LEGO DC Super-Villains (2018)

Played it on PC. The port itself was good. However, I didn't vibe with LEGO DC Super Villains as much as LEGO Batman: The Videogame or LEGO Batman 2.

I was hoping they went back to a level select screen and continue story really meant playing the next chapter, instead of having an open world. I enjoyed the open world in LEGO Batman 2 more, even when it's very glitchy.

It's a solid game, just not for me.

I hated every minute of this one, played it through with my son (who has always loved Lego; though the games not so much) who was bored long before the end. I think someone other than Traveller's Tales needs to make one of these now. People fling shit at Game freak for the Pokémon formula each generation but TT have literally made the same game reskinned forever and never seem to land criticism.

On a purely technical level the PS4 version (free on PS+) was a buggy mess, we had crashes to the dashboard, regular freezes in game, prompts that failed to appear so had to exit level, restart level and try again in hopes of being able to progress, splitscreen regularly causes headaches with camera hiding obvious things needed to progress and flips around all over the place when playing sections with the likes Flash or just on the world map. Shambles of a videogame.

I never saw the appeal with Traveler's Tales series and here they are pumping this stuff out.

Played a little bit during a free trial weekend on Master Villain difficulty (aka Normal). I am not a fan of DC or the lego games but not going to turn down some free gameplay. I made my guy in all gold clothes with a gold knight helm and gold longsword. I was not pleased that I could not have both a sword and shield. My guy looked ridiculous because I put night vision goggles under the helm because why not? Not really sure how much options there are with starting powers, but I had super speed, acrobatics and tech use.

I did not explore the open world and simply when straight to missions. The last mission I did was the one on Green Lantern planet. The story was interesting enough and the dialogue was equal parts roll-my-eyes corny and genuinely hilarious. Gameplay was more obnoxious than anything else. It is mostly a series of puzzles of the "guess what the developers were thinking" variety. Good thing there are hints or I would have quickly lost interest. I hated the fixed camera angle and it was especially annoying during boss fights. There is no excuse to have a free camera in the open world and not during missions! Combat was not good and very simplistic. I died a lot, mostly due to falling because of not being to adjust the camera to a better angle, and sometimes in combat because the camera was too close to me to properly see what was going on. One boss fight bugged out due to the character becoming completely unresponsive; had to load the checkpoint.

I guess I will play the game again if it is offered for free on xbox gold, but even then it is a stretch to consider this worth playing.