A fortnight after the madness of the world's largest gaming convention, E3, and things are finally beginning to calm down a touch on the news front - we have a new Nintendo console coming, a not-all-that-surprising Just Dance sequel and more Pokemon than we know what to do with. But it all seems so far away, with many of the announcements not due till Christmas at the earliest - what are we supposed to do till then? Especially with the annual summer games drought? Luckily, Lego is the answer. And we're not on about the recently announced Lego City Undercover for the Wii U either, seeing as that's still a way off too - coming out this coming Friday is Lego Batman 2.
We loved the original Lego Batman game; it epitomised all that was great with the Lego games - slapstick humour, funky platforming, smashing stuff and simple character-specific puzzles that saw you playing as all of the Batman crew. Whether it was blowing things up with the Penguin's walking penguin bombs, strolling up metal walls with Robin's magnetic shoes or jump-starting electrical appliances with the Joker's hand buzzer, you could do it all with a friend by your side, becoming the dynamic, but slightly more plasticy duo, Batman and Robin, for yourselves. With two stories on offer - one for the bad guys, and one for the good guys, there was plenty to do, too - and from what we've seen so far, LEGO Batman 2 looks like it'll offer plenty more on top.
Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes takes it a step further, and incorporates a whole universe of super heroes into the Batman mix, letting you play as Superman, Wonder Woman and the Green Lantern, amongst others. The story goes that all the super heroes have had to join forces to put a stop to the plans of Lex Luthor and The Joker, who are planning on destroying Gotham City. But new characters aren't all the developers at Traveller's Tales have added - this time, the previously-mute Lego mini-figures can now talk:
We're not entirely sure what we think about this. While it'll certainly make the game's storylines a lot easier to follow - before, you've just had to try and sort of guess what the intelligible babble, pointing and face-pulling of the other games actually meant - it just doesn't seem right for a LEGO game to have talking characters. But no matter what we think, it would appear voice overs are here to stay, as the trailer for the recently announced (but not out for a while longer) Lego Lord Of The Rings will apparently have them too.
Either way, we won't have to wait long to find out how well it works, as Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes launches later this month, on the 22nd of June, for pretty much every games platform under the sun - DS, 3DS, Wii, Xbox 360, PC, Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita are all covered.
