Lego Batman 3 Beyond Gotham - Maxi-Geek Review

Since the very first Lego game, they have grown more and more ambitious in both scale and presentation and now we are here with the latest in the series, all the tricks that were learnt along the way have been used here. The game starts out with a pretty standard Batman story, both Batman and Robin, this time played by Tim Drake are chasing down Killer Croc through the sewers of Gotham and it is here that we start to get a glimpse of things playing out on a grander scale, both in Gotham and the universe.

Thankfully the story is pretty easy to follow along with, which is saying something; with the massive cast of characters it could have gotten quite complex, but thankfully it did not. Along with the DC characters, the story plays out with a typical Lego feeling, adding in a lot of humor, even with some of the traditionally darker characters. Brainiac has decided that after years of collecting cities to add to his collection, they are no longer appealing, so he is upgrading to planets. But in order to gain the power needed to do so, he needs to capture a member of each of the lantern corps. He manages to collect 6 of the 7 he needs, with only the Green Lantern remaining, so he heads towards Earth in order to claim his final piece.

While this is going on, Lex Luthor, Joker, Cheetah, Firefly, Killer Croc and Solomon Grundy have managed to make their way into the Watchtower and incapacitated Martian Manhunter, but not before he was able to call in the Justice League and this where things get good. You are now able to play as a variety of characters including The Flash, Wonder Woman and Cyborg, each has skills that make them great in a fight, but also talents that allow you to solve puzzles and progress through the levels. Each of the characters also shines in the cutscenes, Flash in particular kicks things up a notch when he is around and it gets even funnier after a certain event.

Though as much fun as the characters are, witty banter included the gameplay is still suffering from the same problems as all the other Lego games, in that it is exactly like the other Lego games. In Lego Batman 2, you had to go to portals to switch out costumes and abilities for characters, which has been removed entirely here and in its place is a new system that allows you to swap costumes on the fly once they have been unlocked. Outside of this the game is still forcing players to destroy everything in the space, in order to collect all those little studs or find hidden extras and while I enjoy collecting items and goodies, knowing I need to come back with a certain character in order to get a single item is very frustrating.

But it is not all in vain here, thankfully the team have put a system in place that allows you to jump back into select portions of the levels in order to claim that missing collectable. Outside of these two new additions, the other major addition is the larger characters, something the team was able to do with the last game they worked on. Having Solomon Grundy around is pretty cool, but having him tower over Batman is even cooler. The characters all feel like they have weight and presence in the world, with Flash moving around fast and Superman and other flying characters controlling very well. The problem with the game as a whole is that it feels like a step back after Lego Batman 2 and the other Lego games since then.

You no longer have a large city to explore, in fact the only time you are given a large open space to explore, this case a planet it’s quite barren. The Watchtower serves as your main hub and contains lots of rooms and hidden spaces to explore, it is fun to walk around and look at all that makes up the Watchtower, but it is a shame that the open world from the last game has been removed here. The locations that you do get to explore start of pretty vanilla, sewers and space stations, but once you get back to earth you get to explore London, Paris and Rome albeit in a slightly different look.

This is where I have always had an issue with the Lego games, any object that is made from Lego can be destroyed or used to create other things, it is the key part of Lego but the rest of the world is made up of normal looking items. Floors are steel, rock walls and such they have always distracted and made the world and games feel incomplete to me. However with this title, you get to visit locations that are fully Lego, from the buildings to the cars, street lights to regular water and I have to say, while it looks pretty cool, I was longing for the regular look of past games. It is strange to want something to change so much and when you get it, you want it to go back to how it was.

The voice cast they have here is as great a cast as you could possibly get, Troy Baker does a good job at portraying the capped crusader but for me Travis Willingham and Charlie Schlatter are amazing as Superman and the Flash. The entire voice cast is pretty incredible and there are a few voices I would remove or swap but for the most part a solid effort for the team. Conan O’Brien is a character that serves no purpose and has no need to be in the game, Geoff Johns, Kevin Smith and alike all offer up insight to that world, but again not really needed.

If you are looking for the best Lego Batman game you can possibly imagine, you are not going to get it here. What is on offer here is a good story, with almost every DC character (Condiment King) present and solid Lego gameplay, but with the removal of the open world the game feels like it has taken a few giant steps back, even with the gameplay improvements.

Thanks to Warner Bros Australia for supplying the game for review