Traveler’s Tales and Warner Bros. Interactive have joined forcer for the newest in the popular Lego Video Game series: Lego Batman. It is a long awaited team-up, which carried with it a lot of promise, but does it live up to the hype? Read on and find out

Ok, first things first, I know this review is late. The reason involves a hard drive crash, and I’m not going to talk about it at length. However, it is done and now I can at last tell you about this game.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am the hugest Batman fan. I will play any Batman game, no matter how bad. I have played every single one, all the way back to the NES one, based on the first movie. I have played all the stinkers, from Return of the Joker to Dark Tommorow. I, like every other long suffering fan, have been waiting and preying for the game that would do our hero justice. it looks like it might finally come next year in the form of Batman: Arkham Asylum. However, to tide me over until then, I have Lego Batman.

It would be more than fair to say that I have been hoping for this game to be made ever since Lego obtained a Batman license two years ago. Ever since, their release, I been a huge fan of Lego’s Batman sets. They are well designed and look great when they are assembled. They are faithful to the both the movie’s and comic books and have a whimsical element to their design. It is a great thrill to see most of those models make it into this game. So, with my fandom laid bare, you can imagine how thrilled I was to hear early last year that Traveler’s Tales was developing Lego Batman. Now, the game is finally out and I can tell you what I think.

As with the other Lego games, the object is to make your way through a story mode. The story mode consists of three different episodes, which are each made up of five missions. This game has a unique hook though. The default for story mode is HERO MODE, meaning you play as Batman and Robin. However, when you beat an act in Hero Mode, you open the act’s corresponding VILLAIN MODE, which means you get to play the story from the villain’s perspective. In addition, there are two hidden levels which must be unlocked. That means there are a total of 32 levels to be explored.

As with the other Lego games, there is a hub where the missions are launched from. For heroes, that hub is the BATCAVE. For villains, that hub is ARKHAM ASYLUM. The missions are launched by approaching one of the three different vehicles in the hub. In Hero Mode, that is either the BATBOAT, the BATMOBILE or the BATWING. In Villain Mode, that is either TWO FACE’S ARMORED CAR, the PENGUIN’S SUBMARINE and the JOKER’S HELICOPTER.

Once you enter a mission, the game play is pretty much the same as all of the other Lego games. You smash enemies and the environments and collect the resulting Lego studs. To help you in this task, there will be “suit swapping” platforms that will change Batman and Robin’s outfits to help out with otherwise impassable situations. These different suits all give unique abilities, such as the ability to use bombs or use special panels to activate remote control devices or glide over large gaps. It breaks up the standard gameplay nicely. There is also one driving mission per act, which puts you behind the wheel of the vehicle you jump into to start the mission. These are incredibly fun.

Graphics-wise, this game benefits from not having to compete with the other home console versions. This is the first Lego game developed for next gen consoles, and it shows. Backgrounds are better rendered and the characters and levels are sharper than ever before. In addition, levels are larger vertically and there is a lot to see in each new level. Level themes are varied and range from a Gotham Bank to a run-down amusement park. Because of the basic nature of the graphics, the Wii version looks jsut as good as the other home console versions.

The controls are simplistic, but tight. The game is played using the Wiimote and Nunchuk. The “A” Button is used to jump, the “B” Button is used to punch, teh “Z” Button is used to activate a character’s special skill and the analog stick is used for movement.

In each level, the goal, before you finish a level, is to collect enough stude to fill the “superhero” or “supervillain” meter. Doing so will give you one piece of the superhero or supervillain super kit, which builds a lego model when you get all 15 pieces. In addition, in each level, there are 10 mini-kit canisters which build a model. When all 15 mini-kits are collected, you can open up the hero or villain secret level. When you finish a level in story mode, you open up “Free Play” mode, in which you can use whatever character you like and the game will pick five others to help you. YOu can switch between characters in Free Play Mode by pressin 1 or 2.

Make sure you collect all the studs you can, because you will be using them to buy the game’s many unlockables including characters, vehicles and special abilities.

In addition to the fighting, there are puzzles, usually involving the environment, that must be solved before you can proceed in the level. It is here that I find my only flaw with the game. Every so often, a puzzle comes along that does not have a clear solution. You can really go insane trying to figure out what to do next. Thankfully, those puzzles are few and far between.

In the end, Lego Batman is a great game. The puzzles are frustrating at times, but the game is always fun. The cutscenes are laugh-out-loud funny and the driving levels are a blast.

Lego Batman gets 4 Lego studs out of 5