In single player, you switch between the characters to solve puzzles, but a friend can also get involved via drop-in/drop-out co-op. The game is constantly accessible and engaging, however young or old players may be.LEGO Batman 2 brings the same mix of combat and puzzles, but little new features make it feel fresh. Each superhero character has their own special skill, such as Wonder Woman being able to use her lasso, or Superman firing his heat vision. Special suits also change Batman and Robin's abilities, such as a Sensor Suit allowing Batman to disappear or an Acrobat Suit equipping Robin with a staff to reach higher places.The campaign takes around nine hours to get through, but there are countless more hours to be spent gathering studs - the in-game currency - and tracking down collectables such as golden bricks and mini-kit parts. LEGO Batman 2 really is a collector's paradise, largely because it offers an open world to explore.Rather than the previous Hub system, which felt rather a halfway house area, the new game fully unlocks Gotham City, including iconic locations such as Arkham City and Ace Chemicals.Just like Batman: Arkham City, the world of Gotham is filled with fun things to do, such as picking up hidden red bricks, unlocking cheats and battling DC supervillains that are lurking in the shadows.
Beating them adds the enemy to your lineup of up to 50 playable characters. Collecting studs means you can afford to purchase various items, such as the Batmobile and the Batwing, which make it great fun to hurtle around the city.The challenge that will really keep you coming back to the open world is gold bricks. There are 250 of these glittering blocks - some are awarded for completing the main story missions, but most are hidden around Gotham.The trick is that certain bricks are only accessible by certain characters, so you may need to fly up as Superman or use Robin's Acrobat suit to navigate tricky obstacles. This really encourages you to try out all the different characters, but some people may find the switching a little frustrating.There are other small issues with the shift to open world. The map is generally a little vague on the locations of items and bosses, meaning you can spend quite a bit of time wandering around aimlessly. Flying around as Superman is also trickier than would be considered enjoyable.
Traveller's Tales has made a really smart move in ditching the hub, but it may take the next LEGO video game to really nail the open-world approach.Despite feeling instantly familiar, LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes isn't just more of the same. It improves the core gameplay of the series, adds new features and characters, offers a long, engaging and well-presented story and swaps the hub area for a visually rich and fun-packed Gotham City to explore. There are issues that need addressing in the open world, but this is still the best LEGO game in the franchise so far.Telltale Games has gifted us with another visit to a Lego re-imagined world in Gotham City, and Bruce Wayne returns as his alter-ego the ‘caped crusader’, known in most circles as Batman. Lo and behold, the world has gone terribly awry thanks in part to the antics of The Joker, the other nemesis of Batman and a new companion in crime, Lex Luthor. However you can’t have Lex without Superman, and you can’t have Superman without Clark Kent.The most recent in an increasingly long line of Lego-based franchise games, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is the biggest shift from all of the previous Lego/Telltale games, and a welcome change after the sadly dull Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter iterations of the series (thank god for little brothers
, AKA “games-dumps” in this regard).TellTale Games seems aware that it’s Lego Games need changing, and the game world has now been opened up into one big sandbox. If you saw any of this year’s E3 announcements, specifically Wii U announcements to be exact, you would have seen the announced open-world Lego game, titled Lego City: Undercover, and playing Lego Batman 2 you begin to understand how the company’s creation method is evolving into this game. For the first time in any of the Lego-themed games, the characters all have voices and this works greatly in the games favour, giving each of the characters a proper identity and also adding tension to the events. Witnessing Batman grimace and sulk as Superman enters each scene is both humorous and endearing – the voices really add personality and a soul to the game.With the stage seemingly set for a cracking experience, it would be only right for the game to have an enticing story, and in this regard Lego Batman 2 does not disappoint.
At the start of the game, Bruce Wayne wins the Man of the Year award, cueing Joker to enter the fray and cause all sorts of carnage before Batman sends him back to Arkham Asylum. Meanwhile Lex Luthor, who is running for President, frees the Joker and all of Batman’s other nemeses with a lego-brick destroying device powered by Kryptonite. It all becomes obvious that Batman needs help and requires Superman joining the action, teaming up with Batman and Robin along with other members of the comics over the course of the game.For those returning to the series, the controls are simple and instantly intuitive, with your usual assigned ‘jump’, ‘attack’ and ‘grab’ buttons being complemented by the ‘switch’ characters button for good measure. Platforming in the game has been improved, with your character seeming to respond better to commands, although there is the odd moment when climbing a wall that your character would inexplicably jump away from what he was holding. This leads to a few irritating moments in the game when an entire climb up the side of one of the many sizeable buildings would have to be started again due to circumstances beyond your control.
Still, I didn’t put the controller down at any point due to frustration in these instances (or quirks as I would affectionately refer to them), and the often smooth and responsive controls meant that any time lost was quickly made up.Friends can pick up the second controller and jump in or drop out without any interruptions to the story progress, with AI instantly taking over sometimes questionably, but never really irritably. My brother often popped into one of my games for 30-45 minutes at a time and left without impeding my progress in any way, making the co-operative experience one of the most friendly and smoothly implemented I have come across yet, just like being in the arcades.Clocking in at around 15 levels, the game will take you around 9-12 hours to complete, depending on how much of a completionist you are. Personally, I like to take my time and explore and see as much of the (admittedly endearing) game-world as possible. The game world is huge – you have all of Gotham City, Arkham Asylum, Ace Chemicals and the Gotham City Police Department to explore, find collectibles, unlock characters and save the citizens of Gotham.
There are 250 gold bricks hidden throughout that unlock other characters such as Martian Manhunter, Hush and Flash to name but a few.Visually, the game has never looked better, and I can’t really fault the efforts of Telltale Games in this regard. The company clearly has a passion for those delightful Lego bricks, and it shows in the overall presentation. Gotham City actually looks alive, with wonderfully characteristic architecture that really echoes the same Dark Knight vibe of the Rocksteady games, along with the superfluous beauty of the Lego universe, marrying the two styles in a complimentary manner. Real-world aspects such as fire, smoke and water add their own visual additions to the game-world. With the game world making the move from the platform focus of the previous games into one which is increasingly reminiscent of a sandbox, you can really see where Telltale Games is taking this franchise. Sorry to mention it again, but the DNA of the Lego City Wii U game can be clearly traced back to Lego Batman 2 and the (admittedly) huge stride it is taking forward.
The user interface as expected is simple, informative and effective. The only issues I had with the UI was when using the map initially, the switch to the open-world brings with it what could be seen as a daunting and confusing attempt to see where to go next as each mission is not explicitly sign-posted. Thankfully, after your first couple of attempts to see where you should go next, objectives become more clear and the rest of the experience becomes second-nature. There are a few niggles with Lego Batman 2, but they’re mostly down to the hardware the game is running on and not through laziness on the developers part. There are the odd moments of tearing in the game; luckily, the colour palette deflects this issue. There is also the odd moment of slowdown, but it’s usually limited to when two people are playing co-operatively and even then it’s rarely a hindrance on movement nor affective of the enjoyment to be had.Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is a fantastic achievement for Telltale Games, the Lego games having been yearly (even bi-yearly) released since 2005 have never really moved forward the franchise, until this iteration and it is a fantastical leap.