• Single-Player greats – like Rocksteady’s Batman:Arkham Asylum and Arkham City titles
• Single-Player mediocres – too many to count, but almost every movie gets one
• Multi-player platformers – like the Marvel Ultimate Alliance or Fantastic Four titles, which are solid in most cases, and great in a few
• Co-op titles – there are very few … but Green Lantern is one, and a pretty good one at that.

Game Play

Loosely based on the same premise and setting as last year’s Green Lantern movie, Hal Jordan is player 1 as a relatively new Green Lantern, still being coached by fellow lanterns Sinestro and Kilowog. Almost immediately upon starting the game, the lanterns’ headquarters planet of OA is attacked by Manhunter robots.

Over the next several levels, you will use your ring energy to create a range of weapons ranging from huge hammers to maces to a robotic mech-battle suit. There isn’t any blood.  The bad guys/robots disintegrate into energy — which not only charges your ring but also provides the currency for purchasing new ‘constructs’ (stuff to make with the ring) and upgrades to your existing ring powers.

The boss fights get progressively challenging, and the storyline and enemy scenarios vary enough to keep it interesting. And with up to 12 different ring constructs, along with various upgrades, gameplay will feel diverse enough to not be just another action button-masher and let each player beat up bad guys with whichever energy-formed weapons that they want. The constructs are chosen by mapping to each of the four buttons (A-B-X-Y) in combination with either the left or right triggers. Hence, up to eight constructs are available, along with immediate and charge-able regular (X) and strong (Y) attack buttons.

Co-Op Ness

While Player 1 is the lead movie character, Hal Jordan of Earth; Player 2 is the equally capable Lantern, Sinestro. The folks at Double-Helix did a pretty good job of enabling a good co-op experience.

All of the energy points (currency) that are collected during game play by both players ends up being shared when purchasing upgrades and new constructs. In fact, once a construct is purchased by Player One, Player Two has full use as well. In fact, the eight construct buttons are separately map-able by Player One and Player Two. When my son and I played through the game, we chose different constructs so that each of us had unique capabilities and ways to participate in the game.

This is not to say that the Co-Op experience is perfect – it isn’t.

Player Two’s button mapping doesn’t get saved – so each time that you start the game, or re-start a previously played level, player two will inherit player one’s buttons. Since my son and I played together, we eventually agreed that our right-trigger four would be consistent, so that he only had to re-map his left-trigger four, as needed. It’s a minor thing, but something that really ought to get addressed as a fix.

Player Two doesn’t get achievement points. I understand that it is more work on developers to track two game save files and so some accumulation “Did <Something> X times” might be harder to track or “Completed whole game“. But, a lot of the GL achievements are “Finished Level X” type. The game knows that two players started the level, finished the level and neither left during the level — so why not give Player Two some of the credit? One of the differences between a good co-op game and a great one is giving both players their due acknowledgements, when reasonably possible.

Language

While not normally part of an Xbox Dad review — there was so much of it that it had to be added to the Green Lantern Review. In short:

• If on mute, the gameplay, story and co-op-ness is great for gamers as young as 8 and ideal around 10.
• If you want to hear the dialogue, my suggested age goes up to 14.

Ryan Reynolds, from the movie, reprises his role for the game – and does some great work. Having the original actor definitely adds to movie tie-in games. But there enough Darns, Cruds, and Bugards (use your imagination) to really ruin the game for younger gamers and their parental co-players.  The only words I don’t recall were Fudge and Butch.  GL’s word choices add nothing to the story and therefore it is truly a shame that Warner Brothers Interactive and DC Comics allowed the game to be inappropriate for what will be their next generation of readers.

If you have a lower tolerance to dialog, or want to use it as a teaching moment (or twenty) — then Green Lantern is otherwise a great game to co-op through while saving the universe.

As always, thanks for reading … Have fun playing with your kids !

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