The beloved Lego videogame franchise, as entertaining as individual installments have proven to be, has long felt like it was living on borrowed time, in danger of leaning too heavily on cutesy parody and straying into derogatory cliché. To be fair, it’s a mistake that English developer Traveller’s Tales has managed to sidestep to date with their continued mining of the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter and Batman universes, but in order to stave off the stagnation, fresh ideas and new features were called for. The sequel to 2008’s Lego Batman: The Videogame, LB2 marks a number of firsts for the plastic-inspired platformer series. Perhaps conscious of the need to spritz things up, DC Super Heroes grants players an open world to explore, rather than a central hub and a series of linear missions. Though you’ll often return to the Batcave, your role as the pint-sized Caped Crusader requires you to zip around a charmingly recreated Gotham City in a variety of vehicles. It’s the living, breathing Lego set you always wanted when you were a kid. Once you get where you’re going – provided you can stop yourself from spending hours exploring, which is no easy task – you’ll wade your way through Lego’s familiar blend of brain-busting puzzles and relatively simplistic combat as you track The Joker, Penguin, Two-Face and most of Batman’s other iconic nemeses. The game retains enough of the trademark humor and entertaining puzzles to appease the casual gamer, while the knowing winks to the DC universe’s web of interlinked characters – plus more than a few film references – will have purists cackling over their controllers. DC Super Heroes also marks the first time that Lego characters have uttered dialogue instead of the familiar garbled grunts and smirks, and an impressive voice cast (including Clancy Brown, Nolan North and Claudia Black) do an admirable job of balancing slapstick and homage, and clearly have fun with the material. The spit and polish has given the series a shot in the arm, but at its heart, DC Super Heroes remains true to the spirit of the franchise. An original adventure like this shows that Lego games have a future beyond the retelling of movie plots, and so long as there is room left for a healthy amount of innovation with each installment, there’s no reason why this sub-genre can’t continue for many years to come.