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LEGO Batman

Susie Ochs — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:23:11 -0500

Play as the good guys or the bad guys in this two-faced LEGO-licious adventure.

In the seminal 1989 Batman film directed by Tim Burton, the Joker, played to smarmy perfection by Jack Nicholson, grouses about the well-equipped Caped Crusader, “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” Ol’ Joker was talking about the batarang or something, but in this game, the answer is clear: The toys are LEGO. The vehicles are LEGO. The environments are LEGO. Even the characters are LEGO.

In the grand tradition of LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones, LEGO Batman re-creates Gotham City in colorful, 3D environments built out of LEGO bricks. You play as Batman and Robin, switching on the fly. Or a second person can join the game anytime, and you work together. Anything made from LEGOs is destructible, and puzzles are often solved by breaking the scenery and reassembling the pieces into a tool, a vehicle, or a passageway needed to get farther into the game.

The all-new story line is split into three episodes, with our heroes chasing down escaped villains and herding them back to Arkham Asylum. But since the Batman universe features such larger-than-life criminals, the game includes another three episodes in which you play as the bad guys, each of whom have special powers.

No time for penguin rides, Batman! We've got to find the Penguin!

In each episode, your characters fight enemies hand-to-hand, explore the gorgeous 3D environments, solve puzzles to lead them to the end of the level, and then battle a boss character. Along the way you also pick up coins to buy upgrades, find hidden treasure, and collect the pieces to construct trophies, but all those are really bonus diversions from the main game, included to boost replay value. You can’t find all of a level’s 10 hidden “LEGO canisters,” for example, when playing through it in Story mode. You have to beat the level in Story mode to unlock Free Play mode, where you play it again with any character--including the specialized characters needed to access all the LEGO canisters.

Players can whiz through the Story mode in about 10 hours unless they get stumped by some of the trickier puzzles. But going back to find all the hidden bonus material and achieve 100 percent completion could take days, if you’re into that kind of thing. The game doesn’t really explain why you want or need to collect so many baubles, and other than “pure, nerdy satisfaction,” we can’t think of a good reason.

But whether you’re playing a level for the first or the tenth time, LEGO Batman’s polished graphics, atmospheric music and sound, and tongue-in-cheek cutscenes keep things entertaining. The game requires an Intel Mac, and it played without stuttering on our nearly 2-year-old 2.4GHz MacBook Pro. You can play with a mouse and keyboard, but the controls are a lot easier to master if you use a USB gamepad instead.

Lego Mac Pro - A Thing of Beauty

Florence Ion — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:10:01 -0500

This can only be described as perfectly amazing. Made out of 2,588 Lego bricks, what seems to be just an ordinary computer within an awesome make-shift Apple computer case is actually two Macs in one! Yes, that’s right, not one, but two!

The case contains one full PC running Mac OS X and the components from a Mac Mini. The Hackintosh, as the Apple community so endearingly calls unauthorized PC hardware running OS X, contains a Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz CPU, while the Mac mini is a Core Duo 1.66Ghz.

To top it off, the case mod includes a mini figurine of Steve Jobs’ signature stance. I sure hope Lego catches on and decides to release a “Pirates of the Silicon Valley” Lego set. Imagine the possibilities.

Video: Love Of Indy and Legos Equals Hilarious Disaster

Roberto Baldwin — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:41:16 -0500

In a sure sign that San Francisco is a place where, if you can dream it, you can find five other guys to help you pull it off.

A group of hard-core Indiana Jones fans created a life-size boulder out of 5 million legos and let it loose on the streets of San Francisco.

Kotaku thinks this my be another viral marketing ad. Possibly for the Indiana Jones Lego game coming from Lucas Arts. Does anyone who lives in the city remember this being filmed? Tell us in the comments.

A Kotaku commenter stated the video is real;

"Guess what people... that s**t was all real. the Indy running down the hill is oakland artist and one of the funniest people ever, Pete Grenquist, who coincidentally was on Kotaku a week ago in their article about the designer PacMan grenades.
believe me...
NO Permits
NO assistance from lego
Just a bunch of funny SF f***ers with criminal mischief inclinations and a lot of free time.
What else would you expect from the home of Burning Man??"

This is why I'm selling my car, wayward Lego boulders.

iPod touch/iPhone link

Via SFist

Lego My iPod

Roberto Baldwin — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:58:58 -0600

I love me some Legos.

If you're like me, you weren't fortunate enough to secure your own Apple co-founder Lego playset. Well, our Lego love can still be appeased with the iPod Lego Mini Speaker.

While I haven't had a chance to get my hands on one of these, I'm pretty sure when you're not rocking out to your favorite tunes, you can add it to your gigantic Lego lucky cat.

The Duplo bass speaker, should be just around the corner.

Lego My Apple

Mac|Life Staff — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:45:36 -0500

PodBrix is bringing the founders of Apple to the glorious world of Lego. Limited editions of the "Young Woz and Jobs Playset" featuring the entrepreneurs creating their first personal computer, will go on sale August 29th at 9:00PM EST. Showing young Woz getting ready to solder his way into history, we see young Jobs already thinking about the future of mobile technology.

If you must have your very own playset, be prepared, only 300 signed and numbered units will be made available.

Some Assembly required.