LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Hands-on Preview – Justice League, Unite!

LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Hands-on Preview – Justice League, Unite!

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Richard Walker

LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham's story could easily have come right out of a Saturday morning cartoon. Brainiac is shrinking cities for his collection, and only DC's finest super heroes can stop him from transforming planet Earth into an elaborate LEGO miniature. That means that not only will you be venturing into outer space – beyond Gotham – but you'll get to visit a variety of locations around the world, from London to Paris and Italy, all in a bid to put an end to Brainiac's nefarious scheme.

What follows is another dose of LEGO capering, with all of the usual hallmarks wholly intact, like collecting countless studs, minikits and other LEGO-ey things, while repeatedly punching bad guys and pieces of scenery, stopping only for a spot of light puzzling. TT Games has its LEGO schtick down pat, and for LEGO Batman 3, the UK studio is really going all out in stuffing the game chock-full of characters. More than any other LEGO game to date, in fact, with over 150 unique faces from the pages of DC comics. And some not from the comics too, like Kevin Smith and erm, Conan O'Brien for some reason.

A fair few of those crop up with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman giving chase as Brainiac zips from Paris, where he plans to shrink the Arc de Triomphe, to London where Buckingham Palace is his target, and finally to Pisa, where the Baptistery of St. John is under threat. Visiting real-world cities all intricately rendered in LEGO pieces ought to be good fun, but it's the expansive cast of characters that will prove to be the biggest draw for most.

Where Batman and Superman have their movie themes once more, Wonder Woman also enjoys the theme tune from her TV series as she soars through the sky, but it's the individual animations and abilities of every character that astound, from Polka-Dot Man's incredibly unconventional way of doing everything, 60s Riddler's impish posturing or Music Meister's rhythmic movements, TT Games has seemingly thought of everything. No character shown so far has been shortchanged in any way, with a great deal of care and attention apparently lavished on every one included in the game.

Even the most obscure characters like Toyman, Manchester Black, Detective Chimp or 'Duck Dodgers' the Green Loontern aren't given short shrift. Condiment King sprays colourful jets of ketchup and mustard from his guns, whereas non-comic relief villains like Deadshot, Deathstroke Larfleeze, Trickster, Kalibak and Atrocitus are treated how fans would want them to be treated. Variants like Batman Darkest Knight, Composite Superman (half Supes, half Bats) and New 52 versions of characters ensure DC fans of every kind will be duly catered for too.

Playing LEGO Batman 3 also feels instantly, comfortably familiar, although being able to switch between Batman, Robin and Cyborg's eight different suits on the fly makes life far easier than it was in the previous games. Lex and Joker too will have different suits to choose from, while other characters can switch forms seamlessly, like Superman being able to become Clark Kent before jumping into a phone booth to become Superman again in a split second. Objectives are largely the same, with gold bricks requiring heat lasers, silver bricks demanding demolition with missiles and such, whereas blue bricks must be magnetised and transparent blue bricks can be discombobulated and shattered with the sonar ability.

Robin, Cyborg et al have tech abilities too that enable then to hack machinery, although this time around there are Tron-like mini-games to complete in order to acquire certain passcodes. Flash can sprint and overload contraptions, Bats can use his sensor suit to solve x-ray puzzles and Plastic Man can squeeze through gaps to gain access to otherwise out of reach areas. If you've played a LEGO Batman game, or indeed the recent LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, then you'll undoubtedly know the drill by now.

There are new aspects like the Resogun-inspired space shooting sections we've seen during previous demos, which are as fun to play as you'd expect, with power-ups and plenty of targets to shoot to smithereens. We're sure TT Games has more than a few other such surprises up its sleeve for the full game too, like the loving homage to the 1960s Batman TV show being your reward for simply completing the game.

From reconstructing the Batmobile in the Batcave as Adam West offers his own inimitable narration, to chasing the Joker and indulging in a 'pow', 'zokk' and 'zapp' filled brawl with Catwoman and Penguin, not one stone in Batman or DC lore has been left unturned for LEGO Batman 3, and it's all being totally, faithfully recreated in all its unadulterated plastic glory by a studio that is clearly in love with its source material.

Indeed, it looks like there's a lot being thrown into the pot for LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, guaranteeing that every DC fan is bound to be beaming from ear to ear come November.

LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham is out on 11th November in North America and 14th November in Europe. You'll find 33 new screenshots showing off loads of new characters in the gallery here.

Comments
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  • I cant wait for this game to come out and so does my nephew n son-in-law, plus its gonna be more fun to play than lets say...Destiny!!
  • More fun then Destiny, idk about all that i mean Destiny did get kinda old really fast. However it doesn't crash my playstation like almost every Lego game.
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