LEGO DC Super-Villains is available now on PlayStation®4, Xbox One X®, Nintendo Switch™ and PC from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games, The LEGO Group and DC Entertainment. For the first time in a LEGO game, players will be given the opportunity to unleash their inner bad guy, creating their own fully customizable super-villain character complete with their own signature super power. Here is my review on Xbox One.
In LEGO DC Super-Villains, the Justice League has disappeared, leaving Earth’s protection to a newcomer group of heroes from a parallel universe, proclaiming themselves as the ‘Justice Syndicate’. However, legendary DC Super-Villains, including The Joker, Harley Quinn, Lex Luthor, Deathstroke, Killer Frost and countless others, discover that the Justice Syndicate may not be as heroic as they claim to be. Led by each player’s customizable super-villain character, this team of misfit lawbreakers must join forces to stop these phony super heroes and save the world… so that they can finally rule it themselves.
First things first – the voice cast is incredible: easily the most impressive and beloved reunion of DC Comics media talent ever assembled for one project I think… We have Kevin Conroy (Batman), Mark Hamill (The Joker), Tara Strong (Harley Quinn), Clancy Brown (Lex Luthor) and even Michael Ironside returns as Darkseid for the first time in over a decade. If you loved the DC animated shows, you’re going to get a kick out of the voice performances in LEGO DC Super-Villains. This is easily the most impressive cast yet for a TT Games LEGO title and it certainly adds to the ambience of the project to give it that very nice extra dose of geek cred.
DC Comics has always been renowned for having the best rogues gallery of any comic company. That’s just what DC Comics has done best and continue to do better than anyone else. So what could be better than to have a LEGO game where players can immerse themselves in the chaos of stepping into the blocky shoes of beloved villains like Reverse Flash, Gorilla Grodd, King Shark, Doomsday, Deadshot or even Granny Goodness? There are well over a hundred to choose from once you unlock them all. If you’re going to get this game – get the deluxe with the season pass so you can grab even more amazing levels and characters from upcoming movies like Aquaman. If you’re depressed about not being able to play as a hero – don’t worry – you’ll get to unlock hero characters as well like Beast Boy, Batwoman – all the cool ones are there for freeplay mayhem. Not to mention you get to create your own SUPER VILLAIN – WHO BECOMES PART OF THE MAIN STORY! The customisation options for this are astounding and improved upon significantly even since the character creator in Lego Marvel 2.
In terms of gameplay, this is very much a grittier follow-up to the incredible LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes 2 that came out last Fall and took the crown for best LEGO game yet. I’m not sure LEGO DC Super-Villains is quite on that level, but I do love that it incorporates the same formula where you can quickly bounce between Gotham and Metropolis between story missions. There’s A LOT to explore and do in this game and not every character is unlocked by simply playing through the story, so be prepared to have fun and mess around the open-world areas of the game. If anything, I noticed that my kids had more fun free-roaming the map and getting into shenanigans anyway. They wanted to be able to switch characters at the tap of a button whenever they wanted so they could cause some chaos in the streets and draw the attention of police. There’s a WANTED level system similar to that of Grand Theft Auto, but the authorities are so weak that it’s pretty easy to mow down wave after wave of dumb cop. Still, the kids loved this aspect of the game the most.
The story, I found to be quite well done actually and it was fun seeing the DC universe villains forced to take out another team of super villains after the Justice League winds up MIA. You could probably attribute this to the incredible voice acting however because it really added that special layer of quality to the game that I found missing in previous LEGO titles. In terms of gameplay however, this is the same old formula that has been utilised time and time again and it’s a bit overdone. Enter a room, smash EVERYTHING, build a tool to help you get to the next room, occasionally fight some goons, repeat a thousand times. There are a ton of puzzles, but none of them overly frustrating which is nice because my 7 and 8 year-old children are easily annoyed at using brains over button-mashing brawn. I tend to agree with them.
The Incredibles 2 just came out earlier this year and it was a really fun title. I think LEGO DC Super-Villains is about on par with that release, although I do love the character selection here more than the Pixar stable of LEGO figs. If you love DC Comics, you’re going to find some incredible value with this release. If you’re not overly familiar with DC and its animated or TV series – then I might recommend you take a pass unless you’re simply just a big fan of all LEGO games. Did I mention you can be Granny Goodness? Complete with rocket booster walker? Sold.
Rating: [star rating=”4″]
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