GAME REVIEW

GAME SCREENSHOTS

GAME MANUAL

GRAPHICS: Pretty good, a lot better than the Genesis version. The digitized sprites are of fair size and nicely detailed. Their animation, though, is too fast and quite comical. The backgrounds are nice. They are nicely detailed and suitably dark. Some of them are very beautiful such as Two-Face's lair, the Batcave level or Claw Island. It is a bad thing, though, the lack of stills from the movie between the levels.

SOUND: The graphics are passable, but the sound, simply, sucks...The music has nothing to do with the soundtrack of the film. Although I pretty liked one track (the one in the Batcave) the music in general is disappointing. The SFX do their job but the sampled voices are hilarious.

GAMEPLAY: Ambitious but flawed. Probe tried to make a action/packed platformer with deep gameplay. The game is like a combination of Mortal Kombat with a traditional platform. The control system is similar with that of Mortal Kombat. There are high/low punches and high/low kicks as well as uppercuts, sweeps, roundhouse kicks, body slams etc. Familiar stuff if you ever played MK. Perhaps it sounds nice but in fact the control is too complicated for a side-scroller, and needs a lot of practice. The jumping from one platform to another is very awkward and you will fall unwillingly many times. The control of the grappling hook is also not the best possible. A good thing is that there are many gadgets in the game, but the problem is that they require practice a-la MK or SF2. For example, many weapons require a 'dragon-punch' or 'hadooken' movement of the joypad and the pressing of a punch or kick button. You understand that this is awkward for a platformer. The two-player game is a nightmare. The difficulty level is high, and you will either be challenged or bored. There are 8 levels total. First there is Arkham Asylum, where you must fight your way through an army of raging inmates. After that there is a bank, where you must stop Two-Face from robbing the safe. Then there is the Hippodrome, or Circus if you prefer, where you must defuse a bomb. Here there is a tight time limit. Then you go to Two-Face's lair where you face the man himself and after that you go to Ritz Hotel where you face the Riddler himself. After leaving Ritz you must fight your way through an army of thugs in an abandoned subway station. When you escape the station, you must return to the Batcave which is under attack by Two-Face's and Riddler's goons. After completing this level you finally go to Claw Island, where you will fight Two-Face and the Riddler for the final time. Defeat them and you will view the disappointing ending sequence. Apart from the adventure mode, there is afighting mode where you can select apart from Robin a handful of enemies in one on one matches. This option, in my opinion, is rather pointless.

OVERALL: A missed opportunity. If they combined these graphics with a more simple gameplay, something like a Final Fight or Altered Beast, this game would be successful. The music could also be a lot better. They had a full range of movie music tracks available, why did they compose their own? They considered themseves better than Elliot Goldenthal? (the composer of the film). Batman fans should try without, of course, buying it but the rest should avoid it. It's not too bad but it's not worth any special attention either.

CHEAT: The game is tough. To see the later levels press Left, Up, Left, Left, A, B, Y at the title screen. (LULLABY). Press start to begin a normal game and a level select will appear. 

GAME REVIEW

GAME SCREENSHOTS

GAME MANUAL