Lego's first massive game! (Lego Batman 2 in review)

     Hi there, friends! I hope you know that we're coming up on one of the biggest game releases of this year, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which is coming up on the Tuesday after next, April 5th. While I'm looking forward to this game a lot, and will definitely be playing and writing about it when it comes out, I'm not going to be talking about it this early. Instead, I looked at the scope of this new game, all of the different planets and star systems that you span in this upcoming release, and thought about the first time that Lego tried something like this. Back in the days of old, the original Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Batman games were all level based with very little to do in the hub worlds, it basically acted as a more interactive menu where you could buy extras and characters. Don't get me wrong, Dex's Diner from Lego Star Wars was so much fun to walk around and watch the characters interact, sometimes stumbling across a Jedi and a Sith facing off to the death, but there just wasn't a lot to it. The Lego Harry Potter series was when they began adding more fleshed out open world elements, but it wasn't until this game that I'm talking about today that they really nailed the concept. Sure it was still a little buggy and things weren't perfect, but it was a great first attempt, and in a lot of ways was even better than what followed. Today it's time to put on those cowls and get your capes on, because it's time to hit the blocky streets of Gotham in Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes.

Blocky Friends, Blocky Foes, and Blocky Plots.

    The Plot of Lego Batman 2 is nothing to write home about, it's actually very similar to most of the DC Lego games nowadays, but it is a fun time, nonetheless. The Joker shows up at Bruce Wayne's charity fundraiser and tries to steal everyone's money, when surprise, Batman appears on the scene and catches the Joker along with several other villains which go to Arkham Asylum. I'm going to be honest and say that it's been a long time since I've played through this game, but I know it starts this way, and it ends with Lex Luthor teaming up with the Joker and trying to mind control everyone to make him the president of the United States. It's a wild premise and it ends in a pretty spectacular way with Batman and Superman teaming up with other heroes and taking the team down. From what I recall, Superman is the main hero that is included in this game, but Cyborg takes on a fairly major role, as does the Flash. Martian Manhunter has no screen time in the story, as you unlock him after getting a certain number of gold bricks from the free roam section of the game. He doesn't have his normal powers though, he is essentially one of four or five Superman clones that are in the game once you finish collecting all of them. I remember playing this game for the first time which begins with a standard level like you could have found in the older games in the series, so I expected another similar time, which I was beginning to get tired of, but after the level, I was met with a pretty incredible surprise. Batman and Robin leapt off the roof of the building I was just in, and they put me out on the streets of Gotham with a free camera. Everything was blocked off leading to the second level, but it looked like a place that I could explore for a long time, and that was a spot on assessment! As you go through the game, you unlock more and more of Gotham to explore, which was a really cool idea, and one that they haven't really gone back to. They normally opt to open up the entire world at the same time, which is also a perfectly good way of doing it. In more recent titles, they've tended to make multiple smaller areas as opposed to one large one that was in this game and others such as Lego Marvel Super Heroes. Call me crazy, but I think I prefer this type of level design, if for no other reason than having it require fewer loading screens.

More Heroes, More Fun!

    With this game came a pretty significant tone shift for Lego Games as a whole, not only the addition of the Open World areas, but also voice acting in this game allowed for a more complex story that they were telling. This was a controversial change for the series that had been known for its mumble acting, with silent characters using pantomime actions to get across what they were doing. My favorite example of that style had to be in Lego Star Wars 2 when Darth Vader was explaining to Luke that he was his father, and he did that by pulling out a picture of him with Padme when she was pregnant. That scene was absolutely hilarious when I was a kid, and is no less funny today! Getting back to the game at hand, however, this was the first one with voice acting, and the dialogue was pretty good to be honest! It was a good addition to Lego's silly humor and in my opinion didn't take away from the physical comedy, but for fans of the mumble, I have good news. In Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, there is going to be a way to turn the "Mumble" feature on, though I'm not sure if it will be through a red brick or it will just be a standard option, either way, I love that they're adding the choice in case people want it. 

    Along with this new storytelling change also came many more characters than the original Lego Batman game. With the original being restricted down to just Batman's friends and enemies, this sequel opened the door for all of the different DC characters. It wasn't a full roster by any means, but it was certainly a step in the right direction! In addition to all this, they added more costumes for the characters to change into, which was a feature in the original game, but a lot more content was added in, as well as not having to step on certain platforms in order to change the suit, which was a nice change for sure. With the new heroes, they added new suits for them as well, which they added onto in the next game as well.

    This is an example of a game that I've rented several times but never bought sadly, and there's not a way to play it on PS4/5 unless you have PS Now, though I guess you could play it on Xbox Series X since it is much more open to backwards compatibility. To make up for that major oversight, I've bought Lego Batman 3 twice, even though I don't think it's as solid of a game as the older title. It's still a fun time, and with a much weirder slate of characters including the likes of Kevin Smith, Conan O Brian, and Daffy Duck in a Green Lantern costume, calling himself the Green Loontern. No, I'm not making any of that up... and it's just as weird and out of place as it sounds, but we're not talking about that game quite yet. Lego Batman 2 came at a perfect time, as I was just getting to the age where I wasn't content with the current Lego game formula and wanted something a bit different, and the series as a whole has not really looked back since this point. I've loved pretty much every Lego game to some degree, and this change in formula really helped a lot with that!

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends! I'm so excited for the next Lego Star Wars that I just had to go back to what ended up being my favorite Lego game when it was all said and done! Is nostalgia causing it? Maybe, who knows? Look out for my review of Lego Star Wars: the Skywalker Saga sometime soon, since I am for sure going to be playing that game to 100%. I hope you all have a great week, and I'll talk to you again soon! I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Lego Master Builder, signing off!