On my second day at E3, I headed to WB Interactive’s meeting room. The name of the game that day was definitely the upcoming LEGO Batman: The Videogame, but as I was waiting to go in and watch a play demo, I was sidetracked by the creator of one of their other Nintendo efforts, Guinness World Records: The Videogame.

Shown above is one of the numerous minigames that will be populating Guinness; this one is "Best Videogame High Score". There are forty different events to play, all based on real world records but utilizing the Wii’s motion control to perform these stunts. I managed to get my hands on around ten or so of these games, and it seems that WB is generally hitting the mark, for right now. The motion control mechanics are entertaining, but the games I played are all competitive, as well; somewhere out there, there’s someone with enough skill to beat your high score, whatever it is. This is an important thing, too, as not only will the game feature online leaderboards, but the high score holders in each event will get their names in the real Guinness Book of World Records. I held the high score in two events when I left my WB meeting; let’s see how well they stand up. In the meantime, if you’re interested in international videogame fame, you could give this game a try; it’s looking like it’ll turn out well.

My next stop was to check out the Wii version of LEGO Batman, though I had a tiny bit of face time with the rather similar DS build as well. If you’ve played the other LEGO games, you know generally what to expect, so LEGO Batman is switching things up a little bit by putting a gigantic emphasis on two-character co-op play. In all of the game’s 30 levels, you’ll be playing as two characters, switching control between them periodically in order to take advantage of their unique abilities, or to solve co-op puzzles; the game will support drop-in-drop-out two player, and unlike in previous games, the camera zooms out when two players are far apart, so motion is less limited in that regard. You’ll build machines out of piles of Legos, engage in some simple brawling, or use Batman and Robin’s specialty suits to advance further in the level, all while having an AI partner follow behind, be it Batman, Robin, or one of the game’s highly numerous villains.

While 15 of the game’s levels are played as Batman and Robin, the other 15 are played as a pair of villains, of which this game has many: Joker, Harley Quinn, Bane, Poison Ivy, Penguin, Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, Catwoman, Killer Croc... the list of playable villains is very extensive, and they will have their own unique abilities to use. I watched the WB rep play through a level as Poison Ivy and Joker, and there was a section wherein he would have to alternate between the two in order to get past a series of small puzzles, emphasizing the co-op nature of the game. I was told the game would utilize a small amount of motion control, but mainly will stick to the traditional controls of the previous game. One thing we did see was that the Wii Remote’s pointer could be used to target objects for Batman’s Batarang, not unlike in Twilight Princess.

The level design seems like a good mix of platformer and brawler, and WB has done a great job of making a very atmospheric, industrial Gotham City, accompanied by music from Tim Burton’s Batman of 1989 for a very Batman feel. Expect to see this title come out this fall.