Lessons I Have Learned From Playing Lego Batman
Posted 21 October 2008 in Gaming by Catriona
Lego Star Wars taught me many valuable lessons about preventing an evil galactic empire from taking over the universe, by blowing things up and constructing useful objects out of Lego.
I’m still waiting to put these lessons into practice.
But Lego Batman has taught me equally valuable, though slightly different, lessons about alternately protecting Gotham’s streets and menacing them when you are, in both cases, made out of plastic bricks that fall apart under pressure.
1. Batman is terribly serious: he has a little frown on what you can see of his face under his mask and he leans forwards when he runs to make the running seem more serious. (It’s hilarious to have serious-running Batman and waddling Penguin on the one screen.)
This intense seriousness makes it much more fun to take Batman into the Botanic Gardens level and spend a happy five minutes kicking Lego flowers to pieces.
Nothing beats watching a superhero very seriously kicking flowers.
2. I just don’t understand Harley Quinn.
I see the name popping up often enough online to assume she’s a fairly popular character, but the whole notion freaks me out.
She falls in love with the Joker almost instantly? He keeps abusing her, almost killing her on more than one occasion? He decides at one point that “it would be better if she were disfigured”? She believes that the Joker constantly reinvents his personality but argues that his affection for her is the sole constant?
Man, that’s messed up.
However, she does have a giant hammer with which she smashes things. That does go some way towards ameliorating my concerns about playing the character.
(It’s still messed up, though.)
3. Apparently, in Gotham, when your companion rapidly changes their clothes (and, sometimes, their personality) the entire world becomes temporarily fuzzy, often causing you to fall off a building.
At least, that’s what happens to my console when the computer-controlled player changes from one character to another, and I assume it’s an accurate representation of how the laws of physics operate in Gotham City.
4. Part of the fun of being a superhero is having a sidekick. If watching the live-action version of The Tick taught me anything, it’s that sidekicks should be enjoyed, exploited, and ostracised.
(I’m fairly certain that was the lesson I was supposed to take away from that show.)
But the computer-controlled characters don’t understand this, and keep shifting into Catwoman, when I want to play as Catwoman. Surely they must see that two Catwomen just leads to confusion.
They do this regardless of which character I’m playing, but it only annoys me when I’m Catwoman.
5. I don’t know who Clayface is, but I would imagine that being some kind of soil-based being who dissolves in water would be inconvenient.
6. Lego Joker is, if anything, even creepier than actual Joker. I don’t know why. Perhaps because his expression never moves—and neither does his hair? Perhaps because he’s the only villain you don’t get to actively defeat? Perhaps because at one point in the game he runs over his own girlfriend with a roller-coaster car?
I think it might be the last one.
7. I know Batman is a vigilante and often performs morally suspect actions, but I still suspect that smacking henchmen around until they explode into their constituent parts is crossing some sort of line.
8. The game is called Lego Batman, true.
And Batman is one of the great heroes of the comic-book realm, true.
But if he continues to get in my way when I’m trying to execute a tricky jump, I’m going to continue to shoot him.
9. Gotham has confusing architecture. It’s even more confusing when you’re flying through the skyscrapers in the Batwing. That’s why I keep hitting buildings and water towers, then exploding.
It’s absolutely because of the confusing architecture.
Not at all because I’m a rubbish flyer and keep getting lost.
Share your thoughts [4]
1
Drew wrote at Oct 22, 02:33 am
Harley is definetly very mixed up, she was created by Paul Dini for the outstanding Batman animated series made in the 90s and she works extremely well in that context; her ability to slot into the darker mainstream comic mythos is more questionable and often only works well when Dini himself is writing the text.
Clayface also transfered well into that animated series, so much so that one of the Clayface episodes was consided too scary to be shown on Australian television.
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Catriona wrote at Oct 22, 03:19 am
Nick mentioned that she was created for the animated series but bled over into mainstream continuity. I find that intriguing.
So the animated series is much lighter than the comics? Aimed at children, I suppose, or largely.
I also find the relationship/supervillain team-up between her and Poison Ivy intriguing (though I’ve not read any of those comics and am drawing this entirely from reading Wikipedia et. al.)—if you’re going to have a major character like the Joker in an abusive relationship, that’s one thing. I don’t think any of us would be surprised to learn that the Joker knocked his girlfriend around. (And, if I recall correctly, Tim Burton—or whoever the script writer was—wrote the Joker as domestically abusive in the 1989 Batman film, yes? Before Harley even existed?)
But to then have the victim of that abuse as nothing but a foil/punching bag makes the whole situation far more problematic. So sending her out into a (paradoxically) nurturing relationship with a female friend is not only an interesting way of shifting the characterisation but is also exactly what women in abusive relationships are encouraged to do (minus the subsequent life of crime).
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Drew wrote at Oct 22, 03:57 am
lol, yes the Harley and Ivy team-up also came from the animated series, initially as a result of the Joker literally throwing Harley out of his criminal lair. The team-ups are perhaps the most enjoyable light-hearted episodes of the entire series, although inevitably Harley always goes back to Mr.J just as real life abused persons (male or female) often do.
Was the series more light-hearted over all than the comics? Sometimes, especially towards the end but mostly not. It dealt with quite serious issues such as drug abuse and social inequality, disease and the anxiety of separation and did so extremely well. In some fashion, the 90s animated series tried to capture at least once all the various aspects of the Batman that existed up to that point in time, although mostly it focused on the dark brooding vigilante persona. If you’ve not seen it then it’s time you did, and I just happen to know someone who has it all on dvd. :)
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Catriona wrote at Oct 22, 11:18 am
Now, I didn’t know that the Poison Ivy-Harley Quinn team-up came out of the animated series. I did read somewhere that it was a result of her being kicked out of the Joker’s lair and also that she keeps going back (and that she calls him “Mr J.” and “Puddin’”, which is a little creepy).
The reason I’ve questioned whether the animated series is lighter is because you mentioned above that the character has a questionable ability to fit into the darker mainstream mythos, which suggested that the show was a little lighter.
But good children’s shows—if this is aimed at children—do deal with these dark issues. I should watch it, shouldn’t I? I think you gave me a copy, too. And maybe an animated series of Superman, as well? I’ll have to track those down.
That reminds me, though—what do you know about the Gotham Central series? I’ve heard it’s good, but I want a second opinion before I try it.