Lego DC Super-Villains

The latest installment of Lego games is here and it’s as ridiculous as ever. Lego DC Supervillains is another great creation from the people at Traveller’s Tales Games. The story is great from beginning to end, not to mention it’s fun all the way through. The added aspect of your created character being important made it more interesting and made me more invested since it was my character. In older Lego games, your created character was always just a side piece and did not serve any purpose to the story. Supervillains give reason to your created being there. Overall, this game makes being a villain so satisfying. This game proves that sometimes, it’s good to be bad.

I really enjoy what they did with the story in this game. The Lego games that don’t follow the movies they were made after, always have fun, unique stories. Lego Marvel Superheroes had a cool story where they allowed Loki and Doctor Doom team up.  TT Games got creative and pulled pieces from different comic storylines. Of course, it has own spin that sets it apart from its source. The story is loosely based on the Forever Evil storyline and Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Like in Crisis on Two Earths, the Crime Syndicate plays a huge part. Ultra Man leads his fellow Earth-3 villains and successfully take out the Justice League. In Forever Evil, Lex Luthor leads a band of villains against the Crime Syndicate, and he does that again here. Both, Forever Evil and Crisis on Two Earths are already awesome concepts, and this game brings them to life. If you are familiar with these two storylines, then the story may not be that new to you. On the other hand, then you are in for some pleasant surprises.

The beginning starts with Commissioner Gordon moving a high-profile bad guy from Gotham to Metropolis. In this opening scene, you get to create your own character. You have the option to have a preset character if you’re boring. The customization is vast and exciting. Now usually in Lego games, your customizable character means nothing. Brilliantly, they decided to have your custom character as an integral part of the story. What is even better, they gave your character a purpose and it actually makes sense, in a fictional Lego world kind of way. They introduce your character as an experiment in Professor Ivo’s Amazo project. This allows you to absorb new powers throughout the game You will then see throughout the story how useful your Lego character is.

Lego games never take themselves too seriously and it creates for a fun game, especially here in Supervillains. For example, the main menu has the Wolfmother song “Joker and the Thief” playing. This is just fantastic as it’s an awesome song, yet at the same time, it plays into the characters, a little nail on the head with the Joker. The games aren’t just geared for little kids, they are for everyone and they are always quality games with a ton of fun characters. From back in the day with Lego Star Wars, then to other franchises like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, TT Games knows how to utilize good characters and quality stories and make them into worthwhile games. Supervillains is special though and its because the characters stand out. DC has some of the best villains with characters like the Joker, Lex Luthor, and Sinestro. You couldn’t do this kind of game with Marvel. So it’s about time that these bad guys are given a platform to shine.

There are a ton of characters in this game, and they did not forget anyone. With DC, it always feels that Batman’s villains take reign over the other heroes’ nemeses.  In that, when I see characters that I haven’t seen in other media for a while, I get stoked. I get a nostalgic feeling from seeing characters that I remember from comics or the animated shows. TT Games was smart and made sure to bring some villains to light, that don’t normally get all the shine. For example, there is a whole underwater level with Black Manta. They also give Black Adam a lot of screen time. DC has many great villains, but on the other hand, there were characters that should have been left out, like Granny Goodness.

As I mentioned before, the character customization is very good and deserves to be talked about more. There is so much depth put into making your own character and it is so satisfying. In the beginning, the look of your character can be pretty basic. The options for chest pieces, legs, heads, and hair are pretty limited. As you progress further in the story, and as you unlock more characters, you get more pieces and powers added to the customization. There are more weapons to gain later too. Eventually, you will be able to make copies of the characters in the game. You could potentially make a green Batman or maybe a blue Clayface. But the opening of the game gives you what you need though, and you can create a villain that you want. If you have ever thought of a hero or villain in your head, you can practically create them in this. Not only are they brought to life, but they are a key part of the story. You will end up spending a ton of time there modifying your character to be who you want them to be. I finally got to make The Sween Arrow come to life and I absolutely love it. If you want to spend a lot of time in free play and collect trophies/achievements, you could create multiple characters each with their own functions to help you get through levels.

A big part of Lego DC Supervillains is the voice acting. A lot of returning voices from DC roles in the past such as Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy reprise their infamous Joker and Batman roles. Not only those guys, but Susan Eisenberg who played Wonder Woman from the animated Justice League series plays her again, Greg Cipes who voiced Beast Boy from the original Teen Titans series is also back. So many great people came back to play the roles that they really embody. TT really brought in the nostalgia when developing this. Also, a shout out to Greg Miller, from Kinda Funny, for portraying the lesser known Batman villain, Polka Dot Man.

One thing I don’t think they have ever figured out in Lego games is good camera angles. Often times parts of the level can get in the way of another part and it gets hard to see. Early in the game, there is a level in Penguin’s Iceberg Lounge and the camera moves in weird ways. If you try to move across the main floor it will zoom in across the way. It really becomes awkward when you have to fight two bosses in the middle of the room and the camera forces views. It becomes frustrating when you’re not able to see aspects of the game.

The level designs are really cool and super fun. Each place is unique and they get better the further you get into the story. Starting in Gotham, and then ending the game on Apokolips. There is one level that really deserves some recognition and it’s Gorilla Grodd’s Gorilla City. The scenery is very beautiful and fantastically crafted. It has a lot of foliage in the back along with the ancient gorilla ruins. Not to mention it’s a fun level to run through.

Moving around the game is very comfortable and easy to learn. The controls are very simple, in Lego fashion. The classic, punch enemies till they break and go to a platform then activate function is back. Not much has changed as far as that. What was new to me, was the flying mechanics, and I was not a fan of them.

The flying mechanics have been a tad clunky in the past, but weirdly enough I think they got worse in Supervillains. They added a function where the right stick can move your flying character up and down in the air. That works fine, but the problem is that the camera is also the right stick, so you are actually doing two functions at once. As a result of this, the camera never gets a good angle and you end up moving your character at the same time. This makes flying very hard, especially when you want to do the time trial races in the air.

One aspect of the game that became quite a nuisance was the navigation marker. When you are in the hub just free-roaming, there is a marker that goes towards your next objective, like in many other games. The issue here is that sometimes you activate a side mission given to you by a character on the street like Arsenal or The Parasite. Once activated, sometimes navigation marker will change for that side mission. Other times it will not. It causes confusion as to how to complete the side mission. It made me question which way to go, and what happens if I don’t follow the marker.

The gameplay of Supervillains was really fun and very balanced. The way this game stays balanced is that they change up what characters you work with in the missions. The takes away the repetition that could be annoying. Instead of being the Joker and Harley for three missions in a row, you will work as them for one, then Lex Luthor or Grodd or whoever. It would’ve been a pain to work as the same characters over and over. What is also refreshing about the gameplay, is that you can roam around the cities. This is just another way the game balances itself out.

The free roam aspect is back and just as enjoyable as ever. You have the ability to stay in the swamps where the villains reside, and you can go to Gotham, and Metropolis and Apokolips. The missions in free roam are very enjoyable, it is always exciting helping out a recognizable character like Bronze Tiger or Red Hood.

One thing that is weird to talk about with Lego games is the graphics. How could the graphics be bad they are just blocks? Well, the graphics are good! The free roam areas are beautifully crafted. And the levels are very pretty as well. As I mentioned earlier, Gorilla City is very beautiful. Another beautiful area of the game is Oa, the Green Lantern homeworld. Needless to say, there isn’t bad graphics involved in Supervillains.