I was not excited with this game at first.  I thought it was going to be just another run of the mill Lego game with the DC brand slapped on it.  But after spending 30+ hours all I can say is Lego Batman 2 is the best Lego game and one of the best comic book games ever made.

THE GOOD:

THE STORY

The story begins with both Lex Luthor and Bruce Waynge going to the annual man of the year award in Gotham City.  Things go bad quickly as many of Batman’s villains (led by Joker) invade the ceremony and cause havoc across the city.  It is up to the dynamic duo of Batman and Robin to stop them.

As it goes on however, Lex gets involved with Joker and that’s when the real fun begins as Batman and Superman must team up to stop Lex from winning the presidential election using a modified version of Joker’s fear gas.

While the story might seem simple from the premise, what makes it work is the great dialogue and humor.  Every character is an archetype of the bygone era of comic books.  Superman is the classic goodie two shoes, Robin is played up as some what incompetent and Batman is well….. Batman.

The character interactions are especially funny, Superman tries to be nice all the time and it really gets on Batman nerves which made me laugh out loud at least a dozen times. And the game makes fun of everything Batman related, from the incompetent police to even Arkham City at one point.

And one last thing about the story, it felt like the Richard Donner’s Superman and Tim Burton’s Batman movies existed in the same universe albeit with some heavy alterations, kinda makes me wish such a cinematic universe could have been done.

THE GRAPHICS

Lego Batman 2 uses the new style of creating a realistic looking world inhabited by Lego characters and some breakable objects.  However, the open world style of the game allows you to explore all of Gotham, from Arkham Asylum to Wayne tower and it all looks fantastic. The city is very gothic and dark and a great throwback to Tim Burton’s Batman movies.

The character models are a mix of new and old, Batman’s costume is exactly like the 1989 movie. Superman has his Richard Donner costume, Robin has the Tim Drake costume, Joker looks like a mix of Ceaser Romero and Jack Nicholson while Lex is straight up from the Superman Animated Series.

THE GAMEPLAY

Lego Batman 2 at its core may seem like your average Lego game.  You build and destroy objects to solve environmental puzzles or beat main villains with the occasional boss battle at the end of some levels, while you are always accompanied by your AI or human controlled partner.

However there are several innovations that make this game stand out from its cousins.  This game is completely open world and there are literally hundreds of characters to unlock, gold bricks to find and civilians to rescue, hell when I beat the story I only finished 20% of the game!

However the greatest thing that this game has done is to justice to all of our favorite DC characters.  This is the best Superman game of all time because it lets you use all of Superman’s powers (from super strength to x-ray vision) in interesting ways.  Wonder Woman deflects bullets and throws her tiara around, Green Lantern builds things with his power ring (which is perfect for this type of game) and Flash zig zags around and is able to practically teleport from bad guy to bad guy.  I have never seen a game have this many comic book characters and it does each one right.

SOUNDTRACK/VOICE ACTING

The game soundtrack consists of music from Batman and Batman Returns along with Donner’s Superman movies and its’ own original music.  However whats great here is that the music changes depending on what character you control, if you use Superman you hear his theme playing while flying around Gotham, if you use Batman you hear his theme from the 89 movie and so on.

The voice acting is superb, but Clancy Brown steals the show. He voiced Lex in Superman TAS and in JL/JLU and he comes back to voice him hear, and he ironically has some of the funniest lines in the whole game. It is a shame that some characters like most the JLA don’t even get more than two or 3 lines of dialogue in the whole game (Flash has no lines!), but despite this the cast that’s here does a fantastic job and there isn’t a single miscast.

THE BAD:

Now the tittle of the game is misleading.  This isn’t DC Superheroes as the JLA don’t really play a part until the last 2 or 3 missions and even then their roles are small at best.  This is more Lego World’s Finest but if the ending is any indication Lego Justice League is on its way.

There is still NO online co-op, I mean sure I know that the devs don’t want kids playing this online, because honestly people online are kinda bastards but it would’ve been nice to have multiplayer.  The AI is about as useful as a condom machine in the Vatican, also when you switch characters your AI can’t be killed but they still cant collect any studs or kill any enemies.  It make no sense and its a cheap way to increase the difficulty.

It’s sad that we are confined to just Gotham, I mean the city is huge and there are loads of recognizable land marks but still I hope for a 3rd game we can explore some other cities.

FINAL VERDICT

Lego Batman 2 is the definitive DC game, it’s the best Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman and so on game.  It’s one of the Dark Knight’s finest video game outings. It’s one of the best comic book games ever made in general and the best Lego game. Yeah its THAT awesome! If you are a DC fan or just a fan of superheroes in general, you NEED to buy this game now!

FINAL SCORE: 9.5/10

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