Lego Harry Potter. In the past two years, Nintendo DS owners have seen two of Lego's most popular adventure lines come to the dual screen: Lego Indiana Jones and the ever-popular Lego Star Wars. Now joining these two franchises on the DS is another popular Lego title, Lego Batman.

Gameplay: If you're familiar with the previous Lego videogames, you'll be familiar with Lego Batman as the gameplay is 100% identical. Paired with a CPU character, you control your character (the game's story mode features Batman and Robin) and collect Lego studs (Lego's monetary unit) by building/destroying structures, activating switches, solving puzzles and defeating enemies. When enough studs are accumulated, you can use them to purchase unlocked characters or in-game extras such as stud multipliers and various cheats. The game features three individual stories with 5 missions in each story. Like Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Star Wars, each story features one vehicle-driven mission (in this game, The Batmobile, Bat-boat and Bat-wing respectively). The game also retains the free-roam feature and allows you to freely move from the Batcave to Wayne Manor and Arkham Asylum (where you can find defeated/unlocked villains either safely locked up in their prison cells or roaming the corridors.)

Speaking of villains, a nice bonus in this particular Lego game is the ability to play villain missions; something gamers never got to experience with Lego Indy and Lego Star Wars. During the free-roam portion of the game, you can enter Arkham Asylum and play one of three Villain missions; each containing 5 playable levels. This, coupled with the main storyline missions, doubles the amount of playable levels and greatly adds to the replay value.

Like the other Lego games, this game also offers two modes of play: “Story Mode” and “Free Play” mode. In story mode, you follow the game's storyline and play each mission in sequential order as Batman and Robin. In free play mode however, you're given the opportunity to select from whichever characters you have unlocked so far and have free reign over the levels. The purpose of free play allows you to go back to a specific level and access the special areas or puzzles that you were not able to access through Story Mode. Doing so will allow you to discover hidden canisters and red bricks which further allows you to unlock more in-game surprises. To help you in Free Play mode, you're assigned 7 more characters (at random) to assist you and each character has a special trait that allows you to access certain areas or accomplish certain tasks. Though free play allows you to have 8 characters at your disposal, only two are on-screen at any given time. In order to control the other characters, you have to switch to them by using the control pad or touch screen.

Lego Batman also features a large roster of playable and unlockable characters. Most of the well-known characters from the Batman universe are present: Batman, Robin, Alfred Pennyworth, The Joker, Catwoman, Two-Face, The Penguin, The Riddler, Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze, Clay Face, Scarecrow, Bane, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Huntress, Azrael, etc. Aside from these characters are also generic “goons” or henchmen and each type of character provides a special skill for Free Play mode.

Controls: Controlling your character is done mainly with the directional pad and buttons while the touch screen does provide some functions. While Lego Indy used the touch screen more for story-driven tasks (such as interacting with a control panel to open a lock), Lego Batman is more melee-heavy with the control pad. You can however, still use the touch screen to accomplish a variety of functions during the game such as set bombs and fast-forward through the storyboard sequences.

Visuals: The graphics in this game appears to be much cleaner and polished than Lego Star Wars and Lego Indy. In lieu of CGI cutscenes (which looked great in Lego Indy), Lego Batman uses storyboard sequences which not only seems longer to watch, but also feels less interesting. These sequences are most likely meant to retain the comic-book feel of Batman but it almost feels too tedious to watch.

Sound: The sound effects in this game is nothing special (no different than the other Lego games) but the biggest bonus to this game is the music. While Lego Indy and Lego Star Wars respectively had a John Williams soundtrack, Lego Batman also went with a recognizable sound and used Danny Elfman's Batman soundtrack from Tim Burton's 1989 film. Danny Elfman's music helped make Tim Burton's Batman films as memorable as they are and it was a pleasant surprise that it was retained for this game. Though the volume is a bit low, even on the highest setting, everything from the heroic Batman theme to the light-heartedly psychotic “waltz to the death” is faithfully included. If you grew up watching Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns, you'll feel right at home with the music in this game.

When this game was first announced to be in development, I did have my doubts and believed that this game would not compete with Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Star Wars. I was wrong. Overall, this game is a great addition to the DS and Lego videogame franchise. While another Lego franchise game on the DS may sound repetitive, Lego Batman manages to successfully create a style and persona for itself and clearly distinguish itself from the other Lego games.

If you love Batman, Lego or the previous Lego games, I highly recommend picking this up.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/29/08

Game Release: Lego Batman (US, 09/23/08)