I'm the Goddamn (Lego) Batman! (And I'm Adorable)

Why, yes, I have been playing Lego Batman.

I was certainly intending to spend the day putting my house into something resembling order, but, in my own defense, that was before I fell down the back steps trying to get to the washing machine.

Now I have an ankle that more closely resembles a water balloon than a human appendage, and don’t really feel like cleaning the house.

(I’m also really not looking forward to trotting across the Great Court on this tomorrow morning, standing for an hour giving a lecture, and trotting back across the Great Court for the first of three tutorials. But, firstly, I don’t have a choice so there’s no point whinging and, secondly, it may have gone down by tomorrow.)

It did make a great excuse for lying around playing Lego Batman, though.

And it’s true—I am adorable. Well, Lego Batman is adorable. He has a stern expression and leans forward when he’s running for extra speed. And I’m sure everyone can imagine how adorable a Lego version of Batman running intensely is.

The game still has the same frustrations as the earlier Lego games had; as the Kotaku review points out, the developers don’t seem to have worked out the glitches in the engine—such as falling through scenery or becoming stuck behind something with no way of getting out or, in extreme cases, killing yourself and rematerialising elsewhere—and the camera angles still make it difficult to negotiate jumps.

I also have trouble—though I suspect this is simply my problem—with negotiating Batman’s glide suit; I don’t seem to be able to get enough height, and keep hitting walls. I was also driven frantic by a scene where I negotiated (at great expense—I think I died fifteen times, costing me True Villain status) a series of rolling lasers, only to find I’d gone through them with the wrong damn character and had to go back through twice (once to pick up the correct character, stuck on the far side of the lasers, and once to reach the correct side) in order to open the next door.

Stupid lasers.

But those are fairly minor quibbles. As is Kotaku’s other main complaint: that the game is something of a cakewalk. It is—but I don’t mind. The blog may suggest I spend most of my spare time playing video games, but that doesn’t mean I’m any good at them. I was surprised by how readily I was getting through the levels here, but I don’t object.

Why would I? I’m Lego Batman!

I have batarangs, which I use to hit targets and open doors.

I can change between glide suits, which allow me to negotiate gaps greater than my jumping distance; demolition suits, which allow me to blow stuff up; and suits that allow me to walk through freezing gas. (If I’m playing as Robin, I have two suits: one that’s magnetised and allows me to walk vertically up metal walls and one that allows me to walk safely across toxic sludge.)

I have a Batmobile. A Batmobile made out of Lego. (The best kind of Batmobile.)

And once I’ve worked my way through a level as Batman, I can go through a secret door in the Batcave into Arkham Asylum (let’s just skip over what a ridiculous idea it would be to have a door running directly between Arkham Asylum and Batman’s secret headquarters) and play a slightly different version of the level as The Riddler. Or Two-Face. Or The Penguin, Catwoman, or The Joker.

I have neither the inclination nor the ability to actually set myself up as a Batman-style vigilante.

But then why would I need to? I imagine it would be a dangerous, uncomfortable, and frequently cold or damp kind of lifestyle.

At least this way when I cop The Riddler’s question mark-shaped stick to the head, I just rematerialise slightly further down the street.