I love the Lego games, especially the Marvel and DC ones, they’re an excuse for me to escape to another realm and lose myself in my favourite franchises.
This time Lego DC Super Villains gives a different perspective on things as you’re not playing the Heroes, this time you’re the villains. The twist… The villains are the heroes… *insert dramatic music*
The story is excellent, I won’t go too much into it to save spoilers for those still wanting to play the game, but it is very good. It has the usual Lego humour while sticking to an original story line which brings together a mash of characters ranging from The Joker, Harley Quinn and Reverse Flash to the DC heroes we know and love in Batman, Superman, The Flash and Wonder Woman.
When it came to the story I loved the fact that you got to create your own villain and how they were integrated into the story, it gave the game a more personal touch. Especially as I could design them how I wanted. Which at the start is a little restricted, but as you play through the story and open more and more characters, more design options become available. Needless to say, with my super speed, I made my own villainous version of the Flash. So happy!
Normally I’ve found that the create your own character seemed something of an after thought within Lego games. Just mixing and matching body parts from those already in the game, however, I will say that Lego DC Super Villains has taken this one step further. When you create your character it’s not just the individual pieces from other characters that you can use, but there are default pieces which you can mix and match. You have the ability to change the design and colour of your characters legs, arms, head, hair and even the leg joints in the middle. Strange
As you open more characters within the game more customisable options appear for you to use on your own villain. You could easily design your character to have Reverse Flash’s Helmet with Batman’s body and Superman’s cape all in weird different colours. This was one of the things that I really liked about the game, it was that little improvement on something so simple that helped to personalise the game to me.
The world is made up of different areas from the DC world such as Gotham, Smallville and Metropolis and I love how each brings its own atmosphere. With Gotham you have a dark and gloomy persona that it’s known for and Metropolis is a beautiful thriving city.
While going around the world, you have a little mini map on the bottom left of your screen which points out some of the worlds activities, making it slightly easier to spot where things are such as the races that are in each area.
There are vehicles within the game which made it easier and quicker in getting round, but I found them to be very clunky and wooden to drive, so my next best option was to change to my character or the Reverse Flash and just run to the next marker, which turned out to also be a lot of fun.
There are plenty of vehicles to collect within the game and this also links to an achievement/trophy of unlocking all vehicles. Best way to do this, I found, was to just go around the worlds doing all the races that were available.
The game itself is a Lego game and as I’ve learnt over the years, there isn’t much that you can change with a Lego game, however, Lego DC Super Villains does seem fresh, and the puzzles it introduces add a level of difficulty to the game, however, I will admit that they weren’t the most challenging and once you’ve done them once, they’re quite simple to work out throughout the rest of the game.
Each level has you collecting studs, which can be used to unlock certain characters, and in true lego fashion, each level is going to have to be done at least twice to be able to get all of the mini kits, golden bricks and red bricks. The latter of which provide a nice little bonus or funny enhancement within the game such as extra studs, attracting studs so you don’t have to go to them or helium mode/big head mode.
I had founds that some Lego games had been getting a little stale over the last few years, the same formula used to rinse and repeat, and yes that core is still within Lego DC Super Villains, but there is a freshness brought to it, playing the Villains is something new, having your own character at the forefront of the story and being able to customise them to your liking was a brilliant little touch. For Lego fans, it’s a game I would highly recommend.
