Save Gotham block by block in ‘Lego Batman’

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By Marc Saltzman - Gannett News Service

“If it ain’t broke ...” appears to be the mantra for Traveller’s Tales, the celebrated U.K. developer responsible for the popular “Lego Star Wars” and “Lego Indiana Jones” video games.

Now, fans of DC Comics’ Caped Crusader can run through Gotham City in “Lego Batman: The Videogame,” the latest to fuse the beloved children’s building toy with familiar superheroes and villains. Be warned: Despite new characters, locations and missions, it’s virtually the same game experience as past Lego interactive adventures.

Played from a third-person perspective, you control Lego versions of Batman and Robin in an original story line that has the dynamic duo taking on more than a dozen of Gotham’s most notorious criminal masterminds, such as The Joker, The Riddler, Catwoman, Killer Croc, Two-Face, Scarecrow and Poison Ivy. You are able to play as the villains, too, many with missions unique to them.

Batman uses his batarang (a modified boomerang) to wallop nearby baddies. The Dark Knight and his masked associate can also change into special suits that give them unique powers such as the ability to walk up walls or glide across ledges.

Ripped right out of the classic TV show, locations range from underground sewers to rooftops to busy streets — and at times you can take command of familiar vehicles such as the Batmobile, Batwing and Batboat.

As with past games, much of the fun in “Lego Batman: The Videogame” is having a friend or family member pick up a second controller and play a secondary hero or villain. If our house is any indication, this drop-in-and-out co-op option is perfect for siblings who want to play together, rather than fight for their own turn with the game. Too bad there isn’t an online co-op mode option in case your friends live in another city.

Visually speaking, the game is kitschy and colorful, with the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 versions looking the best with up to 1080p high-definition graphics on compatible televisions. The Danny Elfman soundtrack and celebrity voice tracks also help add to the game’s impressive production values. The Nintendo Wii version lets you use the Wii remote to target your batarang, as well as control your characters. The Nintendo DS version, on the other hand, is a completely different game altogether that uses the touch-screen to interact with the world and offers two-player co-op via local wireless networking.

The game plays nearly the same as the other Lego games: fight enemies, solve puzzles (such as flicking switches), collect Lego studs and bricks, build new items and unlock new playable characters. That said, fans of Batman and past Lego games might not want the developer to toy with the formula too much, but it certainly feels like it’s simply a new coat of paint on an existing concept.