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Thieves in Time is an absolutely superb addition to your collection. The simple control scheme, great story, and loveable characters will hook gamers of all ages for a great adventure start to finish. If you're looking for a good family game, this is surely one to check out.The LEGO series of games, from developer Traveller's Tales, treads a fine line between the adult and children's gaming markets, and often toes the line in a deft fashion. Earlier games in the series, such as those based on the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movie franchises, attracted adults with a healthy dose of nostalgia and gently mocking, yet loving, humour.
Children, on the other hand, were also entranced by humour, but that of a more slapstick variety, as well as the accessible gameplay and a chance to see stuff fall apart.More recent games in the series that have been based on properties such as Pirates of the Caribbean and the animated Clone Wars series have seemingly aimed Traveller's Tales' sights more towards a market of children than adults. It's strange, then, that LEGO Batman 2 is quite possibly the darkest and least child-friendly entry in the series to date. It's not that all of a sudden blood and gore splatter the screen, or that the plastic minifigures start spewing profanities, but rather in the bleak atmosphere that is offered.
The game partially takes its cue from the 60's television adaptation of Batman, with Robin's vehicles and equipment in particular being given a liberal dose of bright colour. Even some of the suits that our titular hero is given to wear bring with them a slight whiff of €Bat Shark Repellent'. It's in the setting of Gotham that the bleakness resides. Never depicted as a happy place, Gotham here is presented as a city where it constantly rains, architecture is grandiose, yet aging, and any sense of colour represents danger - be it chemical, explosive or some other deadly substance.
Gotham has never been welcoming, but seeing characters based off of children's toys (usually a symbol of joy) running to and fro screaming in terror hits slightly harder than expected. Perhaps the moment that most terrified my inner child was a sequence where the Joker attempts to pull Batman apart brick by brick. Try explaining that faux dismemberment to a five-year-old.The open-world setting of Gotham is perhaps the biggest change that LEGO Batman 2 has to offer the series, and it comes across as a mixed-bag of decent ideas and novice execution.
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