But (dun-dun-dun!) hold on for one bat-minute, dear readers: The template has been changed in some pretty big ways this time. So, when Traveler’s Tales Games once again painted the night sky with a pieced-together bat signal and hit store shelves with LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, I wasn’t expecting anything all that startlingly different.

And you can be certain that the gamemakers behind it all will somehow make the gesticulating and grinning-but wordless-plastic heroes chuckle-worthy. Even the darkest cinematic morass morphs into a colorful E10+ playground in these games. Whether it’s R2D2 exploring a space station, Indiana Jones spelunking his way through an artifact-riddled cave or Batman swinging in after an assortment of escaped Arkham bad guys, you can usually rely on the fact that a LEGO video game will stick to a certain template: It’ll be relatively easy to play as you break the environment into bits to collect plastic studs and colored bricks.