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Like in most of the LEGO games, you'll have a variety of vehicles to drive.
Some very cool heroism manifests in gameplay in ways that aren't unique if you know the LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones series. You're still hunting down tens of thousands of LEGO pieces and picking up hearts for lives. And you're still making vehicles of LEGO pieces you find, too.
But there are new twists that make your missions more than palatable. First, look at the attention to detail. I don't just mean the backgrounds, which are as lush and dark as a description from a Clive Barker novel. At any moment, you feel that something wicked this way may come. Then, if you down a Red Bull, you'll see that the camera looks this way and that -- wary, even paranoid that enemies are nearby. And Robin won't just stand there. He'll look around too, maybe flex his muscles. Rats crawl around. Don't like 'em? Punch 'em out. The soundtrack uses the great Danny Elfman's music from the Tim Burton movies "Batman" and "Batman Returns," and it definitely keeps the excitement level high when you're bored with picking up the LEGO studs that allow you to purchase accoutrements and new characters via your store (which resides within the Batcomputer).
The backgrounds, the lighting and shadows are as detailed on the PC as in the console games.
The best news? The background graphics on the PC are generally just as intricate as those on the consoles. And in cases where you're playing it on a laptop monitor in crisp, clear, 1900 x 1200 dpi, it's better than the console versions. With a laptop, you also get an intimacy that you won't get with a widescreen television. I sat with my face close to the monitor, using the keyboard as my control pad. I felt inside Gotham City, a blocky hero of sorts, almost as if I would sprout LEGO bat ears and a mask. You can also employ the Xbox 360 wireless controller for Vista for a more console-like experience.
You'll also become enamored of at least some of the eight superhero suits you'll get to use -- four for Batman and four for Robin. After all, with Batman there's the fear of the costume itself, the idea of a monster emerging from the darkest of nights. Is he man or is he bat? Scarier, is he both? And there's the mask. Who is Batman underneath, behind the protective covering, beyond Bruce Wayne's mega-wealth? What do you see when you get right up close to the scarring of his youth? Me, you or the ugly Other we all hide away as our biggest secret?
I liked the Demolition Suit (which allows you to place time bombs all around for fire-filled explosions) until I realized it didn't shatter glass. (Behind a lot of glass window panes are items you need to move forward in the game.) So they've made a Sonic Suit that shatters glass and lets you pick up what you need to progress. I love the sound of breaking glass.
Clayface, a B-movie actor gone bad and ugly, is in the game.
But Traveller's Tales and Warner Bros. must feel that the biggest twist is the ability to become an arch-villain like the Riddler, Harley Quinn or that disgusting blob that once was a B-movie actor, Clayface. They hype this in the opening sequence, where a devilish crew of super-villains attacks Gotham, leaving cops slack-jawed and helpless or laughing hysterically from some Joker-induced gaseous ooze. So if you want to be bad, you can be as bad as you want to be. Just play through a level as Batman and Robin, then return to play as a supreme baddies, and face off against Commissioner Gordon.