Mortal Kombat 11 (NSW) Review

Continuing on here at SuperPhillip Central, a new review is here for your eyes to read and enjoy. It's a Nintendo Switch-specific review for Mortal Kombat 11. Check it out below!

Your port is mine!

It seems like a dream that big-time Western-developed games are hitting a Nintendo home console, and not only that, but they're day and date with the other versions. It doesn't happen too often, but the fact that they're happening at all and are mostly successful ports is something to celebrate. Mortal Kombat 11 is one of the most recent of these games that has released on the Nintendo Switch. While it's by no means a flawless victory, Switch owners who are Mortal Kombat fans have scored a victory by having this miraculous port available to them all the same.

As someone with limited experience with the Mortal Kombat series, Mortal Kombat 11 was a terrific jumping in point for me. The amount of exhaustive tutorials that guided me through everything from the basics to advanced techniques and specific character tutorials, I didn't feel like I was simply thrust out of the proverbial nest to fend for myself with no knowledge of how to play the game.

Fights in Mortal Kombat 11 are as gloriously gruesome and beautifully brutal as ever. (Though, I have to admit, some of the more intense/disturbing portrayals of violence left me a bit squeamish.) The fighting system has you performing front and back punches and kicks, throws, blocks (with a dedicated block button instead of the more traditional means of holding away from your opponent), and using a series of memorized combos to take down your opponent. Special moves can be augmented by holding the R button upon performing the required button combo and making contact with your opponent with the attack in order to deal even more damage and deliver more hits.

I do not think you have a license for this kind of surgery, Kitana.

Mortal Kombat 11 also brings with it environmental hazards that opponents can interact with. These flash in the arena when they can be used, and result in everything from picking up a chainsaw and cleaving it into your opponent's flesh to chucking an undead spectator at your foe.

When you or your opponent's health enters into critical territory, a Fatal Blow attack can be used with the tap of the ZL and ZR buttons. If it connects without your opponent blocking, this one-time-per-match attack delivers a devastating amount of deadly damage to your foe in a really grisly manner. For instance Erron Black's Fatal Blow has him shooting bone-piercing bullets into his opponent, and has a duo of shots banking off a pair of coins and into and through his opponent's eyes. Yee-ouch. If a Fatal Blow fails to connect, it can't be attempted again until a little time has passed. However, these Fatal Blow moves are a bit of a match-pace killer for me. At first they're... interesting enough, but after seeing them a seemingly endless of time, they grow tiring to see, as there's no way of skipping through them. They just take too long to unfold.

Fatal Blows are provocative enough the first dozen times seeing them,
but after the fact, they're quite bothersome as they interrupt the flow and pace of matches.

Brutalities and fatalities return from past Mortal Kombat games, and the latter allows even beginning players to mercilessly murder their opponent in a macabre fashion without the need to memorize a unique button combo based on the character and fatality used. You can earn and purchase Fatality Tokens that when you're ordered to "Finish Him/Her", you can just hold the ZR button and press the A button to use. You can have all the disturbing realistic violence without any of the work!

For each of the 20+ characters in Mortal Kombat 11, they all feel markedly dissimilar to one another in how they play. There are characters for beginners like series mainstays Scorpion and Johnny Cage, and then there are more technical characters that take some practice getting used to. Fortunately, as mentioned early on in this review, learning a new character isn't too terribly daunting thanks to the in-depth character tutorials that explain how to use and the time to use each special attack in a character's repertoire.

Kombatant Skarlet uses her own blood as a weapon.

The characters in Mortal Kombat 11 all have their own unlockable gear and various cosmetics to unlock, though this is a bit of pain in the butt process. More on that in just a little bit. Each character can have different introductions and post-match victory cutscenes, unique moves equipped to them, as well as specific fatalities to select from. Additionally each has three gear slots they can equip gear to, and these can earn experience points through battle to earn augment slots. Unfortunately, augments slots come in various varieties, and require a lot of grinding and a lot of luck to get the ones you want for the particular character you desire. It's rather random, but once you do, augments serve as a way to boost up different stats and abilities of characters. Some make their defense towards specific elements stronger, while others make specific attacks stronger by a certain percentage.

You can unlock different cosmetics for each character, such as Sub-Zero's classic line of outfits.

If you want to unlock gear and cosmetics like new costumes for characters, you're going to spend most of your time grinding in Mortal Kombat 11, which is an unfortunate part of the game. The Krypt from past modern Mortal Kombat games returns, and it has you controlling a character in an over-the-shoulder perspective through Shang Tsung's island, gathering keys and special items to progress further into the depths of the island. You use Koins and other currency to open the plethora of treasure chests strewn about the island. (Ha-ha, get it? KOINS?! Mortal Kombat 11 has a penchant for replacing the first letter of words that begin with C with the letter K instead because it's klever like that. Dammit! I just did it now, too!)

While this is all fine and dandy, the loot that you get from opening treasures is completely random. Most of the time instead of getting the desired costumes you want for your favorite character or characters, you'll be unlocking concept art, Konsumables for the Towers of Time, and other items that you might not be too interested in.

As for the aforementioned Towers of Time, this mode introduces an ever-rotating assortment of challenging towers of varying difficulty. Each is themed, generally having each combatant you face off against in a given tower have a helpful Konsumable that they use against you in a fight. Thankfully, you can also use Konsumables either to counteract the effects of your opponent's Konsumable or to give yourself some other benefit. Such Konsumables can be used multiple times in a single battle, but depending on how powerful and useful they are, there is a cool down time for each. Some Konsumables fire a series of bloody shurikens at a foe or otherwise interrupt an enemy with an attack, while others have defensive benefits like healing your health bar by a certain percentage or giving you temporary armor.

Complete all of the objectives of a tower to earn beneficial rewards.

The towers in the Towers of Time award different bonuses for completing them--from Koins and Konsumables to new gear, costumes, and more. Technically, there's a seemingly endless amount of longevity for solo players to tackle each tower--as they rotate out regularly (every few hours or so) and there are hundreds upon hundreds of different towers in total--but the repetitive grind is real and it doesn't take too terribly long for tedium to set in.

Thankfully, tedium is not something that sets in with Mortal Kombat 11's 6-8 hour story mode, told through cinematics that seamlessly flow into actual battles. (Well, not so seamlessly in the Switch version where the actual cinematics are pre-rendered and then have an abrupt change into the Switch's downgraded visuals when the battles begin. Regardless, the pacing is done well, and while there are significant sections of the story mode where you're simply watching the narrative progress, when it is actually your time to play, you get to do so for a good while. The story mode is set up between chapters, and each chapter has you controlling a different character or duo of characters. With the latter, you're given the option of who to control in a particular fight. Fights are essentially one right after the other in each chapter--it's merely given a bookend by extended cutscenes.

Generations collide in Mortal Kombat 11's entertaining story mode.

I alluded to the downgrade of the Nintendo Switch version of Mortal Kombat 11 just a little bit ago when comparing the cutscenes that are pre-rendered in the Switch version but in-engine with the PS4, Xbox, and PC versions. Let me go further into detail. It's an absolute accomplishment that Mortal Kombat 11 runs as well as it does on the Switch. Frankly, I'm more than pleased with the game's performance. However, there are problem spots. For one, the Krypt looks and runs pitifully on the Switch. There isn't even a genuine skybox in the Switch version, and it's slowdown central whenever you open up a treasure chest in the mode. Furthermore, character models in battles have a weird glow and sheen to them, notably wherever there is hair--specifically on their heads and on their eyelashes. It's a bit jarring and distracting when zoomed in. There have also been some game crashes I've experienced while playing, but these are infrequent. That said, the development team hasn't turned their back on the Switch version at all, and they continue to produce patches and upgrades to the game.

Docked mode is rather sharp, but handheld mode on the Switch can be a bit fuzzy.

Mortal Kombat 11 manages to impress on the Nintendo Switch with a version that while not anywhere as technically amazing as its bigger brothers, delivers a game that isn't dumbed down for Nintendo players. Switch owners get the full, satisfying experience of Mortal Kombat 11 and one that they can take with them on the go. The choice of having to grind for gear and not being to select which goodies and prizes you want brings down the game (and this isn't just for the Switch version, but all versions in general of MK11), but all in all, Mortal Kombat 11 dishes out a brutally satisfying eleventh entry in the long running fighting game franchise.

[SPC Says: B]

LEGO City Undercover (NS, PS4, XB1, PC) Review

Tuesday brings a new review to SuperPhillip Central. LEGO City Undercover scored well back in the early Wii U days (and back when SuperPhillip Central used numbered scores). Now we see it return, but this time on even more platforms, including the Wii U's successor, the Switch (which is the version this review is based off of). After four years, how has LEGO City fared?

UPDATE: Apparently the 479 MB patch for LEGO City Undercover was something I hadn't downloaded or installed. When I did, all of the Nintendo references seen in the Wii U version were available in my Switch save file.

A sloppy port of a great LEGO game

LEGO City Undercover originally released in 2013 for the Wii U. Playing through the funny story, witnessing the sharp writing, and discovering secrets in LEGO City itself made it my personal favorite LEGO game. Now it's 2017 and finally the game gets a chance for even more exposure with a port on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and the most recent of hardware releases, the Nintendo Switch (though it lacks the Nintendo references of the Wii U version). Despite all of its problems from its transition between a Wii U exclusive and a multi-platform game, LEGO City Undercover retains a lot of what I enjoyed from back in 2013.

LEGO City Undercover sees hero Chase McCain get less than a hero's welcome when he returns to LEGO City. However, crime is in season, and Rex Fury has escaped from Albatross Island. Rejoining the LEGO City Police Department and having a big fan in the hilarious (no, really-- no sarcasm there!) Frank Honey, Chase McCain is back on the case, but with a great deal to prove. The story shows Chase entering the underbelly and underworld of crime of LEGO City by going undercover. Not just to make up for the mistake that saw him shipped out of LEGO City in the first place, but to make it up for a special someone.

Ordinary cop? You're much too modest, Chase! Compared to Frank Honey, you're Robocop!

While there are several elements of LEGO City Undercover that are lessened from the Wii U version when compared to these ports, the first thing that doesn't get a hint of degradation quality-wise is the hilarious writing. The characters have sharp dialogue, provide funny slapstick humor and sight gags, and would be enjoyed by folks beyond the usual LEGO game audience. In fact, many of the references in particular to various movies would be lost on kids. From a character named Blue who can "get" things for our hero when he ventures inside Albatross Island as an ode to Shawshank Redemption (complete with "not knowing what that Italian lady was singing about that day" and without the more adult scenarios) to a construction yard foreman who looks and sounds suspiciously similar to a former governator of California. It's quite weird how he slips movie names from that actor's career into his spoken dialogue.

In most LEGO games, you get an assortment of characters to switch between, each with different powers and abilities used to solve puzzles and platforming challenges. LEGO City Undercover takes the concept of different powers and abilities but splits them between the various disguises that Chase can wear. Each disguise is earned from playing through the story normally, generally in the game's missions, and each has its own uses. The robber disguise, for instance, is the only one that can crack safes and pry locked doors open, while the miner is the only disguise of Chase's that can pick up dynamite to be used to blow up silver structures and doors.

While not his only trick, Chase in his LCPD attire can grapple onto hooks like this one.

Speaking of the missions in LEGO City Undercover, there are the typical LEGO game missions that take place in closed off areas where the goal is to basically punch everything in sight, build objects from the destroyed LEGOs in a sometimes set order, and solve simplistic puzzles this way. Other times in LEGO City Undercover you're doing stuff outside the confines of traditional LEGO game levels, stealing a vehicle and trying to get to another part of the map in one piece, saving someone from the rooftop of a burning hospital building by doing some jumping, climbing, and parkour-like maneuvers (this is while taking out baddies along the way), and other miscellaneous mission types.

Chase McCain in his robber disguise put these gang members on ice.

Failure in combat or in a level never results in a hefty price. If Chase takes too much damage, falls into an out-of-bounds area, and such, he merely gets brought back to life with a soft LEGO stud penalty (the currency used to buy things in the LEGO series). Failing a mission at any time merely means you start over from that current segment. So if you crashed your vehicle by flipping it upside-down-- which is something that is very possible due to the jerky driving and handling involved-- you don't have to curse much as you'll just restart from the beginning of the road trip.

Well, at least with the driving in this game you won't be stuck on the tutorial.

LEGO City is a sprawling metropolis with multiple regions and areas to it. You have its Cherry Tree Hills that is reminiscent of San Francisco with its streetcar, houses on hilly streets, and its own version of the city's famous Lombard Street (the super-curvy road with a multitude of hairpins). Then, there's its Bright Lights Plaza, obviously modeled after New York City's Times Square. LEGO City doesn't just stick with United States of America cities either, as one east coast part of town is an ode to Venice in the form of Fresco.

It's really best to wait to explore the insides and outsides of LEGO City until you have beaten the game's 10-15 hour campaign. That way you have all of Chase's disguises available to him. There's no greater annoyance in an open-world LEGO game than making your way from street level all the way to a building's rooftop only to find that you don't have the necessary disguise needed to complete a given extra side task.

Chase doesn't need a workout regimen. He gets enough exercise from exploring LEGO City.

And LEGO City is filled to the brim with these extra side tasks. There are activities that are related to the various disguises, such as putting out specific fires as the fireman, watering specially marked plant boxes as the farmer, planting a flag atop a building as the astronaut, and so forth. However, there are also other side tasks that don't involve a specific disguise. These range from discovering criminals in the act with Chase's scanner (no longer needing a separate screen to utilize like with the Wii U version using its system's GamePad) to getting in a particular vehicle to begin a time trial, where the goal is to go through marker to marker before time runs out.

In this screenshot, Chase must make his way across this tightrope
to reach the perfect spot to spy on some do-badders.

It can seem a bit overwhelming as there is a LOT of collecting to do. When I say collecting, I mean collecting gold bricks (one is given for each side task completed in a given LEGO City region), red bricks (which unlock cheats), character tokens, vehicle tokens, and super bricks that are the currency used to build impressive feats of construction with Super Builds. There are 450 gold bricks in total to collect for 100% completion, so even when you beat the initial campaign, you can easily double the 10-15 hours of play time considerably, perhaps even triple it.

Combat is like the heel of Achilles, a weak part of LEGO City Undercover.

Unfortunately, LEGO City Undercover on Nintendo Switch seems to be a bit of a cheaply done port, if the tagline of this review didn't reveal that already. Game crashes have happened on three occasions, where an error message presented itself and sent me back to the Switch main menu. Thankfully, after every side task completed, special item collected, or story segment completed, the game automatically saves, so seldom did I lose much progress or any at all. Less annoying but still obnoxious are the times when the main audio just gave out. Neither voices nor music would play, and subtitles were sped up during these problematic occurrences as well. The only solution was to close the software and load the game back up. I recall freezing and hard crashes being issues in the Wii U original, so it's disappointing these haven't been rectified in the Switch re-release. I don't, however, remember the music and voices cutting out the way they do in this port.

Forget it, Chase. It's Chinatow-- I mean, Pagoda.

In the Wii U version, the map of LEGO City was located on the GamePad screen. In these updated ports of LEGO City Undercover, the map is located in the bottom left corner of the [obviously TV] screen. There are two problems here: 1) Sometimes the map doesn't center on where Chase currently is, focusing on something entirely different, and 2) The game does not pause when you bring up the map with the Select/Minus button. You can see this while driving and bringing up the map. Chase's vehicle will slow to a stop.

Finally, if these bundles of joy that are the technical problems of LEGO City Undercover's new gen ports aren't delivering enough fun for you, the loading times from the Wii U version are better, but only slightly so. That said, it's much more entertaining to read tips from Frank Honey and Chief Dunby than stare at a progress bar (no matter how funky the music that played during these loading screens were).

For the Nintendo Switch version specifically, there is quite a bit of slowdown and frame-rate chugging in handheld mode. Docked is much more stable, though also having occasional issues in performance. Things like draw distance of buildings and such in the background is good, but people and vehicles materialize in and out. Audio wise, the music is as stellar as ever, offering a '70s cop show-like score, and the voice work is wonderful and delightful. The only real issue is in scanning mode and how picked up conversations sound incredibly loud compared to everything else.

The draw distance isn't too shabby in the Switch build of LEGO City Undercover.

Overall, I had an enjoyable second trip to LEGO City (well, third technically because of the 3DS prequel). It says a lot that even with all of the problems of these ports (both new in these versions and ones that weren't really fixed from the Wii U original) that I found myself having fun exploring the city, following along with the story, and losing dozens of hours to the game. It's just a total shame that this feels, looks, and plays like a quick and dirty port when LEGO City Undercover deserves so much more.

[SPC Says: B-]

LEGO Marvel's Avengers (PS4, XB1, Wii U, PS3, 360, 3DS, Vita) Review

It's the big Hollywood blockbuster season, so while we take a quick break away from E3, let's delve into one of the most popular forms of Hollywood blockbuster, the superhero movie! LEGO Marvel's Avengers actually is a double dose of Avengers goodness, retelling the plot of both Avengers films. Though the game was originally released earlier in the year, there's no such thing as being too late to this Marvel superhero jamboree. Here's the SuperPhillip Central review of LEGO Marvel's Avengers.

A LEGO game to marvel at?

DC or Marvel. As a child of the 90's, it wasn't as big of a battle with kids my age which one was better as, say, Nintendo or Sega. However, the struggle, as some say, was indeed real. While I loved Batman and still do to this day, the collection of superheroes that Marvel Comics has established over the years always appealed to me more.

LEGO has had multiple successes taking both DC's and Marvel's characters and putting them into game form. Now, LEGO has returned with another chapter in its Marvel line of games with LEGO Marvel's Avengers. As someone who hasn't seen any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films yet, I was understandably confused by the organization of the plot of the game. LEGO Marvel's Avengers's main source for providing the story elements for the game itself come from the two Avengers movies. The slight bouncing around between Marvel's Avengers and Age of Ultron was a bit perplexing, but now after reading more about the movies, I know that the game starts with the opening of Age of Ultron before delving into a flashback from Captain America: The First Avenger, then goes to a more orderly structure, going from the first Avengers movie to Age of Ultron.

Looks like the gang is all here and ready to rock and roll.

LEGO Marvel's Avengers takes the humor of the LEGO series in the form of various sight gags and overlays them with lines directly from the films the game is based off of. One curious running gag is characters at various points of the game slurping from a strawberry milkshake. While that fell flat for me, other instances provide plenty of comedy, especially for the young ones. The lines used from the movies range from too quiet to too loud. They're imperfectly used and imbalanced. It's nothing overly jarring, but I made sure to have the volume up a little bit to compensate.

Most LEGO games released in the past few years have taken on a fully explore-able hub, filled with usually simple environmental puzzles (e.g. have Thor use his lightning to charge a panel which then opens a chest revealing your prize) or a series of environmental puzzles that unlock Gold Bricks. LEGO Marvel's Avengers has more than a handful of these instead of just one overworld hub. However, while there are different vistas and locales to visit, such as Asgard, Tony Stark's mansion in Malibu, Washington D.C., and more, Manhattan still remains the largest hub with the most things to do.

A relief to me was that the flight controls for characters like Iron Man are vastly improved over the last LEGO Marvel game. Makes jetting around this game's hubs much more enjoyable.

These hub areas are a lot of fun to explore. When you're not looking for Gold Bricks from doing various puzzling tasks, you can participate in races, initiated by pressing the confirm button whilst in near the starting line in the form of a ring (there are both ground and sky races to partake in, with the sky races being much improved over past games due to better handling with the flight controls); help fulfill various Marvel superhero and villain requests, which reward that character for use in Free Play; find various vehicle and character tokens; and help out famed comic book artist and storyteller Stan Lee out of some problematic predicaments. Everything is connected between a map-- that includes other hubs as well as the various fifteen levels of the game.

The aforementioned fifteen levels that LEGO Marvel's Avengers possesses are nothing new to anyone who has played a post-2005 LEGO game. You move around contained stages, essentially destroying every object in the area with your Marvel character's fists or other form of weaponry, using specific broken LEGO pieces to form new structures to solve environmentally based puzzles. In the first run of a level, you won't be able to collect everything it has to offer. This encourages replaying levels through Free Play, which allows you to call in any unlocked Marvel superhero, villain, or other character to interact with level elements that your original characters weren't able to do on your first run of the level.

Careful, Iron Man, this ain't no jolly green giant you're dealing with.

Each character in LEGO Marvel's Avengers follows the established LEGO formula, containing a specific power or ability. Some characters have multiple powers and abilities. For instance, Iron Man's red hot laser beam can destroy gold brick objects while Black Widow can use her cloaking ability to slip past security cameras and beams without being detected. It can be annoying switching between characters as much as you need to in Free Play, but thankfully, you have two characters in a level at the same time-- one you control and one the AI controls.

Not one to run from a fight, Captain America simply lost his sense of direction here.

However, you need not stick with an AI teammate if you do not wish to. LEGO Marvel's Avengers brings the well loved cooperative gameplay to the LEGO series once again, offering local play for two players in one form of split-screen or another (the Wii U version offers the ability for one players to use the GamePad screen while the other uses the TV). Unfortunately, with the Wii U, PS3, and Xbox 360 versions, co-op results in some occasionally very sluggish frame-rate issues that are quite noticeable.

Perform two-character combat moves to slightly alleviate the otherwise boring fighting in this game.

The design of levels tries to keep players engaged, but it's a bit of a problem whenever the game throws in multiple enemies for you to dispatch. The combat in all LEGO games are extremely basic to the point of being effortless. Being a game for the family, particular young children, a character losing all their hearts just results in a loss of some LEGO studs, the currency of the LEGO series, an incredibly minor inconvenience at that. This means when you have segments of the game where you have to take on a boss or defeat upwards of 30 enemies in a row, the ennui definitely kicks in.

There are 250 Gold Bricks to find-- many gained from discovering them through solving simple puzzles around the various hubs of LEGO Marvel's Avengers, while others come from completing the story missions, collecting enough LEGO studs in a given level, finding all 10 mini-kits in a level, and helping to rescue Stan Lee from some sort of perilous and compromising position. Then, there are the Red Bricks to find, 15 of them, that unlock bonus cheats, as well as all of the characters and vehicles you can unlock. If you're a fan of collecting stuff, and doing so in a fun way, you'll find a lot to love and enjoy with LEGO Marvel's Avengers-- just like any other LEGO game, really.

LEGO Marvel's Avengers might seem a step back compared to the innovative and fresh new things the developer's own LEGO Dimensions is doing, but if you're looking for the gaming equivalent of comfort food which is good for the whole family, then take out a controller and have a healthy helping of LEGO goodness.

[SPC Says: B-]

LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham (3DS, Vita) Review

Today is the much anticipated release of Batman: Arkham Knight for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. I figured it'd be an opportune time to talk about another type of Batman game that didn't release too long ago, LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham for Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. While the gameplay and subject matter are definitely nowhere near equal, they both star some version of the caped crusader. Here is my review of the portable version of LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham.

It doesn't take a braniac to shrink the earth... Or does it?

It's been a tradition that the LEGO games on consoles are much more beefed up than their handheld counterparts. This holds true with LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham. While the console versions are more fleshed out, that doesn't mean you should stick your nose up at the handheld offerings on the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. What the latter offers is bite-sized levels, plenty of unlockables, and the classic, albeit repetitive, gameplay that LEGO game fans have grown to love.

LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham's story begins with Batman and Robin tracking down Killer Croc within Gotham City' sewers. What follows is a plan hatched by Lex Luthor to commandeer the Justice League watchtower in an effort to make himself president of the United States through force. However, things get more complicated when the nefarious Brainiac shows up, wanting to shrink down the planet Earth for his private collection, which he actually succeeds in doing. It's up to the Justice League as well as the Lanterns and even the villains of the game to team up to restore Earth to its rightful size and glory.

While a sewer isn't the most glorious way to start
a LEGO game, it's serviceable all the same.

The game's story is told through engaging cutscenes full of the trademark humor the LEGO series is beloved for. You get funny interactions with a whole healthy heaping of DC Comics characters, both hero and villain, forming unlikely alliances for one common goal. The dialogue is humorous as well, and despite the characters constantly jabbering back and forth to one another during levels, it doesn't get to a point where it's overly grating. That's because the dialogue is pretty much written well. This is no Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, so no worries about that!

Do I have time to say hi to my mom at home?
Oh... wait.

LEGO Batman 3 consists of fifteen chapters of three levels each. The game is divided up and designed this way to best suit playing on the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita, so you don't have to invest a lot of time in playing and completing a level. Instead, each level runs about 5-10 minutes for one's first go round in them.

Talk to the pole because the mask does not understand!

Most levels adhere to the LEGO formula to a "T". There's just a few that rely on on-rails space combat, where you pilot a ship, Batman, or Superman through these aerial-based levels. These are enjoyable and break up the otherwise somewhat monotonous gameplay of the more typical levels of a LEGO game.

These flight levels are a nice inclusion to the LEGO series.

These typical levels consist of beating up enemies, which act more like annoyances that anything dangerous, as you have unlimited lives to work with (combat is also extremely basic like every other LEGO game); destroying LEGO objects that reveal LEGO pieces to build machinery that helps you progress in a level; and switching between characters to best suit the situation. For instance, Superman can use his laser vision to burn through certain gold LEGO objects and obstacles, whereas Batman can use bombs to blow up silver LEGO objects, as well as use one of his many suits to detect otherwise invisible LEGO objects.

The Flash shows off how he's light on his feet.

Each level in LEGO Batman 3 contains five challenges that award gold bricks for completing them. The first gold brick is always for simply completing a given level, while the others can consist of earning enough LEGO studs-- the currency of the game-- in a level, defeating enemies with a ground finisher, destroying a set number of Joker-themed objects, discovering a red brick, used to unlock cheats within the game, and finding Joker cards, one in each level, which unlocks a new playable character for purchase with said LEGO studs.

On many levels you don't have the correct team of characters to fulfill all of the requirements in a level the first time you play them. When you go back to it in Free Play mode, you have a wider assortment of characters, such as ones that can fly to reach otherwise out-of-the-way areas and characters that can summon objects at Lantern spawn points. It makes returning to levels worthwhile as there's nearly always something you couldn't get your first time around.

Combat is as super basic as ever in LEGO Batman 3.

Characters and red bricks earned from unlocking them within levels can be purchased at a special computer in both the Batcave and watchtower level hubs. As stated, LEGO studs are used to officially be able to use both unlocked characters and red bricks, offering cheats like stud multipliers, collectible locators, and even a mode where every punch and kick gets the old Batman TV show treatment with "POW!" and "KABOOM!" visual cues.

LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham isn't an overly long game. It took me about 15 hours to fully complete it at 100% and get all of the trophies. It's a very easy game to get a Platinum trophy on, pending you don't mind searching for goodies (or a guide, for that matter).

The game suffers from some performance issues, such as slowdown in more action-packed situations, as well as moments where my character got stuck on some of the geometry in the game. The latter happened more often that I would have liked. Other than these issues, LEGO Batman 3 runs admirably. On the sound side of things, the voice work is very much worthwhile stuff, and the music borrows heavily from Danny Elfman's 1989 Batman movie score and John Williams' 1978 Superman movie score.

What does this fist taste like?
It tastes like Green Lantern justice!

When all is said and done, for anyone who has played a LEGO game before, you pretty much know what you're going to get with LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham-- destroying and building objects out of LEGO pieces, battles with enemies that have you going through the motions, and a family-friendly game that is adequately polished to entertain most players. If you're still wanting some much needed innovation in the LEGO game formula, you're going to have to wait for LEGO Dimensions (hopefully).

[SPC Says: B-]

Batman: Arkham Knight (PS4, XONE, PC) “Gotham is Mine” Trailer

One of the big third party games for the current generation of consoles that makes me want to take the plunge on a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One when the game comes out is Batman: Arkham Knight. This looks to be an insanely cool and exciting conclusion to the Arkham trilogy. Here's hoping there's no silliness like the conclusion of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, but I digress! Check out this awesome new trailer for the game.

Batman: Arkham Knight (PS4, XONE) Gameplay Trailer

My most anticipated new-gen game is without question Batman: Arkham Knight, so you can imagine my delight upon seeing this new trailer for the game, featuring a lot of fantastic footage and action. Batman: Arkham Knight will hit the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on June 2, 2015!

Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure (Wii U, 3DS) Review

Have you been feeling empty as of late? Perhaps it's the lack of a new review... No? Well, can you pretend that was the reason so I can feel better about myself? Here's my review of Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure.

I expected an awesome game.

I have been "DC-eived"! 

Coming off my first real introduction to the 5th Cell's Scribblenauts series with Unlimited at the Wii U's launch, I was ecstatic when word of a sequel was heading to the platform. The good news did not end there. The sequel would have the DC license attached to it, offering over 2,000 superheroes and villains from DC Comics' illustrious history, such as Batman, Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, The Joker, The Riddler, Darkseid, The Cheetah, and many more. Unfortunately, with a game series that already has thousands of unique objects to bring into protagonist Maxwell's world, the addition of DC Comics characters is nothing more than a novelty than anything else.

Scribblenauts Unmasked takes Maxwell, the owner of a coveted and powerful notebook, and his sister Lily on an adventure through the pages of DC Comics' various franchises. A doppelganger of Maxwell teams up with supervillains of all shapes and sizes to cause havoc. It's a cheerful tale that does its best to stay cutesy. Nonetheless, superhero personalities like Superman and Batman, built from decades upon decades of comics and inner monologues, end up lost in the generic and all too wordy text dialogue of Unmasked. There's little to distinguish characters from one another personality-wise.

It'd be a dog-gone shame if the Joker
and Harley got away.

The main mechanic of the Scribblenauts series is present within Unmasked. You try to solve the problems of various NPCs by writing words into Maxwell's magical notebook to have them appear in the world around him. For instance, for a group of superheroes in need of defense, Maxwell can summon a fortress to satiate their need. Later Scribblenauts games introduced the ability to add descriptive adjectives to words, so adding the word "flying" to an NPC can make it float around a level just like Superman.

Isn't that the dream of every superhero?

The dozen or so stages in the game feature one main story-related mission across various locales such as Gotham City, Metropolis, and even undersea in Aquaman's kingdom of Atlantis. Upon successful completion of these missions, a Starite is given to Maxwell. These missions have multiple parts to them, but not only are they overly wordy, but failure before reaching a checkpoint means you have to restart from the beginning, being forced to watch the opening story sequence in the process. Furthermore, a lot of these story-related missions involve combat, which is, as many Scribblenauts fans know, incredibly basic and not rewarding whatsoever.

"This is Captain Maxwell of QNBC reporting
no accidents for your evening commute home."

The random missions in Scribblenauts Unmasked are the key to unlocking new areas. As you complete the various missions, you earn points that go towards reputation. The points are divvied up in a needlessly confusing batch of three types. There's one for the Batman stages, the Superman-themed stages, and one for the Justice League stages.

When you have a series that has had more than a few sequels already, it's always nice to see some effort put into changing up the formula. It's actually quite admirable on the part of the designers, who could have easily went with an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" type mentality. However, even those with the best of intentions can create something less than desirable.

Hey Flash, didn't your mother ever tell
you not to run with scissors?!

At the start of each stage, Scribblenauts Unlimited randomly picks out a batch of different missions for you to try to complete. There's a feeling of newness and uniqueness each time you enter a level. However, many of these missions either stray too far into simplicity or too far into being overly obtuse. It's no problem to write the word "parent" in Maxwell's notebook to give an orphan someone to console him. It's much less obvious to guess what word Mr. Mxyzptlk is thinking of.

Many times in stages I would automatically fail a random challenge just because something totally beyond my control would happen, such as an AI interacting with an object that, without my having clairvoyant powers, I couldn't even try to know what I was supposed to do before it made me fail the mission.

Wonder Woman's wonderful home of Themyscira.

The Object Editor of Scribblenauts Unlimited has evolved to a much improved form with Unmasked's Hero Creator. You can take pieces from one of the thousands of heroes and villains available, mix and match, colorize, scale, and assemble your dream creation. Of course, this takes some dedication to craft something worthy of the DC Comics name. Otherwise, you can stick to just downloading others' creations via the simple-to-use online sharing feature Scribblenauts Unmasked possesses.

...Have we met before?

Scribblenauts Unmasked utilizes some cute and pleasant 2D art. The Wii U version can easily handle a myriad of notebook creations on screen simultaneously. Areas in the game feature a wonderful amount of parallax layers to create a sense of depth. This is readily apparent when playing the Nintendo 3DS version. The music of Unmasked brings with it some catchy tunes, and the voice over work that bookends the game's story is well done.

For those seeking a starting point to the Scribblenauts series, there's far worse entries to jump into than Unmasked. However, for those who want the pinnacle of the series, Unmasked is also not the game you're looking for. Sure, the novelty of summoning DC Comics heroes and villains is interesting at first, but it's an interest that quickly fades. Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure just has too many faults to recommend as a must-play game, such as its flawed reputation system to unlock stages and its randomized missions being more often a bust than a boom.

[SPC Says: 6.5/10]

The LEGO Movie Videogame (Multi) Review

The first review of August for SuperPhillip Central is the video game tie-in to one of the most entertaining family films I've seen in a good while. It's The LEGO Movie Videogame, and here's our verdict on it.

Is Everything Awesome? No. Not Quite.

The LEGO Movie was a highly humorous and charming romp featuring a world made up entirely of LEGO and an all-star cast. The movie recently released for home consumption, so it seemed like a sweet opportunity to check out the game based off of it. A great criticism regarding the LEGO series of video games is how stagnant with little in the way of big changes the games have become. While The LEGO Movie Videogame does try some new things, it is overall a very similar experience to what we've seen in the past. Does that make the game worth your LEGO studs (i.e. money)?

The LEGO Movie Videogame closely follows the plot of the movie, even showcasing a wide breadth of footage from the actual movie. It follows Emmet, a dimwitted construction worker who is selected as the special, tasked with saving the world from the sinister Lord Business. It's a task he is woefully and quite frankly hilariously inept and unprepared for. Along the way he meets up with a colorful cast of characters, both heroes and villains, all voiced by their movie counterparts.

Just like in real life, Emmet's cup of coffee
cost him a stud equivalent of $450.

Like a typical LEGO game, The LEGO Movie Videogame consists of fifteen main levels, where the goal is to smash objects to reveal spots where you can build helpful mechanisms like switches, bridges, and pretty much everything under the LEGO sun in order to progress through levels. This is all the while fending off the occasional group of enemies. As there is no major punishment for dying in a level, you are merely revived after literally falling apart, allowing you to continue as you were, the challenge of the game is quite low. The real challenge in the LEGO games is coming up with a means to move on in a given level. Again, this basically boils down to smashing everything in your path with your fists and feet, revealing objects that can be utilized.

All in a day's job for Emmet.

Each of the fifteen levels has you switching between multiple characters, each with their own specialties. For example, Emmet is terrific for fixing broken down mechanisms, female characters are great jumpers and can perform acrobatics maneuvers, and Vitruvius, thanks to his "blindness", can move across dangerous areas that other characters would be paralyzed with fear to attempt to venture into or onto. The switching of characters can be done with a press of a button, or if you'd like to avoid cycling between each character until you get to who you want to control, a helpful character wheel allows you to directly choose your desired LEGO character.

It's not like there's anything to be afraid
of by falling off this very narrow bridge!

The LEGO Movie Videogame like other games in the LEGO line has a wonderful amount of extra content, although nowhere near more recent games. That's a really positive thing that it has extra content that is worthwhile, as otherwise the short six hour campaign would make for a game that could easily be a rental only.

A very cool sequence within the game,
some highway hijinks!

As you earn studs, the currency of the LEGO series, you can purchase new characters, over 100 in total to choose from. These can be used to your liking if you decide to return to beaten levels. This is a must for 100% completion, as the first time around in each level you don't have all of the character types and their special abilities required to discover and nab all of the collectibles and secrets.

Some people will do anything for attention.
Seriously, pull-ups from that height?

Compared to recent LEGO games like LEGO City Undercover and LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, The LEGO Movie Videogame feels like a much smaller adventure not just in length but in scope, and that's because it really is. Instead of being able to explore an expansive city in between levels, you are confined to one of four tiny, self-contained areas. While there's things to collect in these hub worlds, the areas are so minuscule in size that it's quite easy and quick to uncover everything.

There's a snake in my boots!
Wait a minute. Wrong movie!

On every console version, two players are able to enjoy The LEGO Movie Videogame together. The Wii U version is of particular note in this arena due to the ability to either have split-screen play or one player using the TV screen while the other uses the Wii U GamePad screen to allow both to enjoy a full-screened co-op experience. Other than a throwaway ability to switch characters with the Wii U GamePad screen while playing solo and off-TV play, the GamePad isn't used to its full potential, story of the controller's life.

Emmet gets in touch with his inner cowboy.

The LEGO Movie Videogame is graphically stellar to look at. There's some especially nice lighting effects seen, and the ability to turn on and off the motion blur makes for a welcome touch. The game isn't without its share of frame-rate or glitch issues, but overall it is a serviceable experience. Sound and music design is well done, again, offering all of the original movie voice actors. The music is suitable enough with a good variety of themes that can make you end up humming to each (or at least nodding your head with the rhythm of the music).

Don't worry about careful jumps here, Batman.
It's just a fiery, painful death below.

As it stands as a LEGO game, The LEGO Movie Videogame is but a chip off the old block of iterative LEGO games. It doesn't necessarily innovative in any huge way, but it's also an entertaining game from beginning to end, and a long ways after the credits roll, just like almost every other TT Games LEGO title in existence. While everything isn't quite awesome, The LEGO Movie Videogame is worth at least a rental if you're looking for an inoffensive family game.

[SPC Says: 7.75/10]

Batman: Arkham Origins (Wii U) Review

The last review of June has Batman returning to the Wii U with a new developer. It's Batman: Arkham Origins, and here are SuperPhillip Central's thoughts on the game.

Batman Begins... You Know... Again.

With Rocksteady needing extra development time to get the Batman: Arkham series onto the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One next year with Arkham Knight, the Arkham series was taken up by developed WB Games Montreal. When a well established series is taken over by a new developer, a considerable amount of concern by fans is understandable. Thankfully, WB Games Montreal's project and contribution to the Arkham series, Batman: Arkham Origins, is a fantastic yet flawed entry to the series that successfully can stand in the same circle as Rocksteady's works. Although the Wii U version lacks downloadable content and the multiplayer mode of the other versions, it's still worth looking into for other reasons.

Arkham Origins' story takes place on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Villain Black Mask has put a bounty on Batman for a huge chunk of change, inviting the series's most dangerous assassins to see who can take out the dark knight first and receive the cash reward. While the name of the game might infer ideas of Batman's beginnings, Arkham Origins actually doesn't show the origins of any one character, besides the Joker in a late portion of the game. Instead, Origins involves how Gotham came to be well versed about the dark knight. It delves into how the bitter and oftentimes complex rivalry between Batman and the Joker came to be, as well as how Batman got onto the right side of Commissioner Gordon. (Oh, and how Bruce Wayne and Batman both became more grateful of outside assistance and less of an "I do things my way and without any help" kind of attitude. All in all, the story takes about 14-16 hours to complete, and thatt's not even factoring in all of the side content Arkham Origins contains.

I am vengeance... I am the night...

The previous Batman game to hit the Wii U was Rocksteady's upgraded port of Batman: Arkham City, which hit the system at its launch. That game featured some haphazard visuals in the form of glitches that took players out of the immersion of Arkham City. While some of the problems in that game have been remedied in Arkham Origins, there's still some pertinent problems that offend the eyes. For instance, there's slowdown on many occasions, outright times in Gotham where the game completely stops mid-exploration, allowing enough time for the city to load, and I had three hard locks within twenty minutes in one particular gaming session.

That said, there's also a lot of good in the visuals. Environments have a visual bounty of details in them, from the numerous billboards, signs, trash fluttering around the city streets, steam rising, amazing particle and lighting effects, and even more immense detail within the city itself that Batman will spend the most time in.

Gotham has an astonishing amount of detail to it.

When you're not following along with the engaging and enjoyable story, Batman: Arkham Origins' open world city setting, where the caped crusader moves, runs, glides, and uses his grappling gun to cut across building rooftops in, has plenty to see and do. As the game progresses, various side missions are accessible. These include disarming Anarky's bombs, destroying Black Mask's containers of drugs, rescuing hostages from various villains like the Mad Hatter and Shiva, as well an Arkham tradition, collecting items of Enigma's, the future Riddler of Gotham City. It's a game that is delightfully non-linear, just like its predecessors.

Those symbols don't mean this enemy's electrocuted;
they mean he's about to attack Batman!

The latter villain, Enigma, has a multitude of tasks, making for the most involved side mission of them all. He has a plethora of extortion files that he plans to release to the public, thus causing chaos and havoc throughout Gotham. It's up to Batman to gather all 200 extortion data packs that are hidden all around the city, whether they're in the open world city itself or inside areas where missions take place. This is better left for near the end of the game, as most require equipment that Batman won't have access to until he makes enough progress in the story. Thankfully, through roughing up data handlers (i.e. thugs spread around the city) and interrogating them, the locations appear on the player's map.

Batman surveys the area for trouble.

In addition to data packs, Enigma has taken control of the city's seven radio towers. It's only by taking these back with a mix of brain and brawn that Batman will be able to call in his Batwing for fast travel between these points. While the idea of fast travel is nice, the implementation leaves a little to be desired. There's about a thirty second wait due to loading times in order to traverse between fast travel points.

As for personal travel itself, Arkham Origins does little to fix what's been wrong with past games. It's very difficult to glide around Gotham with strict precision, and sometimes this does nothing but aggravate. This is especially noticeable when trying to land on or into certain areas of the open world, such as when trying to go for one of the aforementioned data packs. I had it on one occasion where I was getting extremely frustrated trying to glide into the inside of an elevated storage container. Batman would hit just outside the zone for entry, having him fall all the way to the ground to my incredible dismay. It doesn't help that Batman also leaps off walls he comes in contact with when gliding, making precision important yet at the same time almost impossible to pull off in this game.

I never felt fully in control while gliding.

However, something where precision shines is the Arkham series' signature combat, and it works wonderfully in Arkham Origins as well. The combat consists of chaining punches, kicks, counters, and evasions between a swath of lowly street thugs and henchmen. You can throw in some gadgets into combat to fully utilize Batman's arsenal. Sure, you can just jam and mash on the attack button while hitting the counter button when a foe is about to attack Batman, but through actually being graceful with the free flow combat system, you earn more experience, you deal more damage, and you thus make exchanges look awesome and take less time. It also allows players to see just how many different ways and approaches they can take to each battle and group of goons.

Not even a foe out of his sight
can think about touching Batman.

Experience is earned through an assortment of means in Arkham Origins, and they're used to upgrade Batman as a whole. Whether it's making him less susceptible to direct attacks or gunfire, to improving the range and usefulness of his acquired gadgetry and combat abilities, Batman can become an even bigger force to be reckoned with than he already is at the beginning of the game.

Talk to the fist, because the cowl don't understand.

While a lot of Batman: Arkham Origins uses the majority of the same pages out of the playbook that Rocksteady wrote and used, WB Games Montreal added some new tricks to the Arkham series. The most notable is the addition of crime scenes. These have Batman going all CSI (but without the lame puns, overwrought plots, and worthless guest stars), having the player use the GamePad to scan special points on said crime scene to investigate what happened at these sites. Unfortunately, these offer no means of non-linear investigation, as you have to scan one point followed by another, then another, etc. in a specific order. I personally would have rather seen Batman investigate on his own in a cutscene than need to participate in these interactive investigations.

Outside of crime scenes, the GamePad is used as a map for players inside areas and outside in Gotham. This is a downgrade compared to what Arkham City - Armored Edition offered back at launch, but it's still nice to have a map to simply have to glance down at rather than pause the game and bring up the map like other platform versions require. This is especially useful when gliding around Gotham to various points of interest. You can just look at the GamePad screen and make adjustments to your path from there instead of pausing the game, going to the map, saying "Okay, I'm a little TOO south", then unpausing the game to make corrections to your path, pausing again, and then saying "Oh, crap. Now I'm too far north. Better pause the game to look at the map again!"

Batman: Arkham Origins offers players the Arkham series's first ability to enter the famous Batcave. It's there that Batman returns to obtain the occasional new gadget, chitchat with Alfred, or engage in a number of training challenges to go along with the game's challenging and optional combat and predator challenges. These award the player with an amount of points and ranking pending on their skill in each challenge of taking out a room full of foes either with pure muscle and reflexes or pure stealth.

I thought he was a bold bat,
not a solid snake.

Batman: Arkham Origins may not be receiving the DLC that it was originally going to get, nor does it have the rather useless multiplayer mode of the other console versions (which honestly was a throwaway mode anyhow), but the Wii U version is very worthy of looking into. Even for someone who does not care for masked marauders, superheroes, or Batman himself, there's enough great combat, action, and adventure to make Arkham Origins a nice pickup for any Wii U owner that many will want to be the bat for.

[SPC Says: 8.25/10]