(If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS/Atom feed. Thanks for visiting! - Michael)
Batman: Vengeance is the second game released for home consoles based on the popular Batman: the Animated Series (The first was the excellent game by Konami for the SNES released in 1994/1995). You are given control of Batman in this (mainly, exceptions discussed later) 3rd person adventure as you face off against the famous gallery of Bat-villains like the Joker, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, and others. While Batgirl makes appearances throughout the game, and Alfred appears briefly near the beginning, Nightwing and Robin are non-existent.
Technical Aspects:
Graphically, Vengeance is what you would hope for in any cartoon game: it looks like the cartoon. Everyone looks like they should, although fans of the series should note that Vengeance takes the style of the newer version of the series: angular, unrealistic characters. The main story cutscenes are CG rendered and compare favorably to the series. What keeps Vengeance from looking truly spectacular is that it doesnât seem to use any of the extra power the X-Box has over its competition. There is one particular level that I thought looked fantastic. Itâs a level whereâs your only goal is escape and youâre traveling along the rooftops at night (of course) in the rain. Itâs one of the best moments in the game, and looking around I couldnât help but think of how much I felt like I was living the cartoon. Batman and other characters are modeled and animated pretty well, and the frame rate is smooth throughout. During in-engine cutscenes, dialogue isnât synced very well with the moving of lips, but I didnât think of it as a major issue. I did have a problem with how Batman fights. While heâs animated smoothly, his fighting looks awkward. If youâre not sure what I mean, imagine a man walking. An artist drawing the man walking at 30 frames per second would be considered smooth animation. However, if the man was animated at 30fps walking as a chimp does, that would look awkward.
Score: 7.5/10
Aurally, Vengeace deserves solid marks. The score is good, but where the sound stands out is the voice acting. All of the major voice actors of the series are in the game, like Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Batman. Just like on the graphical side, however, Vengeance doesnât do much to distinguish itself with the tools the X-Box provides for developers. While supporting 5.1 sound, itâs not used very well. It also doesnât support custom soundtracks, but thereâs no reason to. Again, like the graphics, the sound is good, but thereâs nothing here that makes it spectacular.
Score: 7.5/10
Gameplay:
There are various issues which prevent Batman from reaching the heights that Spider-Man (PS/DC), another comic book hero based game, did. To use any of the Bat gadgets such as the batarang or the batgrapple, you need to slip into first person mode. While this wouldnât be too bad if you could function normally otherwise (run, fight, jump), you canât. In first person mode, you can use an accessory you have or look around and move, but thatâs it. There is no auto-aim help in first person mode or an option to adjust the sensitivity or inversion available. Try to fight with batarangs a few times, and youâll see that itâs basically a waste of time. This is a real shame, because a lot of the fun of being Batman comes from trying out all the cool stuff Batman has. Thereâs really no reason for first person mode, and whoever at Ubi-Soft thought this was a great idea simply made a poor design decision. The inclusion of Batplane and Batmobile levels are similar in that they only serve to hinder gameplay. Again, the idea of them sounds fine. But the execution is horrible. Theyâre easily the most frustrating levels of the game. They seem like filler material, where the designerâs simply thought, âHey, people like that stuff, we have to include it in.â The Batmobile level is much better than the Batplane one, but with both, youâll just want to get through them as soon as possible while you curse at the continue screen that will keep popping up every 10 seconds. Fighting in Vengeance allows only for 1 on 1 fighting. This is disappointing considering Vengeance seems like a perfect candidate for a street brawler type of game, like the Streets of Rage series and Batman Returns for the SNES.
Anyone familiar with Batman knows that while he has no superpowers, he is a martial arts expert and thus can take down hoards of common thug with ease. If you were to play Vengeance, youâd never guess that. Each fighter you face has the ability to take you down if you donât play carefully. What does âcarefullyâ mean? Towards the latter parts of the game, you will find yourself holding the block button until you think you âmightâ be able to sneak a combo in before he resumes. If you guess wrong more than once, you might find yourself dead. Also adding to this lovely mix will be cheap shots from other thugs if theyâre close enough to you, even when youâre already in your 1 on 1 fighting mode already. It is impossible to stop this from happening and you can only hope to defeat the thug youâre currently facing so you can take out the next before you get double teamed to death. Adding to the many game sins is the ultimate sin, and the most common sin (with 3rd person perspective games), bad camera. While you can center the camera behind you, the camera will get in your way and absolutely kill you on the jumping portions of the game. For the most part, you can deal with the camera, but 10% of the time, it is absolutely frustrating and you should consider it a credit if you havenât thrown your controller at the wall at least once by the time you finish the game. As with the Bat-vehicle levels, you will find yourself fighting through these parts and just hoping to get by. The actual playing of Vengeance can be described in one word: CHEAP. Not hard, CHEAP.
Score: 4/10
Other (Story/Replay/Multi):
Thereâs no multiplayer in Vengeance, so thereâs nothing to be covered there. Story wise, Venegance isnât too bad. I may be a bit biased since Iâm a fan of the comics, movies, and animated series, so perhaps I have higher expectations. While nowhere near the quality of an actual episode, it compares very favorably to other video games. The game will probably take players around 7 hours to complete. The only reason to reply the game is to unlock special bonuses that enable cheats like invulnerability or unlimited batarangs. One nice option to have is that after for every part of the game you have beaten, it unlocks, for later viewing, the cutscene that you have just viewed. That way, you wonât need to play through the game again to revisit the story.
Wrapup:
Technically, Vengeance does a fine job of recreating the animated series atmosphere into a game. Gameplay, however, is where GAMES need to make their mark. Despites itâs many flaws on the gameplay side, I simply canât find myself hating the game. I enjoyed it, but I think that a lot of this was because the game was so short. If the game had been 10-15 hrs long, I probably would have trashed the game long before completion. As it is, Vengeance is a sometimes fun, but usually frustrating game. At a discounted price ($20) or if youâre a hardcore Batman fan(if you can discuss, in detail, all of the versions of the Huntress, youâre hardcore), it warrants a purchase. Otherwise, if you like Batman at all, definitely give it a rental and if you donât, then, obviously, spend your money elsewhere.
Final Score: 6/10
Review System : 32â SVideo/DD 5.1
(originally published in GamersInfo.net)
