Review: LEGO Batman - Xbox 360, PS3

by Steven Williamson on 15 October 2008, 15:15

Tags: Batman LEGO, Warner Bros. (NYSE:TWX), Xbox 360, PS3, Action/Adventure

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Run amok in Gotham City

Jumping on the coat-tail of another huge franchise, having already had huge success with Star Wars and Indiana Jones, Traveller’s Tales has wisely adopted the Batman license for its latest brick-smashing LEGO adventure.

Following in the footsteps of the box office hit, Dark Knight, LEGO Batman brings the world of DC Comics’ Caped Crusader to life with a lovable brick-by-brick recreation of Gotham City.

The Batman license has been utilised extremely well throughout with players not only being able to switch between Batman and Robin, but also play the game from the perspective of some of Gotham City’s most notorious criminals, including, The Joker, Riddler and Two-Face.

Traveller’s Tale’s creativity with the license has paid off, with humorous cut-scenes, original storylines that precede each mission and a whole range of enjoyable super-powers to test out as you smash and shatter your way through the semi-collapsible city.

Whilst the subject matter will probably be enough to tempt many people to part with their cash before they’ve even read a review, it’s worth noting that the LEGO series has evolved little from its past iterations.

Therefore, if you’ve played any previous LEGO game, you’ll feel instantly at home with much of the gameplay, which generally involves smashing to pieces everything in sight whilst collecting studs that can be used to purchase upgrades and locked characters. Along the way, you'll be pulverising enemies into tiny LEGO pieces, block-building, and switching in between characters in order to use their unique abilities to solve fairly simple puzzles.

Despite its familiarity, LEGO Batman is still a thoroughly entertaining adventure and once again there’s a wealth of unlockable content to get through. Whilst the main story mode probably won’t take you longer than a weekend to complete, there’s vast replay value if you hope to get anywhere close to achieving 100% completion. Freeplay Mode, which unlocks as you progress through the main mission, allows you to play any mission with any character, using their unique abilities to unlock further content and gather even more collectible and rewards, which can then be displayed in an excellent recreation of the Batcave.

Continued Overleaf…

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