Batman Begins

Moby ID: 18804

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Critic Reviews add missing review

Average score: 68% (based on 40 ratings)

Player Reviews

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 11 ratings with 1 reviews)

The Dark Knight Returns To Glory!

The Good
Batman is one of the most classic comic book characters of all time, first appearing in Detective Comics in 1939 created by Bob Kane. Since then Batman has gone through many interpretations some great, others embarrassing. Batman’s origin is as follows, one night young Bruce Wayne is leaving the movie theater with his parents Thomas and Martha Wayne when a thug comes up to mug them when they resist the thug shoots and kills Bruce’s mom and dad and Bruce vows on his parents grave to fight the evil that took their lives, building his mind and body to the human peak of excellence to fight the criminals on the streets. Originally The Batman killed, worked alone, and fought remorseless, Psycho killers like the Joker, Two-Face, mob bosses and evil scientists but something changed and ruined The Batman’s image.

In the 1940 they introduced Robin the boy wonder which isn’t so bad by its self but it could be argued that this led Batman on a slippery slope getting lighter and brighter eventually leading to the campy comics and show of the 1960’s. Batman still did not recover from this lame image until the 1970’s when Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams started writing more mature stories.

Then in 1989 Tim Burton Made “Batman” which brought the dark image back to the mass audience and in 1992 made “Batman Returns” which kept the dark tone but some could argue too twisted and dark.

Then, Everything went down hill when Joel Schumacher took the directors chair and, in 1995 released the campy, colorful and, embarrassing Batman Forever, but as if the last one wasn’t bad enough he returned with the abysmal Batman and Robin in 1997 as if using the 60’s show as a template they made it even more corny all this new set of movies introduced was Bat-nipples, Bat-Credit Cards, bad one-liners, and nonsense villain alliances. Someone had to and would come along to restore Batman’s Image.

In 2003 Christopher Nolan began early work on a new movie to restore Batman’s image after many failed attempts to do so, this new movie would wipe the slate clean from the old Batman movies showing his origin which had never been shown on the big screen before, showing him training and fighting off the local Mob corrupting Gotham City while fighting drug trafficking with the Jonathan Crane’s ( aka Scarecrow) Hallucinogenic drug gas with a larger scheme behind it all. This brought everyone hope again that Batman could tell an engaging serious story instead of past camp fests with 2005’s “Batman Begins” and its 2008 sequel “The Dark Knight“. (Which is Fucking Awesome by the Way).

A game for Batman Begins also came out in 2005 developed by Eurocom and published by EA which boasted an innovative fear and reputation system this was poised to be the greatest Batman game of all time Did it live up to the hype? The answer is Yes and No.

Featuring the voices of most of the cast Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, and Katie Holmes it closely follows the films plot. The game actually has some pretty fun Gameplay. The Gameplay consists of Batman in a area like the Gotham Docks for example Batman will sneak around scare criminals(since criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot) to make them easier targets and beat the crap out of them. Batman has a vast array of moves punch, kick, roundhouse, a block breaker, and a multi spin attack sometimes you can also separate thugs and take them out one by one using a stealth attack from above or behind. Every now and again the game gives you a Burnout style Batmobile level to break up the monotony you basically have to get to a certain point in a timely fashion meanwhile running into thugs cars a maneuver called a thug takedown, and are a pretty fun, nice change of pace.

As mentioned above the sound is excellent, having most cast members reprise their roles, and the music fit’s the games atmosphere well. The sound effects are typical fair for a game like this. The Graphics still look pretty good even by today’s standards Batman character model looks very good and the environments are very well done.

The Bad
Now for some reason the developers decided to make this game overly simplistic by usually telling you what to do even if its already obvious but, other times the game doesn’t give you enough information and finding out what you do is trial and error like one time in particular you have to turn the gas on a stove and throw a batarang at it but if you do it before the game tells to you nothing happens.

The game also points you where you need to go and unlike most games of this type there is not multiple ways to do something its the way the developer wanted it or not at all.

Also it is too easy to be killed in this game if you face a gun wielding thug before scaring him to make him drop it, then you can be easily killed even though both in the movie and the game it makes a point to mention that Batman’s suit is bullet proof.



The Bottom Line
All in all this game is a fun Batman game to play, whether It be that you want to play as The Dark Knight or want to get prepared before you go see the excellent film “The Dark Knight”, then this is a good game to spend a little time with.

I would use this time to recommend and endorse the film "The Dark Knight" but that is not my place this is a game review... Oh, the hell with it this is fucking amazing movie go see it if you haven't or if you have see it again.

Xbox · by Classic Nigel (108) · 2008

Contributors to this Entry

Critic reviews added by Wizo, Yearman, nyccrg, Patrick Bregger, Big John WV, Jacob Gens, Alsy, Jeanne, Alaka, Cantillon, Spenot.