Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (Wii) [Review]

We've covered Lego Batman 2 quite a bit over the time until it's launch, and it's finally here!  I knew that this game was going to be one of two things, either the generic Lego game we've already played (at least 11 times at this point) or an exciting revival for the series full of fun new features that breathe life into a tired franchise.  Well, I'm happy to say Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes falls squarely in that second category.



Let me preface this a bit though,  I played the Wii version which is no doubtably the worst of the three console versions, in terms of graphics, with stuff like poor texture quality, leaving things looking generally muddy and full of obnoxious pop-in.  These are problems I'm sure either won't show up in either the PS3 or Xbox editions or will be less of an issue than it is on the Wii.  Basically what I'm saying is, if you have access to any other version of this game other than the Wii, than get that.  The Wii version is just the one I got my hands on first for the purpose of getting this review up as timely as possible-- and even though it's not the best of the versions of the game, the brilliance ofLego Batman 2 still manages to shine through the Wii's less than stellar system specs.  Plus the actual game content of all 3 editions is near identical, it's just the presentation of the Wii version that leaves a lot to be desired.

So! Now that that's out of the way, let's get to it.  Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes is fantastic, and you can put that on the back of the future Greatest Hits or whatever box when that comes out.  I was totally tired of Lego-based video game experiences (and had been since like, Lego Indiana Jones) but LB2 made me a believe again.  A variety of factors come in to play that freshen up the world of Lego games.

Firstly (but not necessarily most importantly) there's voice acting now!  And it's good!  Troy Baker voices Batman excellently, to the point I though it was the voice of Batman, Kevin Conroy.  Steven Blum's The Joker leave just a little to be desired... especially after Mark Hamill's brilliant work in Arkham City.  The writing is sharp and funny and the story, while being light-hearted and silly like a Lego game should be, is interesting enough to keep you going and keep you engaged.  The back and forth between Batman, Robin, and Superman alone (Superman kind of gets on Batman's nerves, Robin thinks he's the greatest, and Superman is oblivious to both) is silly and fun enough to be worth the price of admission.  If you were skeptical about giving a Lego game voice acting (this is the first one to have full-voice instead of grunts and yells), don't be!  It's fantastic, thanks to the strong writing and talent they've hired to voice these classic characters (most of them reprise their roles form the DC Animated Universe).

Secondly, there's now a whole open world to explore!  Between regular Lego game-style stages is the entirety of Gotham city to run through and it is chock full of secrets and goodies.  After playing through all of main story mode, I had only competed 21% of the whole game!  The rest of that 79% is hidden on the rooftops and crannies of Gotham.  There's just so much to do, so the value to gameplay ratio is fantastic.  The other thing about the open world that is sort of cool is that it is more or less completely optional!  Sure, you've got to traverse through it to get to the next story mode level, but the levels take place in their own areas, much like all the other Lego games-- so if you're not into the whole open world thing and just want to focus on the story, you don't have to mess with it and then the main levels get to keep the variety of being specially designed areas instead of small pieces of a larger map.  It's actually a really smart way to do it, and keeps you from having to spend a lot of time on the same old map.  The story mode actually has you fly (as Superman) to Metropolis at one point, something the game could never do if it was just strictly open world.  It's just very smartly designed.

The wide cast of DC heroes and heroines you have to choose from makes the game a blast to play too!  Each character has the appropriate powers and everything, and it's just fun to run around and experiment with them all (especially in open world Gotham).  Superman is just an absolute friggin blast to play as, seriously.  Normally Batman and Robin (who you play the first half of story mode as) have to switch suits to have different powers (sensor suit for Batman makes him invisible, Robin's acrobat suit gives him a double jump, etc.) but Superman of course has almost all these powers and his command, he can fly, and he is literally invincible.  Seriously, he cannot be damaged by enemies.  It's probably the only accurate representation of ol' Supes in a video game ever, and still manages to be fun despite his over-powered-ness.  The other heroes (who disappointingly don't show up until the last few levels of story mode) are pretty cool too-- Green Lantern has the unique power to build and manipulate green Lego, which do a little more than the standard Lego builds in the game.  At one point he builds a green Lego train, then drives it into the face of a giant Joker robot.  It's just too bad that the rest of the Justice League  doesn't show up until those final two or three stages, it's really a missed opportunity.  Of course this game is Lego Batman and not Lego Justice League, but still, it would of been cool.  Or maybe they should just make Lego Justice League.

So we've covered the good (which there is a lot of) now let's get to the bad.  The combat, which is pretty standard for a Lego game, is just awful.  You basically just run up to the bad guys, tap B, and watch them explode.  It's seriously boring.  Sure, you can push another button to grab and throw guys, but it's never necessary, so you'll never use it because it's easier just to tap B.  Luckily the combat (although plenty) is not the focus nor the fun part of the game.  It's the puzzles that you solve by using the right superpowers to manipulate the environment in the right ways that make the game fun.  The combat is just there to give you something to do in-between the puzzles.  It's still a shame though that it's not any fun, because if both aspects of the game where good, this game would be amazing, and up there with AAA releases like Arkham City and whatnot.  That's probably the reason Superman is such a fun character to play as (besides the fact that the John Williams Superman movie score plays when he flies) is that you don't have to worry about the piddly combat with nameless goons, because Supes is invincible.  You can give them the ol' heat vision before they even get close, then just focus on the puzzle solving.  Or just stand there and let them try to punch you while you build the next Lego thing, or heat-vision through a wall or whatever.

Other quibbles include the aforementioned pop-up, some glitches, and minor control issues.  The pop-up is so bad that at times you'll follow a beacon to something, land, then wait for the thing you wanted to pop in to the game world.  This might just be the Wii version that has this problem, though, but regardless it's pretty annoying.  A couple of glitches reared their ugly glitch heads during my playthrough as well, both of them occurring during open world adventuring.  Once I got the Batmobile stuck on something invisible and had to continue my travels on foot, which was a minor annoyance.  The second glitch was much bigger though.  I fell into the water around Gotham as Green Lantern, and when the game respawned me, I just continually fell through the ground.  I could still fly, but if I tried to land on anything I would just fall straight through to my death.  Unless Green Lantern has some sort of matter phasing ability he can't control that I don't know about, that's a pretty nasty glitch.  I had to reload the game to be able to touch solid ground again.  The minor control issue I had was the fact that switching characters works in kind of an annoying way.  Instead of cycling through your characters in a list, a changes to the closest character you are facing, which is super annoying if the character you want is in another room or your standing in the middle of a large group of them (like you are during the game's final battles).  You end up kind of spinning around trying to finagle the controls to go to the person you want, instead of the one you are closer to and/or facing.  This would be an easy fix if the designers just made it so you cycle through characters, but for some dumb reason it works the annoying way that it does.

In the end though, the good outweighs the bad and Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is a damn fine little adventure.  If you're a fan of DC's pantheon of characters and lore you'll enjoy it tenfold, with plenty of in-jokes and obscure characters making an appearance (why not have a playable Captain Boomerang and Killer Moth?).  Even if your knowledge of comics doesn't extend beyond seeing a couple Batman movies you'll still find plenty to enjoy here.  It's nice to see the Lego games finally innovate and hit a whole new stride with Lego Batman 2. It makes me all that more excited to see what Traveler's Tales comes up with for Lego The Lord of the Rings, but really makes me want them to make a Lego Superman game more than anything (maybe when the new Superman movie comes out, please?).

PXT Final Verdict: 8.5/10

(and for the Xbox and PS3 versions it'd probably be more like a 9)