The Lego games

[icycalm]

Can someone who's tried them give me an idea of what they are about? I keep hearing about them for years, but the idea sounds so stupid to me I can't even be bothered to search for a video. When I first started hearing about them I imagined they'd be shovelware, but can shovelware survive as a series? So it isn't shovelware? So many people seem to talk about them as if they are actually good... (though again, I haven't yet bothered reading anything).

And they just announced a new Batman Lego game. Are they copying the mechanics of the normal game and just swapping Lego textures in or something?

[recoil]

I've tried a bit of one of the Batman games. It was a simple and straightforward beat 'em up with puzzles and platforming. It was actually decent, 3 stars at best. Part of the success stems from all the licensed material they have access to like Star Wars, Marvel, DC, and Lord of the Rings. The other part is that the developers seem to make improvements for each game. Looking at the latest games, they all have free roaming and large environments.