Lego Batman

Smack! Pow! Kablam!

These are some of the words we no longer have to read or hear during Batman movies, in comics, or in the animated series, as the Adam West era of the caped crusader has well and truly come to an end.

Bruce Wayne's coolness transmogrification began with Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns graphic novels, continued through the stylised films of Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan films, and has culminated in home console hit Arkham Asylum and the upcoming Arkham City.

Lego Batman, which belongs to the Adam West school of utility-beltology, could be seen as a regression to a more infantile moment in Batman's evolution.

The tertiary knight

In Lego Batman, you have to battle through Gotham City as the Dark Knight himself, smashing the Lego-constructed scenery and reconstructing it to build a path towards the next set of bad guys.

The touchscreen controls consist of a sticky and imprecise thumbstick on the left of the screen and three attack buttons: 'punch', 'kick', and 'Batarang'.

Combat rarely consists of more than hammering the 'punch' or 'kick' button constantly as the Lego henchmen approach you. That said, the Batarang mixes things up somewhat by letting you take out baddies in those harder-to-reach places.

One of the main lures of the Lego games on home consoles is the collect ‘em all mechanic, whereby you frantically gather the Lego coins scattered about the levels in order to buy new characters to play as. Sadly, this element is not featured here. The coins in this mobile version represent nothing more than a number in the top corner of the screen.

There are some neat little touches to the game, including context-sensitive controls that let Batman use a grappling hook, glide, pull switches, and even fire artillery depending on where he is. But this does little to save the game from its biggest issue.

Damn you lamp post

Moving Batman around the screen is your biggest challenge. The virtual thumbstick is not nearly sensitive enough, meaning that you may be fiddling around trying to find the sweet spot that lets you execute the simplest of commands. Even moving in a straight line can be a test of patience.

And the path-finding is terrible. At almost every juncture in the gameworld there's an element of the scenery to get caught on. Whether you find yourself inexplicitly attached to a lamp post or a fire hydrant, it's tiresome to say the least.

So while there are some enjoyable contextualised moments, there's little else to draw you in past the terrible controls and dodgy path finding. Even the most hardcore of Batfans will be turned off by this one.

And no, it doesn't feature that legendary theme tune.

Lego Batman

This quirky take on old skool Batman may have its moments, but is marred its by frustrating controls. you'll spend more time detaching Batman from the scenery than you will bashing baddies
Score
Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman
Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman
When Matt was 7 years old he didn't write to Santa like the other little boys and girls. He wrote to Mario. When the rotund plumber replied, Matt's dedication to a life of gaming was established. Like an otaku David Carradine, he wandered the planet until becoming a writer at Pocket Gamer.