Since I first played LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga a few years ago, I've been a huge fan of these games. I know a lot of people who are wary about picking any game in this series up because they feel the games are made for kids (and they are), but the truth is adults can have just as much fun with them as anyone. When I want to play a game that is challenging, I'll look at Guitar Hero. When I want to play an action game with a good story, I'll play something like Arkham City. If I just want to chill out with a relaxing, but engaging game, I'll play a LEGO game; I call them "no-stress gaming," which I desperately need in my already stress-heavy life. There's little in any of them that will compel you to smash your controller the way Hulk smashes Norse gods.
THE POSITIVE:
1. Details. I've always been happy with the depth of knowledge Traveller's Tales has about the source material of their games. It's been clear over the course of the two Batman games, especially, that they are fans of the character and know what works and what doesn't. The number of unlockable characters here is, as always, brimming with the kind of characters you want to see, and which you never thought you'd get to play as in a video game.
2. Open World. This is TT's first foray into open world/sandbox-style gaming, and Gotham is well represented here. Futhermore, unlike some of the other LEGO games (where after a certain distance apart the game tended to port you directly next to your co-op partner), if you're playing co-op, you are free to wander around at your leisure. This makes unlocking collectibles much more fun than if you had to stick together. "Hey, I'll go after that Red Brick--you go after that Gold One we found earlier."
3. Story and humor. Like all LEGO games, TT has taken the source material and kind of poked fun at it, while at the same time paying total respect to the source material so that die-hard fans of the franchises can sink in their teeth. Here, they have a lot of fun taking Batman and Superman's personalities to their logical, extreme ends. At first, I genuinely thought they were just making fun of Superman in the way that a lot of Batman fans do (the first time you see him, he comes across like a bit of a dunce), but as the game progressed I saw that they were just playing around with their extremely different personality types. All of the humor comes from either their interaction, or the interacting of Joker and Lex (where they tolerate one another far better than they did in the Justice League animated series). It's all very fun to watch and to listen to...
4. ...Which is, in and of itself, a major selling point of this game--the characters speak. I was against this the first time it was annouced. But the moment Luthor spoke and I heard Clancy Brown's voice again, I decided to just sit back and see what they'd done. All in all, this game is better than it would have been with the usual grunts and other sounds effects.
5. The rest of the things which make the LEGO games great. If you enjoy this series already, there's no real reason not to pick this one up as well. Everything that made those games so much fun are here as well. I have some quabbles with the execution this time around, but it's still one of the best LEGO games to date. And...strangely...probably the best Superman game we've ever gotten. This is not to say that the game is perfect, however:
PROBLEMS:
1. Glitches. OMG, glitches. The LEGO games have always been plagued by a number of issues, and Batman 2 has all of those and then some. The game locks up frequently, which is always a bummer. Fortunately, the game saves fairly often (whenever you pick up a collectible or finish a level, and there are save progress terminals scattered throughout the individual levels as well), But it's still frustrating having to reboot the system. But that's not the end of it, especially in co-op. In what I'm just going to guess is a memory-related issue, sometimes things don't appear on one player's half of the screen while they will on the other's. In fact, sometimes things like lines of coins, Batcomputer terminals, and unlockable villains just won't appear AT ALL, If you happen to be in the same area when this happens, you can watch a line of coins disappear off Player 1's screen (where the same line was absent on Player 2's) and suddenly appear on Player 2's side. Playing with a friend, a Batcomputer terminal which displays an unlockable villain in Gotham Park, and which usually spawns the villain (no spoilers), simply refuses to do so (and the last time we tried, my half of the screen disappeared completely after backing out of the terminal, and neither of us could drop out). Some terminals won't show up on his half of the screen, but I can walk right up to them. It's a weird set of glitches, and potentially game-breaking. There's a series of Gold Bricks that come from actions taken in Gotham Zoo that cause a line of coins to appear, at the end of which, is a Gold Brick. I opened a fence and proceeded to do what I had to do, but the line REFUSED to appear for me. I dropped out, and the line appeared for my friend, but when he got to the end, instead of the Gold Brick, he found a purple coin (as though I'd already gotten the brick, which I hadn't); it's entirely possible at the end of the game, we're going to find ourselves one brick short. So...yeah...game-breaking glitches.
2. Load times. I am NOT one to complain about load times. I come from an era where if you wanted to play Monopoly on the Commodore 64, you had to use an audio cassette reader that took 42 minutes to load the game. As a general rule, I just don't feel load times the way some other people seem to...but this game, especially when first loading your saved game after a reboot, takes more than long enough for me to take notice.
3. Collectibles and Exploring. As it is, I'm already conflicted on the issue of collectibles in games--especially open-world games. In the past, LEGO games have done collectibles right. There are in-game cheats (always in the form of red bricks), which can help you track down and uncover the items you are missing. Historically, it's been a huge reason why I've called these no-stress games. I can collect as I explore, and not feel like I'm going wind up one item short of my achievements. But LEGO Batman 2 gets this wrong, in my own opinion. In other LEGO games, Red Bricks were could be found at almost any time as long as you have the right characters to unlock them. Technically, this is true here as well, but since you can't change characters in Open World Gotham until the story has finished, and most of the Red Bricks have to be unlocked by villain characters, most Red Bricks will not be accessible until you've already finished the story. This defeats the purpose for me in many ways. For one thing, it makes the post-game nothing BUT roaming around getting collectibles, rather than simply finding what you missed. Even in LEGO Batman 1, where the story was divided by acts, you could change to the villain characters at pretty much any time to find the Red Bricks. Now you pretty much have to wait until the end (note: I've found exactly four without having to change characters). So, exploring is not really rewarded the way I personally feel it should be. And this is counter-intuitive...it's the first Open World LEGO game, but it's the most restrictive in exploration. I don't get it. And for the record, this is my BIGGEST complaint with the game.
4. It's a short game. Something like 15 chapters, which is three chapters shy of most other LEGO games. It's not divided into acts the way EVERY other LEGO game has been (including LEGO Batman), and the levels are relatively long, but it still feels like it's been a short game overall...if I didn't have a job, I'd have been done with it in a day or two's time.
5. Still no online multiplayer. I think only one of the LEGO games has had it, so they know how to do it, but for some reason it's still absent here. With all the glitches in local co-op, it might actually be a good thing, but I hate that I can't play with friends who live a good distance away.
6. Controls. Specifically, controlling anything that flies in this game is probably the most frustrating thing to experience in ANY LEGO game. Never mind the fact that I prefer to fly anything with inverted controls (since that option conspicuously doesn't even EXIST on the 360), but even if you don't have a problem pressing up to go up when you're flying, you'll probably find getting around in the air a major issue. All you want to do is make Superman fly upward in a straight line? Good luck! The next target you have to fly the Batcopter through is a little below your current arc? Have fun going straight down! Want to land on that Gold Brick you just found? Try not and overshoot your target by a mile (or km)! Even just pressing "B" to stop flying tends to drop you at an angle.
Overall, it's a great game. If it weren't for the Open World exploration restrictions, I'd enjoy the game more than I do...that and the glitches are the only thing keeping me from giving the game 5 stars. Even if you don't particularly like Batman as character (all 5 of you in the world), or general LEGO games, it's still worth picking this up for the fun of the story and watching characters like Batman and Superman interact with one another. The dialogue is great, and the whole game is a wonderful addition to my collection of LEGO games.
4.0