STUDIO: LucasArts
RELEASE DATE: September 23, 2008
CONSOLE: PSP/PS3
ALSO AVAILABLE ON: PS2, DS, Wii, Xbox 360, PC
DEVELOPER: Traveller's Tales
GENRE: Adventure
PLAYERS: 2
ESRB RATING: E10+

I'm a sucker. I have to admit something - LEGO Batman had me hooked from the opening credits. What I'm confessing, like an addict at a meeting in a church basement, is that, way more than any other superhero, the Dark Knight has been a major part of my entire life. Other kids may have drooled over Wonder Woman or wanted to join the X-Men, but I can chart my own history through the Bat. When I was a kid, I adored the Adam West version of the hero and the comic book incarnation at the time was the final destination of a large portion of my monthly allowance. At the age of 13, I waited in line to see Tim Burton's Batman on opening day and saw it three times in one weekend - Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The darker tones of that movie got me interested in books like Arkham Asylum and The Killing Joke, but I still watched Batman: The Animated Series in my teen years and watched the film franchise go through its Burton-to-Schumacher rollercoaster. Eventually, I stopped reading the comics, but the recent revival of the hero of Gotham City in the multi-talented hands of Christopher Nolan has rekindled my adoration for Bob Kane's brilliant creation. If I was asked to name my favorite superhero, there wouldn't be a moment of hesitation.

I say all of this because I have to admit a bias for a game like LEGO Batman that other people may not have. I started smiling before I had even gotten the chance to use a Batarang. The creators of LEGO Batman might as well have reached into my head and pulled out my mix of memories about everything I loved about the hero. The game isn't era-specific. The design of the characters looks most like the cartoon-ish Adam West days or the early comics, but there's Danny Elfman's score playing over it, bringing it into a more recent era. And, of course, the LEGO pieces, in general, have the ability to make a grown man feel like a kid again. There's something about just seeing a LEGO-sized Killer Croc and Clayface that makes me smile. LEGO Batman taps into that same vein of nostalgia and fun that made LEGO Star Wars one of my favorite games of the last few years. There are still some unacceptable glitches with the final product, but LEGO Batman is a rocking good time, especially for those of us raised on the Bat.

The gameplay in LEGO Batman should be familiar to anyone who picked up the LEGO versions of Star Wars or Indiana Jones. It's basically a simple series of building, destroying, and puzzle solving, but Batman avoids the biggest pitfall of the series and one that really dragged down the Indy game in my eyes - repetition. I often felt, in LEGO Indy, like I was doing the same thing over and over again, and, while there's some of that in Batman, it's not as blatant. Every time I started to get bored with the gameplay, the creators threw something innovative my way.

LEGO Batman opens with the player controlling who they would naturally expect to have in their command - Batman and Robin. If you have a friend and a second controller for your PS3, you can play co-operatively at the same time. (Try not to fight over who has to play Robin.) If you're playing on the PSP, you can bounce back and forth between the characters and you'll need to, as each has different tools to get you through the levels. The Star Wars and Indiana Jones games had predictable plots since you played through the movies. That's not the case with LEGO Batman, so sorry, you don't get to play through Batman & Robin and kill Joel Schumacher at the end (though that would've been awesome). This time you play all new adventures centered around The Riddler, Penguin, and The Joker. Each mission has a series of levels with other villains including Two-Face, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, and more, leading up to the big bad. As you progress through the levels, destroying everything in sight and rebuilding it, different suits come into play for Batman and Robin. At one point, Batman will need a suit that allows him to set off bombs. At another, you'll need to find a suit for Robin that lets him walk underwater. It's an innovative addition to a game that could have just been about Batarangs and capes.

But what's truly innovative about LEGO Batman is the second half of the game. The three missions alone would have made for a decent amount of playing time with some replay value, but Traveller's Tales doubles the gameplay by allowing players to go to Arkham Asylum and play alternate versions of the same missions as the villains. For example, the first mission on the Batcave side features our two heroes having to stop Clayface. The first mission on the Arkham side features you controlling Clayface to get into a position to be stopped by Batman. It's brilliant and so clever that it makes up for any of the flaws in the gameplay.

What flaws? Well, the camera is still incredibly annoying, especially on the PSP version. Maybe my eyes are getting bad, but when you can't move the camera at all to see some of the detailed blocks that you need to build or destroy, it can get frustrating. There's some minor camera movement with the PS3 version and it makes big difference, but, in both versions, I found myself stuck behind walls and falling into pits that I didn't even see because the camera was at the wrong angle. And I know that this isn't Call of Duty, but glitches where a bad guy disappears or another punches through a wall are unacceptable at this point in the game. Those things should have been ironed out by now and need to be if the LEGO series wants to become more than just a kid's game. Finally, the vehicle levels are disappointing. The Batmobile moves smoothly, but there's a level with a Batboat that's a gameplay mess.

Having played both the PSP and PS3 versions of LEGO Batman, I have to recommend the latter, but just barely. They are both essentially the same game. I was hoping for a more extensive experience in the PS3 version, but it seems clear that LucasArts and TT wanted to design one game for all platforms even PS2. This is not a case where you can expect any side missions on the PSP or vastly improved graphics on the PS3. Of course, blowing up the action to TV size instead of PSP size does make the games with detailed blocks and puzzles easier to play. I found myself straining to see where I needed to go next in the PSP version, a console that has never been the best for action games. So, it may be the same game, but blowing it up to widescreen HD size makes it a much more enjoyable and less frustrating experience. However, if cost and portability are an issue, you can't go wrong with the PSP version.

I felt like LEGO Indy was a bit of let-down. At the time, I wrote "Somewhere around the middle of Temple of Doom, the incredibly repetitive patterns of Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures started to wear on this player (although, to be fair, almost like the movies themselves, the game gets fun again with the third film)." LEGO Batman may have some of the same drawbacks as Indy, but I never got tired of it. It's more consistently creative than Indy and hints at a future for the franchise that doesn't need pre-existing adventures - the Star Wars and Indy movies - as a basis for every level. I expected LEGO Batman to strike a chord with me, given my predilection for all things Batman, but I have to say that anyone who has enjoyed any part of either franchise (LEGO or Batman) will probably get a kick out of it, not just hardcore fans. It may not be perfect, but it's damn hard not to smile while you're playing it. Sometimes that's all you want out of a game.