Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu

The Good
On the anniversary of his parents' death, Batman faces his greatest challenge: the Rise of Sin Tzu. Well, it's basically like every other night in Gotham. Someone has let the loonies out of Arkham and Stonegate Prison and Batman, Robin, Nightwing, and Batgirl have to send them back. This Batman game, which takes its design cues from the animated series, is a one or two-player brawler.

Batman is the strongest of the characters, but is a little slow. Robin is on the other end of the spectrum, being fast but not terribly strong. Nightwing and Batgirl fall somewhere in the middle. Each character has basic attack moves and access to Batarangs, which stun opponents. As the characters progress through levels, they earn points which they can spend to upgrade their attack moves, purchase combos, or buy new items.

Stay with the game long enough and you'll encounter Bat-foes Scarecrow, Clayface, Bane, and Sin Tzu (duh). You'll also encounter more than your share of their henchmen—and how does that work? Where do you have to be in your life to blindly follow a guy dressed up like a Scarecrow? Other Bat-characters make cameo appearances.

And here's my confession: I make an effort to complete games before I review them, but this apple was rotten from the get-go.

The Bad
The brawler is a classic game type where the "hero" character progresses through the game by following a linear path and engaging in melee combat with numerous enemies. The game is punctuated with boss battles and ends when the "hero" character defeats the main boss. This describes a wide range of games from the classic Double Dragon to the current X-Men: Legends, and there's definitely a place for games like this, especially ones similar to Sin Tzu. Or rather, any game other than Sin Tzu.

I first tried the single-player mode and chose the Dark Knight himself. I made it through a few levels before becoming too annoyed. Batman begins in Crime Alley and immediately criminals start jumping through windows and popping up through manholes. Batman has to slug them into submission before he can continue.

That's a key point.

There is an invisible wall that keeps Batman from progressing unless he defeats all the bad guys on that block. Unfortunately, Batman has to rescue innocent civilians and only has 2-1/2 minutes to get to each one. So while Batman should be able to rush to the civilians, he has this invisible shield to contend with. Often you can see the civilian who needs to be rescued, they'll be about ten feet away, but you can't get there because you still have enemies to fight. The timer counts down, hits zero, and steals one of Batman's precious lives in exchange for a measly fifteen seconds.

Figuring that I needed back-up, I recruited my wife and this time Nightwing and Batgirl took to the streets. I have to admit that the two player game works better. There's the same number of enemies, but it's no longer as overwhelming. We made it easily past the part I was having trouble with. Then we stumbled in the next area where we had to disable bombs, which were 2-1/2 minutes and five invisible walls apart. Ugghh.

The Bottom Line
Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu is disappointing because there's a good game hiding under all the dross. The combat system works well and I always appreciate games where the main characters gain more attacks. It looks fine and sounds great. But it resembles a quarter-eater you'd find in an arcade without the option to pump more quarters in to continue. Its lousy check-point save system sends players back to square one with alarming regularity adding a level of frustration that makes this game very easy to walk away from.