Lego Batman 2 DC Super Heroes

[kayevcee]

I played the first Lego Batman and all six episodes of Lego Star Wars until my eyes turned into square bricks with round studs on top, so I've been looking forward to this game ever since it was announced. It's currently 1/3 off on Steam, plus another 15% off if you already own Lego Batman or Harry Potter.

Basically, it came out last month and it's just over 13 quid on Steam if you bought the last one.

Just before I thought to search for this game I was looking for some light entertainment on Steam and came up with Rayman Origins, Legend of Grimrock, Deus Ex Human Revolution and Beyond Good and Evil. BG&E is a 2003 game but the others all came out in the last 12 months (okay, 13 months for Deus Ex). 25 quid. I love Steam.

-Nick

[Stomski]

Coke's a helluva drug.

[kayevcee]

That last post a bit too "stream of consciousness"-y for you, Stom?

-Nick

[Andy Turnbull]

Besides. It was Nick, it'll be Irn Bru.

Andy

[kayevcee]

Idon'tknowhatyou'retalkingabout.-Nick

[The Doctor]

Can you raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise Baaaaaaaaaaaatmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan upppppppppppp and caaaaaaaaaan youuuuuu breaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim?

-Ralph

[kayevcee]

Every character has a special attack as well as their regular punches and such. Batman and Robin throw batarangs, Two-face pulls out his twin pistols, and Bane grabs the nearest enemy, hauls them over his head, and splits them in half over his knee.

So yes.

-Nick

[The Doctor]

Outstanding! I approve of this game.

-Ralph

[kayevcee]

Bane was actually a really useful character in the first game. He, Killer Croc and Man-bat all had the "superhuman strength" perk that meant they could move highlightable objects, and he, Croc, Two-face and the Joker were immune to toxins. So was Mr Freeze now that I think about it, and he could freeze enemies and waterways making them passable. Riddler and Mad Hatter had mind-control devices to open guarded doors, Poison Ivy could make plants grow to reach hidden areas, Harley and Catwoman could jump extra-high, and Killer Moth could glide short distances (as could Man-bat).

Of course, none of them could measure up to Penguin, who could glide using his umbrella and drop exploding lego penguins out of his top hat. In a cutscene one of the penguins pulls a gun in a clear reference to The Wrong Trousers.

Lego Batman is pure electronic joy.

-Nick

[The Doctor]

If only actual Dc comics brought such joy!

-Ralph

[legios]

It does sound like the LEGO DC Universe is far preferable to the actual one. I must see about getting one of the LEGO Batman games methinks.

Karl

[duffism1981]

I did enjoy both of the Lego batman games for the 360.

Splendid humour and just all around fun games to play.

My only real grip with Lego batman 2 is it was fairly short. While it was fun to fly around Gotham at your will and search for bricks, villains etc, I did think the game could have done with a villain storyline like that the first game had.

The game only really has 15 missions compared to 30 missions in the first one.

[kayevcee]

Agreed! Story campaign is far too short. I completed it with very little idea of how to work the map/nav point thingie. I wound up just doing the story missions and my completion rate was only 22.9%. I hadn't done the missions in free play mode yet and had missed the usual load of gold bricks and level set pieces, but still- I should have encountered around 50% of the stuff in the game at least. I found a couple of gold bricks in the Gotham sandbox by accident- they took a really long time to get and weren't all that exciting. If they're all like that getting 100% without a walkthrough will probably take a month.

Fair play to Telltale for taking a chance on a new formula. Maybe with a bit more tweaking it'll be something wonderful, but this time it's a bit of a mess.

-Nick

[duffism1981]

In the second game you find all the gold and red bricks in the map. One of the red bricks alerts you to any nearby gold bricks, so I found it best to find the red bricks first. To get the red bricks you will need Superman, The Flash, Lex Luthor, The Riddler and The Joker.

I really enjoyed flying about Gotham as Superman, well any flying character, but especially Superman due to the John Williams classic theme playing while doing so.

[Marc Graham]

Lego Batman 2 was awesome, one of the few games I bothered getting 100% for, although the last unlock is Supergirl and my niece was quite keen on unlocking her!

[The Doctor]

A Lego Batman game has now appeared in the Apple app store thingy. I must stay away from booze.

-Ralph

[kayevcee]

Why resist the inevitable?

-Nick

[The Doctor]

Because I had a look and it's another one of those shitty things were you can't just buy the full game. You have to buy in-app bits as you go. Can't be arsed with that. It's why I haven't bought a game in a year. Give me a full price for a full game or don't bother, games companies.

-Ralph

[Toph]

Batman 2 leaves me with mixed feelings.

While having the ENTIRE city of Gothom as the main hub is a blast, it does take away from the actual game.
So much resource has been given to the hub, that, as has been mentioned, the actual gameplay is insanely short (And lego games only take a couple days to complete to begin with).

Having so many of my favorite heroes and villains added is wonderful. But, the focus on Batman is a letdown.
Much rather would have had a Lego Justice League game instead of Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes.
Make the game a bit in the same style as Batman 1... with a Hero campaign (The JL), and a Villain campaign (With the League of Doom, or something)

I also really don't like that they now talk. To me, half the fun of the lego games was that they DIDN'T talk, and instead just grunted. (This literally kills LotR, using actual movie dialog, they pretty much destroyed all the humor the Travelers Tales is known for in their games. Lego LotR has almost zero humor)

That said, I'm really pleased that they did not hold their punches with the god characters who're invincible, like Superman, Zod, GL, and Wonderwoman. Unless there's kryptonite around, Superman is unstopable. No limit to his flight, nothing can hurt him, and all that. It's actually an insane amount of fun to just fly around Gotham with the Superman theme playing, and reigning down hellfire on everything with his heat vision.
Videogames always try to make god characters "fair." In some sense, it mase sense. But often you wind up playing a Superman who can get his ass kicked by Harley Quinn, which character wise makes no sense. That was always my concern when I first heard about this game, was that Supes and company were going to be heavily neutered (After all, characters with true flight in Batman 1 couldn't actually fly... Manbat, Killer Moth just glided everywhere like Batman and Penguin). But, I'm very glad this turned out to not be the case.

So... the game is insanely fun, but likewise insanely short. Doesn't have as much humor as the first one, or any other Lego game does, either.
Still think the best three in order are Indiana Jones 1, Batman 1, and Star Wars complete.
Batman 2 comes in fourth, with Pirates, Harry Potter, then Clone Wars (If I added DS/3DS version, then that ranks a lot higher. Better than the consol version) following.
Haven't played consol version of LotR yet, nor have I played any version of Indy 2, so can't comment on those. But if the consol version of LotR is anything like the 3DS version, then it'll be at the bottom of the pile.

[kayevcee]

Just noticed- this is the Daily Deal on Steam. If you order before 6pm you can get it for £5 instead of the usual £19.99.

-Nick