Holy 75 Years, Batman! Part 3

The games

Batman has had quite a diverse history on the gaming scene, so here's a selection of the games I managed to play throughout my gaming years – so far.

Batman: The Caped Crusader (1988 – ZX Spectrum)

This was an adventure game that allowed you to pick up objects and had a small array of fighting moves, from punching (which was replaced with throwing the Batarang when you picked that up), drop kicking and fly kicking. I have already talked about this before in a previous post so I'm not going to repeat what was said there.

Batman: The Movie (1989 - ZX Spectrum/Amiga)

Of the many game licences that Ocean produced, this was one of the most well known ones. The game uses scenes from the movie for levels pretty well and the main scrolling platforming is broken up into driving levels and a Mastermind type level. Above I've mentioned both ZX Spectrum and Amiga because there were a couple of differences between them when it came to level design: for both, the platform levels were the same but the driving sections differed a touch. On the ZX Spectrum the design was a side on view similar to games like Action Biker with Clumsy Colin but the Amiga's design for those levels were more akin to WEC Le Mans or Crazy Cars.

Batman: The Arcade Game (1990)

I played this on the MAME emulator, having not known previously about it, and it's a pretty good game that features scenes and voices from the film. The scrolling fighting parts are split up by driving/shooting segments.

Batman (1990 - TurboGrafx 16/PC Engine)

Out of all the Batman games I played, this one peaked my curiosity. Here was a game that wasn't a detective style or a fighting/scrolling type, it was a maze game of the Pacman variety – or so many people like to compare it to, and I somewhat disagree but I do see where they're coming from. The levels are split up into areas from the film, like the Gotham streets and the Flugelheim museum, where Batman has to either pick up all the items or scrub artwork clean whilst avoiding the Joker's Henchmen. I haven't finished all of this game yet – there is part of a Let's Play on my YouTube channel – but from what I've played of it, it's pretty enjoyable.

Batman Returns (1992 – PC)

It seems that out of all the Batman Returns games there really hasn't been a good one. Some people swear by the SNES version, the Mega Drive version wasn't as good as its predecessor and the PC version had so much potential but was let down mainly by the fighting system that just left you to twiddle your thumbs whilst the game played by itself. The PC version, unlike the consoles, was more of a point and click game with lovely visuals – the puzzles weren't too bad either. It had a fairly decent amount of rooms to explore but again I have to mention the lacklustre fighting system. It essentially boiled down to selecting easy, normal or fierce for how well Batman will fight and the ability to aid the fight by clicking on one of the items in the utility belt. Lucasarts did a better job of fighting systems in their point and click games, namely Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. One for the remakes pile at some point methinks!

Batman Forever (1995 – PC/Mega Drive)

I can't remember if I played this on the PC or Mega Drive but either way, both of the games were the same. It was a typical platformer with adventure style elements and a fighting system that was...well...the same as Mortal Kombat – rumour has it that the game was built on the same engine. It wasn't too much of a bad game but not that great either.

So there we have it, we've covered the films, the comics and the games that I have come across in my time with Batman.

<< Previous: Batman 75 Years - Part 2: The Films

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