The core gameplay of a Lego title is a well-known entity at this point: swap between characters and optionally co-op your way through levels bashing baddies and solving simple puzzles. Collect studs to unlock extra characters who possess new abilities, then replay levels to complete extra puzzles to unlock more stuff. It’s a loop that has served the plethora of Lego games well, and it’s one we see again in Lego Batman 3. Here, the player will delve back into levels to find parts for minikits including the ‘60s Batmobile, and even to save Adam West. The game eschews the open world level design of Lego Batman 2, but grants each character many more abilities that are accessible via a new Gadget Wheel. This allows puzzles to be tougher this time, with multiple characters possessing up to eight different abilities. This has resulted in some more interesting level design, too. Defeating a boss or even simply completing a level now requires a number of steps closer to those needed for secret area puzzles in older games in the series, but everything is still designed with younger players in mind.
There are also a couple of new mini-games. The first is a sweet Resogun-inspired shooter, where you fly around the Justice League’s Watchtower space station taking out the Joker’s fleet. It works really well, and is over far too soon. The second minigame is similar to Metal Gear Solid’s VR missions, and does an adequate job of breaking up the monotony elsewhere, but these sections ultimately feel out of place. This time, the story takes players beyond Gotham City and Metropolis to Paris, London, Pisa, and even into space to visit Lantern planets, with the central landmarks of these cities lovingly recreated just like their actual Lego models. It’s all moderately entertaining, but Lego Batman 3 is still predominately a title for kids. It’s those landmarks players will be defending, as super villain Braniac is no longer content with miniaturising cities – he now wants worlds, and Earth is first on the list. The twist is that traditional enemies the Justice League and the Legion of Doom are working together against this common threat.
To help keep adults interested, there are numerous references to old superhero shows that will probably go unrecognised by kids. For example: Wonder Woman’s flying ability activates the theme to her old TV series, and every level contains a puzzle wherein you rescue Adam West. Although it offers up entertaining brawls, beautiful destructible environments, and a nostalgia gland massage, Lego Batman 3 isn’t fault-free. The game only lets you save at certain points during levels, and these can be few and far between, necessitating a long session just to get to the next one. With most games auto-saving every five steps, this feels like a huge oversight, and means progression can’t be made by kids in the short time window between homework completion and dinner. This peculiarity amplifies the frustration of a couple of bugs too, the worst of which requires that a level be completely restarted if a is QTE failed, costing the player up to an hour of gameplay. Ultimately though, Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham has all the trademark Lego charm that has kept the franchise playable even after 20-odd titles.
It’s a massive game, the dozens upon dozens of unlockable characters keep it fresh and encourage multiple playthroughs, and the franchise's beautiful blocky aesthetic gets a touch more polish every time out. Just remember the Lego video game mantra: if it looks like Lego, it’s probably breakable. The old-fashioned Lego smash-em-up model still works The excellent rendering of Lego structures Too easy to get stuck on one level for 15 minutes In thousands of years' time, after some Great Event that probably happens and buries us all under metres of dust, future archaeologists will dig us up, and what will they find? Amongst the rubble, bones, and Nokia 3310s, our legacy will be billions upon billions of Lego bricks, a remnant of the world's most beloved and ubiquitous toy. Lego games, on the other hand, sit alongside their video game brethren in the ephemeral category - existing only from console generation to console generation, pleasing owners only as long as their runtime.
There's nothing wrong with that, as long as the 20+ hours you spend in-game manage to entertain and enthral as much as the bricks themselves. The problem here is that Lego Batman never captures my creativity, my imagination and my block-loving heart as much as Lego games have in the past. In fact, at several points in the game, I feel downright bored.Playing the game itself is fiddly, time-consuming and confusing. The suits, which give different abilities to a handful of characters, are equipped via a wheel, but you have to remember what each one does; you'll find yourself hesitating, trying to recall whether the Demolition Suit or the Space Suit was the one that destroyed silver objects, while hordes of endlessly spawning goons run at you and your AI companions (actual, powerful superhumans) fail to do much in the way of helping.And all that is when you know what you're supposed to be doing. Though small tutorials help you through the first stages, the game is annoyingly silent when it comes to certain areas or abilities, and you'll have to figure out for yourself that Object A needs to be destroyed or that Character X can walk through fire.
Sharp Dressed (Bat)ManThough the outfits are fiddly, there's some interesting stuff to be found in the characters’ wardrobes. Batman has a sensor suit that allows him to see invisible objects, and several characters have a suit that turns them into a human lightbulb. Sadly, there are also a couple of duff ones - like a hazard suit that lets you hoover up ‘radioactive’ objects that turn out to just be green and yellow Lego - and a special suit that Robin has to wear to make him smart. Poor Robin.With an overly sullen interpretation of Bruce Wayne's grumpy alter ego, Lego Batman 3 has clearly attempted to replicate the brooding, damaged figure of Christian Bale's Caped Crusader, but what we get is much closer to the sociopathy of Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman; nowhere near Will Arnett’s charmingly unfriendly Batman in the Lego Movie, either.Meanwhile, The Joker has a voice like the Mad Hatter, with all the sinister villainy of a slightly perturbed bunny, and Solomon Grundy - the swamp-zombie with a penchant for crime and murdering - is recast as a big, stupid, lumbering Hulk-like figure.
bat is a big part of superhero games, but the Lego series has never quite managed to get it right - punching, shooting and smashing up the scenery is infinitely more enjoyable than having to deal with waves of weak henchmen that too often feel like filler. Boss battles are treated more like puzzles, with quite a few requiring you to wait for the enemy to throw a vital object at you before you can continue. This isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, and it’s usually a great opportunity to use a variety of powers, but when every boss battle is the same rinse-and-repeat waiting game, it starts to get a bit grating.Colour-matching mini-games and surprising levels - like a romp through a miniaturised Paris - mix things up between regular, linear stages, but these are quite few and far between, and the mini-games do get tedious after a while. Many of the powers are repeated from Lego Batmans of the past, as well as Lego Marvel Superheroes, though the constant costume changes may leave you longing for a return to Marvel Superheroes' relative simplicity.