LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham is a Perfect Homage to Silver-Age DC - Preview
by Jake Weston , posted on 11 June 2014 / 6,039 Views
Traveller's Tales' LEGO games have seen incremental updates over the years, but the core gameplay has remained largely unchanged in the almost decade they have been making licensed LEGO games based on popular properties. LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham - which as its title implies sends Batman, Robin, and his Justice League friends into the reaches of space - is as expected extremely similar to past LEGO games. That being said, as someone who has enjoyed TT Games' previous efforts (LEGO Marvel Super Heroes in particular), this is not necessarily a bad thing.
Right from the get go, our E3 demo started with the series' penchant for environmental puzzles. Batman and Robin need to fire up the spaceship so that they can join the Justice League at the Orbital Watchtower, but to do so they need to remove various obstacles in the Batcave and collect suits with different powers.
As a result, a lot of it felt very samey, continuing to break down blocks to build up new structures to progress further in the levels, but it was still fun. Plus, each of Batman and Robin's different costumes has wildly different abilities that flex the developer's creative muscles. The Power Suit, reminiscent of the finale of The Dark Knight Returns, allows Batman to shoot missiles to break obstacles, while his Space Suit allows him to fly and shoot lasers. Meanwhile, Robin's various suits also give him powers, one of which allows him to control a miniature, remote-controlled, hoverboarding Robin (I guess?), which is used to solve various puzzles. Later, in a moment extremely reminiscent of 1960s comics, Batman and Robin were shrunk down and digitized, Tron style, in order to hack a computer.
So while my time with LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham was undoubtedly just "more LEGO", I can't deny that I had fun with it, and it's always a blast to see my favorite superheroes in LEGO form. Fans of the darker, more grittier Batman will probably be turned off by this, but hey, they have Batman: Arkham Knight to look forward to, and people who only like dark, gritty Batman are lame anyway. LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham is launching for literally every active platform sometime this Holiday.
