Batman: Dark Tomorrow

"Beware of The Programmer..."

The Joker, Lex Luthor, The Kingpin, Dr. Octopus, The Juggernaut...All of these villains are enough to make any superhero quiver in their boots. But, there is one villain above all others who strikes fear into the hearts of defenders of justice everywhere. His evil schemes have not been chronicled in any comic book, but he has been a cursed presence for many years. That villain is The Programmer, and his job is to make superheroes the world over lose face with horrible games designed to make their fans lose respect in them.

The Programmer has had many successful attempts to rob our favorite heroes of their dignity. Such past successes have been the notorious Superman 64, the awful Batman games Acclaim released back in the mid 90s, Sony's infamous take on Spawn that was released on the Playstation...And yet, all of these monstrosities cannot compare to The Programmer's most diabolical scheme ever - Kemco's Batman: Dark Tomorrow.

What makes this game a work of shear evil genius is that you can actually see promise of a good game here. An interesting storyline, cool cinemas, semi-decent graphics, and the chance to battle with a gallery of some of Batman's most famous (and even some lesser known that only the hardcore fans will recognize) villains all but guarantees this game will rob fans of the Dark Knight blind. But, they will discover all too late that they have once again fallen prey to this mysterious felon whose identity remains unknown, and has yet to be stopped.

Now Dark Tomorrow's premise is undeniably cool. Taking a page from the original comic book, rather than the WB cartoon series (which most of the recent Batman games have been based on), the game promises a darker and grittier look at Gotham City that video game players had previously been denied. The storyline seems simple enough at first. A mysterious mastermind villain is poised to blow up all of Gotham City with some kind of new super weapon. But, it's much deeper than that. A gang war, the kidnapping of one of Batman's closest friends, and Arkham Assylum going into lockdown are also worked into the plot. During the course of the winding plot, the heroic vigilante of the night will do battle with such famous villains like The Joker, Poison Ivy, and Mr. Freeze, as well as some not-so famous names like Black Mask, The Ratcatcher, and Killer Croc.

And so, off Batman goes to correct the wrongs of the villains before the whole city goes kaboom. Almost right from the start, you can tell that something is not quite right. Now, Batman is supposed to be a master of the martial arts, and skilled with many forms of weapons, right? Well then, why the hell can he only kick and punch, as well as do a weak little combo attack? A much more varied and deeper fighting system would have been greatly appreciated in this circumstance. I mean, you can't even block the attacks of your enemies! What this means is that battle resorts mainly to hitting the ''attack'' button over and over until either you or the enemy you're fighting kisses the pavement.

Ah, but it's not quite that simple. You see, Batman's not exactly the kind of guy who's into killing his enemies. As soon as he knocks an enemy down, he has a limited amount of time to slap a pair of handcuffs on them so that they stay down. If you don't do this in time, the enemy will stand right back up, and you'll have to knock them down again. As you can imagine, this can be quite a pain. You have to stand directly over said thug, and push a button to activate the required action. It sounds simple enough in theory, but when you consider you have to watch a brief cut scene of Batman performing this action every single freakin' time you do it, you can imagine it quickly gets annoying.

And that's not even half the fun! Imagine having to cuff an enemy when you are surrounded by four or five other thugs, all trying to shoot you while you're trying to immobilize the downed thug. Oh sure, you could try to knock down the other guys attacking you, but by the time you're done with that, the guy you were trying to cuff has already gotten back up again, and is ready for more. I tell ya, if I was Batman, I'd say screw the ''No Kill'' policy, and just open a can of butt whuppin' until the thugs just didn't feel like getting up anymore.

When you're not wrestling with the game's simple yet stupid fighting system, you're wrestling with the game's awful camera system. Like a lot of adventure games released on the current systems, Dark Tomorrow is a 3D exploration-based quest. Unfortunately, unlike most developers, Kemco has decided not to implement manual camera controls which would allow you to view the action from whatever angle you desire. Oh heavens no, you'd much prefer being at their mercy, and have them choose how you want to see things, right? Well, I hope you enjoy idiotic fixed camera angles that prevent you from seeing what the hell is going on, 'cause that's what you're gonna get here. You don't want to see your enemies, right? It's much more fun when the camera is positioned at such an angle that the enemies are hidden off screen, so you can be shot at by seemingly invisible assailants. Hey, it makes the game more challenging by not being able to see your enemies, right? The makers of this game may call it ''challenge'', I call it ''Idiotic Game Design''.

Control also suffers from the fixed camera angles. Let's say you're moving Batman toward the screen, and then the angle suddenly switches, so that Batman is facing away from the screen. He'll be moving in the direction you want, even though you're holding down the opposite direction on the analog stick. But, as soon as you let down go of the stick, the controls instantly change to suit the new angle. This is just plain sloppy, in my opinion. I won't begin to tell you how many times I entered a room, got thrown off by the sudden and unexpected angle change which made me stop my character briefly, and then proceeded to walk right back out of the room, because I started pushing in the direction that was previously making him go in the direction I wanted, only now it makes him go backward, because of the new perspective!! You also have to love the fact that the game opens with a level where you are required to swing from rooftop to rooftop with your grappling hook, and the camera is constantly switching on you, so it's easy to get disoriented, and lose sight of where you're swinging to.

Okay, talking about the gameplay is starting to make me mad. I've gotta think happy thoughts. (Rainbows and sunbeams and whiskers on kittens...) Unfortunately, playing Dark Tomorrow is not a very happy experience. Well, if I try, I can give credit to Kemco for giving players a wide variety of the Dark Knight's trademarked gadgets to use in their mission. Such items to implement include the Batarang, grappling hook, night vision goggles, and smoke bombs. It's a shame you hardly ever need to use these to claim victory, and when you do, they're very poorly implemented. Take the Batarang for example. Every time you want to use one, the game switches to a first person view, complete with a targeting system for you to select an enemy. Unfortunately, Batman somehow loses the ability to move his legs in this mode. Yes, you heard me, he can't walk in first person mode. If you want to move to get a better shot, you've gotta leave first person mode, and change your position. And even if you do manage to strike an enemy off in the distance with said Batarang, you have to exit first person mode, and then have five seconds to run all the way over to the thug to handcuff them so they don't get back up.

Thanks to the efforts of the devious Programmer, Batman fans can experience such ''fun'' for the entire length of the game. So, with a game so ineptly designed, how does this villain expect to lure in the Bat-fans to spend money on this? With presentation, of course! The Programmer knows that some people will rent or even buy a game based solely on eye candy. This, I must admit, is one of the few aspects that Kemco got right. The look of the game is appropriately dark, complete with some atmospheric effects like rain. All of the characters are large with a lot of detail, and even some cool animation, like the way Batman's cape flows behind him when he runs. There are some cool explosion effects, and all of the locations look like they came right out of a graphic novel.

However, the real bait to lure in the fans are the undeniably excelling CGI cinemas that move the story along during key plot sequences. These sequences are extremely well done, featuring smooth and detailed animation, a well-written script that stays faithful to the characters, and a general sense of drama that is strangely missing from the game itself. I guess it helps that these sequences were written by a very popular writer of the Batman comics. He obviously understood the material better than the game developers. The cinemas are so good, you almost wish Kemco had just scrapped the game, and released this as a straight to video CGI movie or something.

When it comes to sound, Dark Tomorrow once again fools you into thinking it's a quality product. Featuring a movie-style symphonic score and above average voice acting during the cinema scenes, you can tell that the sound got a lot more attention than the game itself did. Sure, it would have been nice if there was a bit more variety of sound during the game itself (the thugs make the exact same grunts and groans when you hit them, no matter who you're fighting), but in a game like Dark Tomorrow, you want to concentrate on the good stuff while you can.

Unfortunately, these bright spots are fleeting and far between. In the end, there is no denying that despite the 2 or so years this game spent in development, it still plays like it was never approved for quality. Hell, I'd almost mistake this for a first draft effort if it weren't for the fact that there are no bugs or glitches to be found in the game. That means that someone actually took the time to make this game, and that is a very scary thought indeed.

From the infuriating camera angles, to the obnoxious boss battles (''Hey, Mr. Freeze just froze me so I can't move! Okay, I'll just wait until the ice breaks, and I can movie again...Hey, Mr. Freeze just froze me again as soon as I was free to move!!...''), Batman: Dark Tomorrow is an exercise in licensed pain. It's a shame, because the story and the presentation aspects hint at a much better game. If only The Programmer had not worked his evil will upon it, maybe this title could have had a chance. In the end, the mysterious villain lurked back into the shadows after his work was done, and waited for the next game company to announce a superhero title, so he may offer his services to the unsuspecting innocent development team. Will the identity of this madman ever be revealed? Will there be a way to stop him before he ever strikes again? The world may never know...

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/08/03, Updated 07/08/03