INTRO
Comic book characters are notoriously tricky to portray in video games, and Batman is no exception. This is a crimefighter who hates guns, refuses to kill his enemies, and relies as much on gadgets, stealth, and detective work as he does on his fists.

It's no wonder, then, that for a good fifteen years, developers of licensed Batman games ignored what made Batman unique as a character, and focused on making a good game first before tacking on the denizens of Gotham City as an afterthought. I mean, you can't tell me that Sunsoft's NES Batman game or Batman Returns for Sega Genesis would have lost that special something if they had been about, say, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Thankfully, the 6th generation of consoles brought enough horsepower to handle a Batman game that could make players feel like they were playing as a comic-accurate version of the Dark Knight. According to my research, the game we'll be reviewing today, 2001's Batman Vengeance, was only the second serious attempt to give comic fans not just a good video game, but an authentic Batman experience, and led to the creation of several more titles that culminated in Rocksteady's legendary Batman: Arkham series.

Unfortunately, while Batman Vengeance is an important game, it's not a very good one.


STORY AND PRESENTATION
Batman Vengeance is set in the same universe as the 1997 animated show The New Batman Adventures, and takes advantage of an "episodic" format for its storytelling and aesthetics. Mark Hamill, Arleen Sorkin, Tara Strong and the legendary Kevin Conroy all return, among many others, to reprise their roles from the show. The game uses cel-shading to replicate the feel of New Batman Adventures' art style, with darker colours, large angular faces and a blood-red sky. The character models show their age, particularly around the mouth and eyes, and since this is a cel-shaded from the pre-Wind Waker days, it has that distinct "molded clay" look, especially in full motion video. Barring a few lighting errors and some blatantly unfinished cutscenes, for the most part, Batman Vengeance does an okay job of representing the show's look.

Fitting with the game's television roots, the story is split into five episodes. Episode 1 starts off with Batman rescuing a woman named Mary Flynn, whose son Toby has been kidnapped by the Joker and is being held ransom for $5 million. It then turns out that "Mary" was really Harley Quinn in disguise and the whole thing was a trap so Joker could kill Batman on his own terms. Batman wins the fight, but with Joker hanging on for dear life over some broken scaffolding, he tricks Batman into letting go of his hand, sending the Clown Prince of Crime tumbling down to his apparent death. Stricken by grief, Harley seemingly quits her life of crime. Batman, however, remains unconvinced that the Joker is really dead, and uses a tracking device he gave "Mary" earlier in the game to monitor Harley's activities.

The next two episodes have Batman stopping dastardly crimes by Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy respectively, while episodes four and five tie the three story arcs together and reveal how The Joker was behind everything, because let's be honest, this is the Joker we're talking about. Alas, the self-contained first three episodes are definitely superior to the final two, where the storytelling starts to get a bit muddied. Episode four is a complete genre shift where Batman narrates half the episode in flashback as if he were on a film noir set, which is about as jarring as you'd expect.

(EXAMPLE)

After a brief jump in quality which we'll talk about later, the budget really starts to fall apart during the second half of Episode Four, as well as all of Episode Five. There's less use of full-motion video, in-game cutscenes sometimes last less than five seconds, and there's a disjointedness to the story that makes it painfully obvious that Ubisoft Montreal had to cut some major corners to get the game out in time.

Unfortunately, while Freeze and Poison Ivy's plans are decent Saturday Morning cartoon villain schemes that are dumb in just the right way, when we eventually find out what Joker's been up to behind the scenes, it's just – nothing. Joker claims that he wants to try and burn Gotham to the ground and frame it on Batman, but when I went back and looked through all the cutscenes, I could only find one instance of either Joker or Harley trying to frame Batman for any sort of crime, and that was just an excuse for the police to chase him. It's a classic case of Joker hijacking a perfectly acceptable story, and you can bet that's not the last time I'll be saying that about a Batman game.

However, despite these flaws, the actual writing is passable, and the voice acting is good enough that even the cheesiest lines sound oddly endearing.

(EXAMPLES OF SAID LINES)


GAMEPLAY
If there's one word I would use to describe the feel of Batman Vengeance's gameplay, it's fractured. The controls are usually either too sensitive or not sensitive enough, and shifts in gameplay occur with almost audible clunks. There are occasional minigames to break up the action, but they don't feel rewarding or entertaining. For instance there's a set of three Pipe Dream clones in Chapter 2 where you have to line up electrical currents of the same colour, and while it's genuinely challenging on its own terms, any tension is sapped away because the game gives you a whopping fifteen minutes to complete all three puzzles, which is way more than you need. There's also a valve-cranking setpiece in Chapter 4, which has you undertake the incredible cognitive challenge of holding down the Y button until the paint on the wheel matches colours with the light. Riveting.

TALK ABOUT COMBAT AND USELESS STEALTH

TALK ABOUT FIRST PERSON MODE FOR GADGETS

Most of the boss fights are also disappointing, and this certainly won't be the last time I'll be criticizing a Batman game for making that mistake. While every boss has its problems, I was most disappointed with the fight against Mr. Freeze, who can only be defeated by using the Electric Remote Charge, a gadget was never required before and is only ever used one other time after this fight. Even worse, you have to lure Freeze underneath explosive tanks which are not only moving vertically on a conveyor, but also horizontally, meaning that sometimes you'll just have to waste your shot because the tank you rigged will have disappeared or is no longer lined up properly to damage Freeze. It's one of the most tedious sections of a game that's already difficult to play.

The vehicle sections are just as bad. These mercifully brief action setpieces have you controlling the Batplane and Batmobile while chasing down an enemy vehicle. The Batmobile has you chasing Poison Ivy's car through the streets of Gotham, while you dodge projectiles and press either the L or R buttons in accordance with the arrows appearing on screen. It somehow manages be both incredibly boring and very unfair. Meanwhile, the Batplane chase is a tedious flight through Gotham skyscrapers and above a highway, which would have been much more engaging if the game didn't make it an instant Game Over condition whenever the Batplane hits something that slows it down...and this is includes obstacles as innocent as directional signs on the highway.

That's not to say that I hated everything about this game, however. One level in Chapter 4, where you're being chased by a SWAT team through the rooftops of Gotham City and eventually take down a helicopter, is genuinely fantastic, and was by far the most entertaining part of the game. I also enjoyed the brief levels where you get to play as Bruce Wayne, seen here disguised as a lumberjack businessman after a barfight, where you have to sneak around a warehouse with a crazy passcode system straight out of Raccoon City, navigate an interesting jumping sequence without the ability to glide, and solve a clever door-switch puzzle. That being said, there was one sequence during his stealth level where I opened a door and the searchlight outside, which was still moving during the loading animation, immediately spotted Bruce without any time to react, leading to an instant game over.

Overall, as much as Batman Vengeance tries to feel like more than yet another beat-em-up, its other gameplay styles are either too broken or not developed enough to make much of a difference.


CONCLUSION
In conclusion, while I appreciate the effort to make a Batman game that wasn't just a simplistic side-scroller, the end product simply does not work. Perhaps the team was too inexperienced, their budget too limited or their ambitions too grand, but Batman Vengeance feels unfocused, clumsy, and at points just plain unfinished. While the story is passable and the voice acting is very good, it's the gameplay that lets Vengeance down - mechanics are underutilized, poorly explained, or just don't function the way they should. While it's not a complete write-off, I can't say I enjoyed my time with this game, and should only be bought by comic fans who are interested in seeing the baby steps in game design that led to 2009's Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Batman Vengeance gets TWO confirmed kills by Batman out of five.