Lego Batman (Xbox 360)

Here we have yet another Lego game from Traveler’s Tales, but thankfully they’ve learned from the mistakes of Lego Indiana Jones. This time it’s the Batman mythos that they’re drawing from, taking inspiration from all sorts of places: the comic books, the corny 60’s TV series, and the movies. The conceit here is that all of the villains have broken out of Arkham Asylum and the Riddler, the Penguin, and the Joker are each planning their own separate caper. The clever bit is that once you beat each caper from the Batman POV, you can then turn around and do it from the villains’ POV. So instead of having three episodes with interminably long levels like Indiana Jones did, you’re back to the Lego Star Wars six episodes with six properly-sized missions each.

Combat is still hand-to-hand, but is much improved over Indiana Jones, as your characters now actually move to hit nearby enemies rather than standing there and punching air. There are a bunch of new abilities, such as being able to use your Bat-zipline to go up buildings and toss Batarangs to destroy stuff onscreen. The graphics are much improved as well; although the backgrounds are often still dark and drab, the characters and onscreen objects are comprised of cartoony, bright colors for contrast. Finally, the platforming has been reduced, thankfully. The only drawback is the obligatory vehicle levels, which they have yet to figure out how to make fun.

Overall, Lego Batman is, shockingly, not a deep game, and it’s not going to take you too long to beat it, but if you have a friend or significant other to play it with, it’s an entertaining time.

3 out of 5

CSI: Hard Evidence (Xbox 360)

Hey, you know that show CSI, where crimes are solved in an hour through the use of forensics, snappy dialogue, and obscure factoids? Well, now you can pretend to be a CSI your own self! And holy Moses, this isn’t a very good game.

Okay, I wouldn’t call it terrible, either. But really, this just is an inexplicable bit of corporate synergy. The main component of this crime-solving adventure game is the collection and processing of evidence, which, if you’ve ever seen the show, is distilled down into minute-long montages backed by pop music. Here it’s pixel hunt at the crime scene, use the right tool (out of the two or three options that you’re given; there’s no penalty for picking the wrong one first, aside from having to hear the same “that’s not the right tool for that” type comment from your CSI partner), then take it back to the lab and point-and-click until you’ve either matched the fingerprint, DNA, or trace sample. With no chance of failure, it just becomes trial-and-error over and over again.The other part of the game is interviewing suspects, which is even more pointless. You just click through all the dialogue options until they’re all done. Then when you’ve discovered something else, you go back and do it again.

Really, the whole thing screams budget title. It’s like Telltale Games had the CSI license shoved at them and told, “here, make a game, and make it cheap”. There are five cases, which take an hour or two to complete each, and characters and locations are reused in two of the cases. Achievement whores will rejoice, because all 1000 gamerscore is unlocked from playing through the game. They couldn’t even get the entire cast to voice their characters: Marg Helgenberger (replaced by some woman who makes Catherine Willows sound somewhere between a sultry ingénue and someone’s grandmother) and Jorja Fox. If you’re a CSI fan or an adventure gamer, you’ll probably enjoy this enough to play through it, but since there is zero replayability, nobody should buy this game, ever.

2 out of 5

Bionic Commando: Rearmed (Xbox Live Arcade)

There is a glut of games on Xbox Live Arcade that is basically taking an 80s video game, giving it splashy new graphics, adding a few features, and calling it a remake. Of these, the only good one so far has been Pac-man: Championship Edition, because it does something new and interesting with the game. Otherwise it’s just another retread of a game that, at the core, is only worth playing for about ten minutes at a time. After all, there’s a reason these old games were popular in arcades.

But Bionic Commando: Rearmed goes a little farther into the 80s than Galaga or Missile Command, instead taking an old Nintendo game… and giving it splashy new graphics and adding a few features. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing in this case; Bionic Commando works better because it’s a more complex game than the aforementioned quarter-eaters; it’s an action-adventure title with a non-linear world map! In the mid-80s!

In the game, you play a guy with a bionic arm who can attach it to stuff and swing around (in lieu of jumping). Which can make platforming awkward at times, but they have really made the game a lot smoother than it played originally. There are still some frustrating sections, usually anything involving the spikes of death, but overall it’s a pretty fun experience. That’s pretty much all to say – it’s just your basic Nintendo platformer, except with swinging instead of jumping. The only real bad thing is that the game is ridiculously short – you can easily finish it in 2 or 3 hours, but at the price of $10 (or 800 Microsoft Itchy & Scratchy Dollars), it’s certainly worth the investment.

3 out of 5

Rock Band 2 (Xbox 360)

Oh, Harmonix, you know the way to my heart. The sequel to Rock Band isn’t exactly a great leap forward, but since the original worked pretty damn great in the first place, that’s not too bad. At this point, I have renounced the Guitar Hero franchise, because everything about Rock Band is superior. The downloadable songs, the presentation, the note charts – everything is slick, clean, and functional.

The biggest change over Rock Band is that rather than having a solo play and a band world tour option, the band world tour has been made available to friendless loners like me who play by themselves. This opens the game up a lot from “hmm, what song should I play” to “what set of songs should I play” or “screw it, I’ll let the computer choose ‘Everlong’ for the fiftieth time”. But seriously, it’s more fun when you can choose sets and whatnot. The difficulty has been pushed up a notch or two, as the highest-tier songs will generally chew your wrists up and spit them out. Aside from that, most of the changes are cosmetic, but the menus in particular do look a lot nicer now. And you can choose your band stand-ins, so you can have a set band rather than having the guys from GWAR or Solid Snake show up in your band randomly.

As far as the setlist goes, it goes a little too far into Guitar Hero territory with a bunch of crappy metal tunes, but there’s a whole lot of 70s, 80s, 90s, and today hits to balance it out. They’ve even managed to find the one decent Modest Mouse song, ‘Float On’. My only quibble is that their decision to go with original masters only really hurts the chance of getting more rock from the 60s – the only 60s songs on here are ‘Pinball Wizard’ and ‘Spirit in the Sky’. By the by, there are 85 songs on here; nearly twice what the original RB had. In addition, for the low low cost of only $5, or 400 Microsoft Itchy & Scratchy Dollars, you can rip the songs from RB (except for three, due to rights issues or whatnot) and use them in RB2. So, no disc switching if you have a particular urge to play one of those songs.

The instruments associated with the game are also new and improved, but I have none of them at this time, so I can’t comment. I don’t imagine the microphone can be improved on that much, but the drums and guitar are supposed to be a lot better. Regardless of whether or not you want the instruments, though, Rock Band 2 is a must-buy for the plastic rockin’ out aficionado.

5 out of 5