Should I Buy? – LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes

Over the last nine years, the LEGO crossover games have slowly been refining their mechanics and it’s pretty obvious with LEGO Batman 2 that they’re still working on it. As fun as LEGO Batman 2 is, it’s pretty rough around the edges. In some places, it’s just a few niggling bugs that shouldn’t have made it through, in others its design choices that are confusing or questionable.

The LEGO Harry Potter and LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean  games experimented with a fairly limited sandbox as opposed to the traditional mission hubs that you can adventure through and explore to find secrets, and LEGO Batman 2 ups the ante by giving you all of Gotham when you’re not playing the story mode. There’s a wealth of content including villains to defeat, heroes to discover, citizens to save and more beside. It’s almost a shame that the weeks you could spend finding all this stuff can be muted to a couple of afternoons once you find the cheats that point out the locations of all these things.

Travelling around the map itself can be a bit of a headache. Of course running about is way too slow unless you’re The Flash, so you’ll want to rely on vehicles and the power of flight to get around. The actual unlockable vehicles like the Batmobile and Two-Face’s truck are really fast, to the point where trying to drive them in anything other than a straight line is a hassle. Flight itself works great for gross motor control, but when you try to make small movements to, say, land on a small roof, things get infuriatingly fiddly.

That said, flying is fun and fast and pretty widely available. Just in the course of playing through the story, you’ll unlock Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern as flying heroes so actual aircraft become rather pointless. Not quite as pointless as aquatic vehicles though, which have no use other than the Gold Brick containing driving courses. When you play one of the rare vehicle levels, you don’t even get the choice of your unlocked vehicles. It’s kind of a mystery why they bothered, and this is one of the areas where the game where things get questionable.

What about the story mode? Well, it’s the first fully voiced LEGO crossover game and the second to use an original story, so it’s a pretty big change from the standard format. The humour is much less slapstick this time around, but still has that same goofy, irreverent charm which is really helped by the healthy application of DCAU VAs reprising their roles and other experienced VAs  stepping into the empy slots. Christopher Corey Smith’s Joker is fine, but does lack the range and sheer insanity of Mark Hammil’s, Troy Baker makes for a good Batman, though I do miss Kevin Conroy. The real star of the show is Clancy Brown’s Lex Luthor, whose deep voice is equally adept at making Lex sinister and comedic.

The story itself is just as silly as you’d expect, with some pretty questionable logic on the villain’s part. Fifteen levels being pretty short as far as a LEGO crossover game goes and the story feels truncated and aguely unsatisfying for it. Any villain that isn’t the Joker or Luthor get the short end of the stick, basically being reduced to cameos. Still, the levels are fun and make good use of the character’s abilities.

Remember how in the original LEGO Batman the hero levels were the most boring because the limited number of abilities meant there were only so many ways you could be asked to solve a puzzle?  2 handles the situation a lot better, with the new Suits Batman and Robin wear each having two different abilities instead of just one and the design requiring a lot more cooperation than before. And when Superman comes on the scene, he’s just as powerful as you’d expect. He’s super strong, can fly, has heat vision, ice breath and is completely invulnerable to damage. However, he can’t demolish levels by himself and relies on Batman and Robin to fill in the gaps for him, meaning that the other two don’t turn into useless loads.

If nothing else, LEGO Batman 2 is a great representation of why Batman and Superman make such a good team. Unfortunately, there’s no villain levels this time around to counterbalance the hero ones which might leave you feeling short changed, given how the original game had twice the levels.

The much vaunted inclusion of characters from across the DCU doesn’t really make itself apparent until the end of the game. Apart from Cyborg, they’re not high on the versatility scale so you probably won’t be using them much unless you’re a real fan. Green Lantern and Flash do have unique abilities, but it’s pretty rare that you’ll need them. Actually, Aquaman is more useful than they are in the grand scheme of things. Aquaman! Among the Batman villains, there’s also a few from other heroes like General Zodd, Brainiac and Sinestro. Though this leads me to one of the design choices that annoys me most. Sinestro can’t build Green bricks like Green Lantern, but there are no Yellow bricks for him to use, and neither of them get a ranged attack, so Sinestro only gets to fly and Green Lantern’s one special trick is very situational.

But that’s a minor complaint. And those are all I can really muster. It looks great, it’s funny, the soundtrack mixes Superman and Batman music together well, there’s plenty of content for the explorers to find and hey, where else can you play as Huntress, Hawkgirl, Ra’s Al Ghul or Captain Boomerang? Also, whenever you take to the skies of Gotham as Superman, that music plays.

Should I Buy? – Captain America: Super Soldier

I’ve been on a bit of a Marvel binge recently, what with all the excitement the Avengers film is kicking up in me. In the past month, I’ve started reading Marvel Ultimates, watched Captain America: The First Avenger and yes, played Captain America: Super Soldier, the tie-in game to the film.

I’m aware this review isn’t exactly timely.

Marvel’s recent glut of great films (and the awesome X-Men: First Class by a different studio) have found their success with lesser known characters by focusing on what really makes that character who they are, building up believable character relationships and finding a comfortable compromise between accessibility and fidelity.

Can Super Soldier  do the same? Not really. The problem is that it’s too indecisive. Oh, by the way, while this game is a tie-in to the film and its design and characters are that of the film, I wouldn’t call it official Avengers film continuity. It seems like it should slot in between the first time Zola & Red Skull encounter Captain America, in that whole montage-y bit of Cap and the Invaders fighting HYDRA.

Oh yeah, so the game has Cap fighting HYDRA in Castle Zemo with the Invaders squad pitching in offscreen. Because the Red Skull is the villain of the film, he’s just a side villain making a cameo while the primary antagonist is Dr Zola. You know, the put-upon, slightly pitiable research guy the Red Skull bossed around.

Obviously, that Zola wouldn’t work, so here he’s much more arrogant and psychotic and has Ubermensch dreams of his own. Normally, this would just make him a fairly generic villain, but it’s at odds with his on-screen persona which I really don’t feel would be that hard to translate.

HYDRA’s forces don’t just use guns now, oh no. They come with stun batons and shields and a few variety of beefy dudes, each with their own counter measures while Cap gets by with a non-lethal projectile and a hit-dodge-counter setup.

So yes, the combat’s ripping off Arkham Asylum. But Batman was almost magnetically drawn to his foes. So long as you pressed attack while being near a guy and pushing the analog stick in vaguely the right direction, he’d strike with bone-crunching accuracy. But Cap’s a bit slippery when moving about, and his shield will NOT auto target people unless they’re pretty much straight in front of you.

Also, the button combinations used for the different counter techniques are often in the fashion of “hold down one button and press another” and more than once I took hits because when I saw a counter icon I got flustered over which move that particular icon meant I should use. Especially when some of the big beasty baddies have follow up button mashing Quick Time Events ad which button it is changes every time and some attacks let you get away with pressing the wrong one first and some don’t…

What I’m trying to say is that in trying to mix up the core gameplay mechanic, it deviated too far from its simple basis and ended up floundering. Really, I could have forgiven the slightly sloppy controls and glut of counters and such if the game had done a better job of teaching me.

It’s too concerned with trying to compete with the First Avenger and Uncharted/Prince of Persia style cinematic acrobatics and Arkham Asylum combat/doodad collection time to slow the hell down. Remember how in Arkham Asylum the Joker trapped you in a room and poured in waves of thugs so you could practice the attack/dodge/counter options before it even told you you had Batarangs? That’s the kind of thing Super Soldier is lacking. The appropriate button presses and what they do flash up at the top of the screen from time to time, but it’s not enough.

Especially seeing as the on screen text is clearly not optimised for a small, non-HD TV like, I dunno, a significant portion 14-20 year olds have. And it’s not like 14-20 is THE single biggest gaming demographic or anything…

Now, while Asylum mixed up its battles with the visceral and enjoyable stealth sequences, Super Soldier only has these limited acrobatics. It’s really just a case of pressing A at the glowy objects until you reach your destination. These have that basically satisfying cool look to them like similar sequences in Uncharted or Prince of Persia, but the only “skill” is in pressing A just as you land so you move faster. This is supposed to be how to avoid snipers, but they so rarely show up when you’re doing it, it’s redundant.

Really, systems only seeming half implemented because there’s such a limited amount of content (seriously, about a 6-8 hour campaign) is a recurring trend. There’s an upgrade system that gives new moves that vary from fairly useful to completely obsolete. And even though there’s only nine, the game’s so short I don’t think I actually bought anything from the third tier.

It can’t even fall back on the gadget-y puzzle thing Arkham Asylum did, because Cap only has access to his shield. Well, there’s two very simple “puzzles” that you use to open doors/blow things up. Now, this shield does work well as a weapon, the CLANG as you whack people is particularly satisfying.

But all there really is is the good-but-not-great combat and style-over-substance acrobatics. The collectable doodads also fall short of the mark, leaving aside the fact that you can find top secret dossiers in the sewers, of Zemo family heirlooms in the mess hall and at one point, a giant ceramic rooster behind the most securely locked door in the game, isn’t what bothers me. What bothers me is that they’re set out really weirdly. You may go several chapters without finding a single heirloom, but then find two or three in five minutes of each other.

Also, if this is Baron Zemo’s castle, and we can collect his family heirlooms to find out his involvement with Hydra, why doesn’t he appear? We get a smattering of what I assume to be other Captain America villains like Madame HYDRA, Iron Cross and Baron von Schrofen, but not Zemo?

Also, the villains fall flat. None of them do anything as memorable as Joker’s speeches or Scarecrow’s nightmare sequences, and if you don’t know who they are, you’ll only get a few brief references to who and what and why they are.

The reason I’m being so hard on this game is because it really did have a solid foundation and could have truly rivalled the Goddamn Batman. But in the end, I imagine the strict time limit imposed on the studio to get it released to capitalise on the film meant they couldn’t make this big, epic game they seem to have planned.

So that’s Super Soldier. It’s short, it’s a bit sloppy, but it has a rough charm and is a fun game. Now that’s it’s a damn sight cheaper than its original full price makes it worth a look, but you’re not missing anything spectacular if you pass on it and if you’re looking for a great superhero game, just play Arkham Asylum or Arkham City instead.

Comics are weird.

Well they are. Today I read two. The first was the inaugural issue of Marvel Comics Ultimate Graphic Novel Collection (available from your local newsagent in the UK), The Amazing Spider-Man’s Coming Home. It’s a J Michael Straczynscki story which introduces the concept that Spider-Man’s powers have an origin a little more complicated than a radioactive spider.

Namely, that he is the latest in a long line of people imbued with special powers from totemic animal spirits, and that so many of his villains are animal themed because some subconscious narrative source in the universe deliberately attracts villains that balance out the hero. E.g., Captain America has Red Skull, the X-Men have Magneto and Spider-Man has the Lizard, Doc Ock, Rhino, the Vulture et al. This is of course how hero/villain dynamics work. The villains that caught on were always the ones that proved to be either the opposite or dark reflection of the heroes. It was a pretty damn meta-textual moment.

Now, I liked it. Spidey’s internal monologue did get  bit overwrought at times, hopefully Straczynscki (y’know what, from now on I’m calling him Mr S) in his other works remembers that sometime silence speaks the loudest of all. Also, not ten minutes after I turned to my brother and said “why doesn’t he call any of the other heroes that live in New York?” (which is at least a half dozen high profile ones), he considered calling the Fantastic Four with change he’d stolen from a fake-blind beggar.

In fact, when comics go all meta are often my favourite part. Of course, now that previous fans are running comics, they do that a lot. But according to tvtropes at least, I’m supposed to think that “messing” with the webhead’s origin and introducing new concepts into what was then an ailing character (and this story helped lead to his revival, at least the blurb at the back said) is automatically wrong. Even though it was done for Superman and the destruction of Krypton. Or Batman and Joe Chill. Or The Flash family and the Speed Force.

That was the other one I read, Flash: Rebirth by Geoff Johns.  It’s the story where the Silver Age Flash Barry Allen was readjusting to being brought back from the Speed Force, the quasi-mystical source of all the DC speedster’s powers. Turns out that even though he was the second Flash, he created the Speed Force and that the more he uses his powers, the more he builds up the Speed Force and the more heroes (and villains) can tap into its power. Some of the Golden Age heroes like the original Flash and Green Lantern also remark about how the appearance of Barry Allen as the new Flash brought them out of retirement. This is meant quite literally, as the Flash is pretty much universally credited with leading the revival of superhero comics after they nearly died during the forties and early fifties.

But to return to the matter of the Speed Force for a moment, the implication behind Barry having inadvertently created the Speed Force is that he inspired the rebirth of superhero comics that sprawled throughout the medium and that he, with his continued presence in comic books, will continue to grow and expand and help to inspire and shape the medium for decades to come. That’s pretty deep subtext for a picture book where men in silly suits punch each other really hard.

I like that comics can do this. The tradeoff is that it’s pretty hard for a newcomer to find a way in. I know some argue that it’s not that hard, but I’m pretty boned up on DC for a non-regular reader and I struggling with having all four Flashes, and one of the Flash’s twin children, and two Flash’s wives, and Reverse Flash, and Liberty Belle, and Black Flash, and Savitar, And Gorilla Grodd, and Max Mercury and Johnny Quick. See how this stuff gets confusing? It doesn’t help that two of the Flashes have identical costumes. Seriously, one of them has to have his headgear torn off so we can see he’s not Barry Allen. The plot even has to stop several times to explain characters or contexts or backstories.

What’s the point of all this incoherent rambling that I’m doing instead of important uni work? I dunno. Comics are weird. I like ’em. I want to read more. It’s a shame I’m poor, really. And would you look at that? I didn’t even have to refer to Mr S again.

News – The Batmen

Now those of you who follow videogame news even loosely will know that Batman Arkham City, the much anticipated followup to Rocksteady’s Batman Arkham Asylum has been receiving a lot of coverage.

Most recently, this is because it’s had a full five new costumes announced that you can dress Batman up in for the Challenge maps. This is, on the surface, quite cool. Now not only can we play as everyone’s favourite feline and the Boy Wonder but six different versions of Batman.

The costumes are based on various incarnations the Caped Crusader has had over the years, and it’s a bit like The Dark Knight’s Greatest Hits. There’s the Batman Beyond suit used by Terry McGinnis, the protege of an aging Bruce Wayne. Then you’ve got an old Batman, the one from Frank Miller’s classic The Dark Knight Returns. Next up is another of Miller’s, this time it’s the suit he wore in Batman: Year One, the massively popular retelling of Bruce’s first year fighting crime with cape and cowl.

Then there’s a traditional 70’s era look that sports the blue cape and yellow chestplate that used to be standard for the World’s Greatest Detective. Finally is a very faithful recreation of the Batman we saw in Batman: The Animated Series.

They're the Goddamn Batmen

Now as the more observant of you may have noted, I earlier said that this is a good thing ‘on the surface’. Now it’s time for that timebomb to go off. You see, not only will you only get one of these suits if you preorder the game from the right store but they’re not even making them all available in every country.

You may think that’s a minor thing, but when a preorder bonus is a purely digital addition to a game like a costume pack or extra weapon instead of something physical like art cards or t-shirts this is almost never later made available as DLC. The kind of people who’ll put in a preorder at somewhere they wouldn’t normally shop or just picking the game up at launch are the type of people who will pay for every piece of preorder content as DLC.

You are missing out on a huge pile of cash. Sure, you don’t want it to be day one DLC, that’d undermine the entire premise of the bonus. And I’m not saying stop the incentivising. But six months, a year down the line? You can easily role this out as DLC for every country. Put all five of them together in a value pack, or price them so low that people think ‘I can afford £1.50’.

Social games have got the microtransaction system down, the mainstream gaming industry needs to learn the lessons it can from social games and other mediums. There’s been a lot of failed schemes like Online Passes and DRM to to convince people to buy your games new, but you don’t make it easy for us. If a book, film or album sells well, they keep making it. Games don’t. Unless it makes its way to digital distribution, you pretty much can’t buy a game new a few months after its release.

If people will keep buying it, keep providing it. That people have to be so reliant on the preowned market for games they couldn’t afford, didn’t know about or weren’t interested in at release means that they’ve become conditioned to buy later and cheaper than buy on release.

Don’t try to force us to come to you, cause that’ll just make us resist harder. Be like Valve, build up a good relationship with your fans, based on listening to them and making business and design decisions not always based on profit mongering.

Should I Buy? – Batman Arkham Asylum

Me reviewing Batman, this’ll be impartial. Let me start by saying that this is the best superhero game ever. That’s not hyperbolic. This really is. And it really shouldn’t be.

Most games based off of licensed properties from other franchises are mediocre at best, or only fulfill niche markets. Normally this is because the game is just a cheap cash-in, and if it’s being made to emulate the plot of a film or tv series it’s an even bigger problem because the developer has got a lot of restraints  placed on them and only a limited amount of time to make the game in.

This came out the the year after The Dark Knight, so Batman was all the hype. And for some reason, DC handed the license over to a company that had only made one forgettable PS2 game before, and that was released all the way back in 2006. So licensed game, inexperienced studio, big film to cash in on. The perfect recipe for disaster. Instead, we got a Game of the Year.

First of all, Arkham Asylum uses the ‘adaptation by spirit’ approach. It drew from many elements of the Batman mythos and media to create something new and unique. The plot (that Joker takes over Arkham Asylum and challenges Batman to survive the night) is based on Grant Morrison’s A Serious House on Serious Earth, the voice talent comes largely from Batman: The Animated Series, the level design draws from the Tim Burton’s use of German Expressionism in Batman and Batman Returns and so on. All that, added with all the little details in the character profiles and interview tapes shows Rocksteady did their work.

But that alone isn’t enough to make a great game. They did that by making this game do what no other superhero game has ever done as well. Hell, something most games don’t do period. Playing that game, you feel like Batman. Whether it’s fighting huge groups of thugs, silently picking them off one by one from the shadows or using your gadgets to traverse the environment in ways that just make you feel powerful.

I think they benefited by choosing a superhero who has no powers. Strange as that sounds, it allows them to create a character that’s powerful without having difficulties contriving excuses for challenge. Sure, you can take down hordes of guys without a scratch, but you might get sloppy and get hit by a lead pipe.

Gameplay can be divided into three sections. Runny-jumpy-climby, sneaky-sneaky stealth and biff-pow combat. Moving through the game world feels great, as you can zip around with your gadgets and use them with Batman’s natural athleticism to reach almost anywhere you can see.

When you’re stealthing it up, it’s because the hordes of burly henchmen in this area have got guns, which not even Batman can stand up to in a straight fight. The reason the developers refer to this as ‘Predator Mode’ is because that’s exactly what it feels like. These guys don’t stand a chance, and you’re picking them off one by one and making them fearful. In fact, if you do it particularly well they’ll start to believe that you can’t be human, that you’re some supernatural force. Listening to them get terrified (and therefore, sloppy) is great fun.

The combat is very simple. You press a button, you punch things. If an enemy has a sign flash over their head, you press another button and counter them. There are a few more advanced techniques, but the two button approach is the real core of combat. It sounds boring, but it works very well because it’s incredibly satisfying to see yourself in the middle of this tornado of punches and brutal attacks.

Arkham Asylum also boasts a range of Batman villains to serve as bosses. These fights…don’t match up to the rest of the game. Though Mark Hammil’s performance as the Joker easily rivals Heath ledger’s, and blows Jack Nicholson out of the water.

The Riddler has also left plenty of puzzles for Batman all over Arkham. Completing the completely optional Riddler Challenges give you extra experience (which will also recharge your health) and cement your position as the World’s Greatest Detective.

There’s a lot more that could be said about individual areas and design choices, but this isn’t the place for that. What I will say is that it’s a little short, but comes with combat and stealth challenge maps that can prolong that. But in terms of value for money, this is great. Buy it.

Price: £10 (Preowned average – CEX)

Steam: £14.99