LEGO Batman: Beyond Gotham (Mobile version)

$4.99, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch (iOS 8.0 or later)

Teaches: logic, spatial thinking, reading, language experience

CTR Rating: 88%

CTR Review

Now you can play as Batman and characters from DC Comics on your Apple touch screen, with an experience that looks and feels a lot like the famous TT video games. Note that the famous co-op play feature missing, however. Despite having two avatars on every screen this is a one-player app. Your mission is to stop the evil Brainiac from destroying Earth, with the help of any two of 100 characters that include the Justice League, BIG LEGO figures, the Lantern heroes other DC comics characters. Besides the $4.99, you can purchase additional brick-packs if you want to speed through the levels. This app follows a tried-and-true formula to generate income -- serve up authentic, well-designed challenges and then sell clues in the form of bricks, for as much as $10. Each character has unique powers, and can be moved around the screen using a virtual 'D' pad. All of the characters and abilities can be earned without additional purchases, and you can also unlock special suits to give your heroes more powers. There's Batman's bomb-igniting Demolition Suit, Robin's elite hacker Techno Suit and so on. Content includes 45 missions set in outer space, the Lantern worlds, the Hall of Justice, the Batcave and the Justice League Watchtower. Weaknesses include there is no way to replay levels or go back and start over. In terms of learning, there's a lot of logic and problem solving; artificial debugging, and the closed captioning feature makes this a good language experience. You can switch between "Classic" and "Touch Screen" controls to find the play-style that suits you best. An Android version is planned for Google Play.