Rock, Paper, Shotgun

About as obvious a next move as they come for Traveller’s Tales – they’re all chummied up with Warners in the wake of Lego Batman, which surely paved the way for what’s the holy money-grail of Lego licenses: that bally boy wizard. The game’ll cover the lad’s first four years at Hogwarts, and will make EA, who publish the movie-related HP games, very cross indeed. Video and details follow.
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We go to sleep, and in the morning… there’s demos. Lots of demos. By which I mean, two. Firstly, there’s the 400Mb-and-a-few-bricks demo of the Lego Batman electronic videogametacular. Opinions are a little split internally over Lego Batman actually. Walker really likes it, liking its sheer size. I’m mildly liking it, mostly because it’s not as funny-for-grown-ups as Lego Star Wars. But maybe more on that in a verdict or something. Go download and make up your own mind. And here’s the launch trailer to explain this concept of Lego and Batchap to you…
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The Lego Batman game is nearly here: September 23rd for North America, and October 31st for the rest of the world. This means trailers: BatTrailers! This one has the vehicles in, the Batmobile and the Batcycle? Something like that. There are also magnetic boots. The word on the grapevine is that it’s better than Lego Indy. Somewhat.

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So last Tuesday I wandered down to London, city of black snot, horrible musicals and formerly of Kieron’s recently deceased beard, to see Lego Batman. Well, also to watch an early screening of The Dark Knight, but I can’t really jaff off about that here. Short answer – very much agree with Big-Face Kermode, which isn’t always the case.

I didn’t get much time at all with Lego Batman, nor did I get to interview Travellers’ Tales as hoped, but I did get to play as Mister Freeze (I feel oddly ashamed that I had to Google to check whether he was a Mister or a Doctor – or, as it happens, both. I used to know such things, damnit) and The Riddler.
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More Lego Batman footage appears from E3. After the slight disappointment of Lego Indy (too similar to the Star Wars games, and missing the Force), it’s harder to know what to think about this one. Obviously hopes are high, and it’s not as if Lego Indy wasn’t lots of fun. But we want Lego Batman to be much more – the Lego game that makes us forget about the Star Wars games and get excited anew. Footage below – not a great deal that’s new, but the comic timing is lovely.

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Look! More Lego Indiana Jones footage! Including the giant boulder!

Gametrailers. I don’t hate these guys.

So far, so Lego Star Wars – I was hoping there’d be a little more focus on controlling solely Indy, as he’s the reason we’re all signed up for this, but the character-swapping mechanic seems as prevalent as ever – but it sure is pretty and adventuresome. Plus, I now want a pet Lego crocodile.

Frankly, we know what we’re in for with Lego Indiana Jones – Lucasarts property, swinging with the whip, digging with the spade, shooting with the gun, and no damned Nazis. It’s a natural sequel to Lego Star Wars. Lego Batman, though – there’s a lot more to play with there. Bats’ supervillains offer a little more breadth than Star Wars’ guns’n'Force line-up, plus, not being based directly on a film series, it’s free to tell its own stories in its own gloriously unhinged environments. Brand new screens are beneath the cut.

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We try to keep up to date with all forms of Indie-development, so were paying close attention to Traveller’s Tales’ forthcoming Lego Indiana Jones game. However news reaches us, via the C&VG chaps reading their latest copy of the looming-black-obliesk of the games press, Edge, that the game will actually sidestep the Nazi issue by excising them completely. “Lego having already replaced them with an anonymous genocidal, occultist, trenchcoat-wearing master-race”, they’re quoted as saying.

Whatever to make of this?
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[Lego Star Wars remains one of the most quietly radical yet enormously successful games of recent years. I've done more than one post mortem on it too. Here's a different one I did over at the Escapist. In fact, I think Jim's done at least one too. Anyway, as always, this one originated back in PC Format. The interview was performed well before the second trilogy came out.]

“We didn’t have a view necessarily on Lego or Starwars… we don’t think we ever did anything that was not Lego or not Star Wars,” says Giant’s Development Director Jonathan Smith, “We were just doing Lego Star Wars. That’s what it’s it”. Sometimes these post-mortems are a story of woe, death and tears ending with an eventual bittersweet pleasure. Not so with Lego Star Wars. This is the one when everything went right.
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It’s the Lego Batman trailer!

Thanks, Gametrailers – unlike criminals, you are not a cowardly and superstitious lot.

Not giving much away, eh? That’s The Batman for you though – all shadowy and mysterious, keeps his cards close to his impeccably-toned chest’n'all. And, of course, there probably isn’t all that much to give away anyway. We can guess pretty much what to expect from this – punch, build, jump, grapple-hook, giggle. Much as I’m tickled by the concept, I think I need to see something that proves this is a little more than Lego Star Wars but with frowning before I get excited – especially with the similarly punch’n'grappley Lego Indiana Jones also on the toy-to-game horizon.