LEGO Batman: The Videogame
Year: 2008
Rating: E10+
Time Played: ~30 hours
LEGO Batman: The Videogame is a little bizarre because it came out well before The LEGO Movie (2014), where Will Arnett made LEGO Batman his own meme-able character (and eventually starred in his own movie spinoff). It also came out the same year as The Dark Knight (2008), which is arguably the best Batman movie in existence. However, this video game came early enough in the LEGO movie adaptation run in the late-2000s that it still had some of the rough edges that they hadn’t smoothed out by later games in the series.
This video game doesn’t quite fit in the “movie adaptation” formula LEGO had created with hits like LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga. Instead, they seemed to pull from the iconic Batman the Animated Series for the game’s episodic structure. We can all be grateful that the Tim Burton Batman films influenced this game much more than the Joel Schumacher ones did. After all, Danny Elfman’s recognizable score is indelibly tied to the Batman franchise in my mind. And, as a game aimed at children, the darker tone of Christopher Nolan’s films wasn’t as appropriate as some of the more campy Batman representations.
In terms of gameplay, there’s definitely plenty to do, especially if you want to reach 100% completion. There wasn’t anything that particularly drew me to complete this game 100%, other than it was fun to play. Unlocking abilities to find more of the hidden items helped make the game enjoyable, especially since levels had to be re-played a few times to find everything. The characters are also colorful and fun to control, especially in combat (which would have been better if it had the 60s “BIFF” and “SOCK” effects added in).
A fun Batman game that’s appropriate for children, I give LEGO Batman: The Videogame 4.0 stars out of 5.
