![]() Fans get to see a lot of familiar places and faces, but the selection of characters and places, versus the simplicity of the puzzles and gameplay points to LB3’s inability to pick a team: Team kid-friendly, or team fanboy. There are minigames like hacking woven into the levels, which are neatly divided into easy-to-replay packages. Like other Lego games, the levels are chock full of secrets that require replays with different characters (and their varying abilities) to find. There’s plenty of game here, as there should be at five bucks. Players with Android controllers can avoid that struggle. LB3 offers a choice between virtual joypad or touch controls, though trying to perform the platforming dance of death with either scheme took some getting used to. The AI is smart enough to make the second character move where they’re supposed to, which is great since there’s no “wait” command that I could find.ģD platforming is the last game element that has made Lego games great (or fun, if “great” is too high praise), and touch screens can be imprecise for 3D navigation. To progress you’ll need to switch between the two active characters and manage their multiple wardrobe changes. The suits are the key to the puzzles in the game. Some suits grant detective skills like Batman, others allow you to survive toxic goo, and yet others let you hack terminals or light up the world around you. Additional abilities are supplied by a number of suits, which also overlap between characters. Yes, they’re determined by the innate skills of that comic character (Superman starts with lasers, for example), but they’re also limited by the game mechanics. Giving up and plunking down real money is not an option.Įven if you do elect to unlock all the avatars, their abilities are often repeated. Sadly, if you want to use characters like Lex Luthor in Wonder Woman drag or the Joker smirking through a Batman mask, you’ll have to do a lot of level hunting and stud-saving. Then you won’t need to collect studs and half the game’s impetus is instantly nullified into a big heaping pile of guano. LB3 also offers a ton of characters to use (more than 100), and you can unlock them in two ways either by finding their character tokens hidden in levels, and then only with the proper amount of studs, or by simply spending a few dollars on gold bricks, the top currency in the game. Players travel to a variety of environments like the Fortress of Solitude and the Justice League tower during the game. The fun in LB3 comes from visiting familiar places. Unfortunately, LB3 doesn’t offer the open-world freedom of Lego Batman 2, where you were able to swoop around in downtown Gotham denying physics with blocky buildable prowess. Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham takes place exactly where it says: Outside the confines of Bruce Wayne’s city (it’s not a Batman Beyond reference). It would be nice if Traveller’s Tales (TT Games) found a happy medium, but hey, at least some kids somewhere are getting part of a proper comic book education. It seems like Lego Batman 3 is trying to straddle the divide between long-term hardcore fans of Batman and the Justice League (people who actually heard of Star Sapphires) and kids that are into Legos and Lego games. The references and characters that come into play during the course of this epic adventure are definitely for the fanboys, while the gameplay and writing is for the kids. The main conflict of Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham is Brainiac’s plan to shrink the earth (overcompensation, anyone?) to add to his personal collection. While you’re on that, grab as many studs (read “coins”) as you can, and try not die because that’ll seriously mess with your bottom line. ![]() All the usual Lego gameplay elements are there: Smash the destructible objects in the environment like so many piñatas to find Lego pieces integral to puzzles switch between characters to make use of said pieces and build solutions to the puzzles beat any enemies into little pieces, literally. LB3 keeps the fun of Lego and once again combines it with Batman’s wonderful toys. ![]() This has nothing to do with Batman Beyond or that Fox bastard child Gotham it’s more of a nod to the Justice League and associated games. Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham is a full affair also found on PC or console, with plenty of platforms, Lego puzzles, and villainous peons to punch. Luckily, I’ve kept my dark, strange humor. Not a snarky, gravel-voiced, cartoon diner-goer perpetually arguing with Superman, but a Lego superhero.
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