Trudging through the Business of Gotham

There’s no denying that the easier kind of game to design for BatmanOne of the longest running, consistently in-print superheroes ever (matched only by Superman and Wonder Woman), Batman has been a force in entertainment for nearly as long as there's been an entertainment industry. It only makes sense, then that he is also the most regularly adapted, and consistently successful, superhero to grace the Silver Screen. is a beat-em-up scrolling adventure. He’s a superhero, his job is to find bad guys and beat the ever loving snot out of them. While we have had games that have done more with the concept (like the absolutely sublime Batman for the NES) most games for the hero fall into the basic beat-em-up category. And that’s fine if the game is done well (see also: Batman Returns for the NES, another solid release), but you have to have a team, and a company, that cares enough to craft something really good, and not just something painfully generic.

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker for home consoles is painfully generic. It’s a long, slow, slog of a game that pits our titular hero – Terry McGinnis, the second Batman of the Timmverse – up against endless hordes of JokerOne of Batman's first villains, and certainly his more famous (and most popular), the Joker is the mirror of the Bat, all the insanity and darkness unleashed that the hero keeps bottled up and controlled. goons while the hero tries to battle his way to the expected end boss. Nothing about it is special or unique, instead working as just another brainless beat-em-up, and not even a very good one. Considering how interesting Batman Beyond could be, creating a new, different world for a new, different Batman, his game should have been just as interesting. But it wasn’t, with the whole enterprise feeling painfully ho-hum.

The game follows the plot of the direct-to-video movie, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. While following the Jokers, a gang in future Gotham City inspired by the past evil villain, Batman (McGinnis, that is) stumbles on their plan to grab some tech. He kind of foils them, but the gang members escape, going back to their ring leader. And who might that be? Why, it’s the Joker, seemingly somehow back from the dead after many, many years away. Foiled in his first attempt, Joker sends his minions off to rob Wayne Enterprises to get what he needs.

Joker’s goal? To seize control of a laser-equipped satellite that he can use to threaten (and likely destroy) Gotham. Terry has to chase after Joker, running through his many dangerous traps and tricks, all to confront the villain. But then it’s revealed that Joker isn’t really the Joker. Instead, Joker is Tim Drake, one time Robin in the service of the original Batman. Joker encoded a chip and implanted it in Tim’s brain when he’d captured Robin once, and then when Joker died, it put into motion the genetic alterations that would force Tim to become Joker. Only with Terry’s help can Joker be defeated and Time can be freed once more.

I’ll hold my critique of the story of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (you can read the review I wrote for it, above, to see all my thoughts there). What I will say is that while the game loosely follows the plot of that film, it doesn’t do it with style or aplomb. While other games based on Timmverse properties (like the Sega CD The Adventures of Batman & Robin or the PS2 Superman: Shadow of Apokolips) did what they could to feel like part of the animated series, going so far as to hire the original voice actors and great art that greatly mimicked the animation style Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker fails to do almost any of that, creating a far uglier, and less entertaining, game by comparison.

The game features a number of “cut scenes”, but in all cases these are simple stills (not even taken from the film) with text layered on top. No voice acting, no style, and not even good art. If the producers wanted to make this a game that felt like it was based on the movie, why not use actual clips from the movie with the voice acting included? The game mirrors the plot of the film, more or less. It could have just used actual footage to provide that needed verisimilitude. There had to be some way to work out a license for that when they licensed the film rights.

The only thing I can think is that Warners didn’t want people to buy the game and, having seen enough of the footage there, skip the movie altogether. But that doesn’t really make sense since this game follows the plot of the film. If you were going to skip the film because you got the story from the game, whether good or bad, the game still violates that regardless. Adding the footage in would have just made the game look better and feel more real. The game feels like a copy of a copy because the designers had to improv their way through making the film in their game.

And this isn’t a case of not being able to put footage in due to limitations of the console. The PlayStation version at least could have handled it. Maybe not the Nintendo 64 version, fair, but then just don’t put footage in that game or, even more shocking, maybe don’t make a Nintendo 64 version? Do the best possible version you can for the console that supports it and then, if you have to release on other consoles, make downgrades as needed. Ubisoft was willing to do that for the Game Boy Color version of this game, having it made by a different team than the console versions. Making the game feel like a proper adaptation should have been goal one.

But then, nothing about this experience was really top shelf, anyway. The game, even outside the bad cut scenes, is ugly. It’s one generic, darkly-lit hallway after another, in a game replete with them. Terry’s Batman goes from one end of a hall to the other, stopping at regular intervals to take on groups of eight or so enemies (two at a time) until that section is cleared, and then it’s on to the next, over and over, until the game is cleared. It’s tedious, it’s boring, and the combat isn’t even good enough to make this all feel worthwhile.

The problem is that the combat is incredibly basic. You can punch and kick or use one of Batman’s weapons (which amounts to a different kind of punch and kick, really). Enemy AI is dumb, so all you have to do is maneuver them, fight, run back and then do it again for almost everything. There are no combos, no special powers, nothing except punching and kicking endlessly. One hallway after another of just punches and kicks.

And even that might have been fine if the game played well, but it doesn’t. Due to it being a belt-scroller, like Final Fight or Streets of Rage, but done with 3D graphics instead of 2D sprites, the enemies are hard as hell to nail down. Your character has to be aimed perfectly to hit them, and oftentimes you’ll line up for an attack and miss. It’s too twitchy, too finicky. It should just be easy to play, to aim, to move, and it’s not. It’s more frustrating than interesting, and that severely holds the game back.

Which sucks because there are a few ideas I do like. When you get into a fighting section, the game automatically lets you know how many goons there are and how much health each of them have. You aren’t punching through endless waves just hoping it all ends since you know just when it will be over. I liked that I could anticipate the end of a fight and know just how much farther I had to progress.

Additionally, the game gives Terry three different suits (defensive, offensive, and agile) that can be used. Defensive boosts defense stats at the cost of offensive power. Offensive does the exact opposite, offensive over defense. Agile is used for specific platforming and navigation sections. If the game did more with these suits, gave each more powers and more uses, I think trying to work between them and find the best suit for each situation could have been interesting. It’s a wasted idea in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, but I could see how something like this could be put into a better, more interesting title.

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker is a bad game. There’s no doubt about that at all. Some reviewers likened it to Superman: The New Adventures (aka Superman 64), which I feel is a tad harsh, but I won’t argue that this is one of the lesser Batman titles around. It’s long, slow, boring, and fails to live up to the potential of the setting, the movie, and the series. There was a lot that could be done with Batman Beyond. This game does none of it.