Review: Batman: Vengeance

So a few weeks ago you may remember my review of Batman Begins and also I mentioned that I had two games. Well for those of you still holding your breathe to find out what that second game is then the wait is over (you can let that breathe out now. If you can hold your breathe for this long, then email in cause that’s freaky and we can make some money off you).

The game is Batman: Vengeance, I’m assuming it was easy to guess that as you read the title. Well after the great game play from Begins this game is such a let down.

The game is essentially four episodes from Batman: The Animated Series. You fight four villains from the series; Joker, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze and Harley Quinn. This is all in an attempt to prevent Joker from destroying the city in a hair brain scheme.

The game sees the designs, music and voice talent from the animated series and this is the game’s major plus point. The graphics have been done with a lot of care and consideration and it works really well giving the game something different from the more realistic versions of Batman.

The voice acting is the great standard that we have come to expect from the DC game universe with a return to the roles from all the major actors in it. Kevin Conroy voices Batman and Mark Hamill is the Joker and combined with the graphics it forms a visual and audio treat. I feel that perhaps if it had looked the same, but with different voices it wouldn’t have worked at all.

However that’s where all the good stuff ends. So my first problem is the game play. I don’t know who decided on it, but I hope that they have been fired. Batman can punch and kick and that’s it and it gets repetitive fast. The only way Batman can use any of his gadgets, it seems to me, is if he is beside them, they are looking the other way, and whistling. Otherwise they don’t work. One level the only way to win is by entering first person and firing electro-batarangs. But every time you enter a new part it changes back to third person. Which is fine for some levels but one this level it makes it nearly impossible to complete.

The camera over the shoulder is terrible and it is so easy to get completely lost in what on earth is going on in the action as it has a unique ability to lock on to something and no matter what you press not change back to over the shoulder. This means you miss something or can be fighting a villain and have no idea what’s going on as your stuck with the camera looking at a girder on the other side of the room.

The way the game is set out seems to be done to cash in on the Batman animated series success. The game is split in to four episodes which are completely separate and have a slight tenuous link to each other and the over arcing theme. This would work well for a TV series but it doesn’t for a video game. I don’t want to feel like its a TV series that’s why I watch TV not play computer games. What I want is to play something new without a clear definition of the chapters as its annoying besides that’s what the cut scenes are for to show a new chapter but it seems that they forgot this when they were making it.

This is a terrible game and I think even the most hard core Bat-fan would struggle with this game. Despite the voice acting and the style I just can’t get past the frustrating game play, episodes and terrible camera.

Batman: Vengeance: