After E3 of the year two thousand and one, I found myself excited about a quite a few of the Nintendo “launch” games. I put parentheses around the word launch, because about 5/6 were delayed and still haven’t come out yet. (Lousy Nintendo) One of these games was Batman: Dark Tomorrow. When it got delayed, I was still itching for my batman fix. And lo and behold, Ubi Soft comes out of nowhere to deliver its own Batman game just after launch.

I soon found myself much more excited about Vengeance than I ever was about Dark Tomorrow. Mostly because it’s based off the totally kickass show “Batman: The Animated Series.” I still have a lot of the old episodes on tape, (luckily, since they cancelled the show), and I must say the Ubi Soft has done an excellent job of recreating the artistic style and general mood of the show. It’s not perfect, and in fact, there are some glaring flaws, but any Batman lover is going to be satisfied. Being a huge Batman nut, this game hit me just right.

Control ranges from excellent to extremely poor as Batman roams Gotham City. Although I guess I’ve never seen Batman run at a jog, Ubi Soft probably should have made his control better than sprint or walk. That’s right, no use of the fancy analog stick in this game. Move the analog stick up a little and Batman will walk; move it up a little more and he starts sprinting. This can make it rather difficult when trying to maneuver carefully around ledges or jumping from one small platform to the next.

Now who wouldn't want to drive that?

By pressing R, the game will pause and a healthy list of available Batgadgets will be displayed. This includes such classics as the batgrappler, batarangs, binoculars, nets, etc… Once a gadget is selected, the camera switches into a first person view and aiming of the gadget is used by controlling Batman’s arm via the c-stick. It works pretty well, except that the control is oversensitive. You’ll have to take your time aiming to position it right, and while that may work for grappling onto buildings, it makes it nearly impossible to disarm an enemy with a batarang without getting shot to hell.

Once you encounter an enemy, the camera switches into a sort of battle view. Unfortunately, Ubi-Soft didn’t include some sort of easy targeting button. Instead, the only way to get the battle view is to either punch an enemy or have him punch you. And since the enemies chase you whether you’re locked on or not, chances are you get slugged a few times before you can even throw a punch. Another annoying thing is that a favorite move of the larger enemies is to grab batman and squeeze him to death with a big bear hug. Once Batman escapes by rotating the joystick quickly, the battle view is lost, the giving the baddy amply opportunity to smack you around some more before Batman gets reoriented. It’s all these little annoyances that turn Batman: Vengeance into a less than spectacular game.

The game uses Batman's flying skills quite often.

But enough about the games flaws, because I’d like to express that this game is actually pretty fun; the best part being Batman’s cape. Using Batman’s cape to glide from one building to the next that makes me glad I own this game. I just wish there had been more times when I got to do it. You’ll only be gliding huge distances two or three times, unfortunately. But that’s most likely because the game is so linear. It’s not such a bad thing actually, since it really gives the game a sense of purpose. I don’t suppose Batman would just wander about the city aimlessly.

The voice acting in Vengeance is superb. Ubi has gathered all the voice actors from the old tv show including Kevin Conroy and Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker. Heck, I play this game just to hear all the old voices again. It’s also all very well written, and plays out just like an episode of the show would. Ubi Soft has done a terrific job of recreating the atmosphere of the show, and for that I thank them. The graphics are just as good, except for the fact that all the characters have mitten hands. That seemed unnecessary and odd.

The view switches to first person for aiming.

As for replay value, the game does come to an end, and when it does you’ll have to really search for reasons to go back. Collecting envelopes in certain levels will give you codes that spice up the game a little bit. But the 20 levels seem to just fly by, and then you’re done.

Over all, Batman: Vengeance is a worthy buy for anyone Batnut like me, and worth a rental for everyone else. Best Batman game to date, period. Yay!

Joe Rodemeyer