Catwoman

"From the combined talents of DC Comics, Warner Brothers film studios and Electronic Arts, we get this average piece of gaming software. . ."

Introduction
Catwoman has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the pages of DC Comics, and her share of movie and television tie-in over the years has helped to ensure the character's appearance in a variety of crossover product promotions, including the obvious video games. With the Summer 2004 release of the Warner Brothers' big budget film adaptation of Catwoman's story, comic book fans must face yet another video game cash-in on a semi-popular comic license.

Movie-to-video game translations have a long history of producing sub-par quality gaming products. With Electronic Arts at the helm (fresh off their successful Lord of the Rings translations), there was hope for Catwoman's long-time fans, but in their big screen project, Warner Brothers took a number of liberties with the Catwoman character (changing her name, her costume, her origin, etc.), ensuring that most comic fans would be disappointed. The fact that professional movie critics unanimously panned the film does not help matters. How bad can the end results be? Thankfully, Catwoman the game isn't nearly as bad as it could have been given the circumstances.

Gameplay: 7
Catwoman does deliver the goods where it matters the most, the basic game play. I say “basic” because Catwoman's game play is fairly simplistic, consisting of roughly equal platform and combat elements. As Catwoman, you have the ability to run on all fours, climb walls and whip (grab and throw) a variety of interactive objects in the environment (a la Indiana Jones), and this makes up the majority of what you'll be doing.

Control can be a bit troublesome at first. Catwoman moves in the direction you press the thumb pad, and this works well enough until the camera suddenly and unexpectedly slides out 90 degrees in the middle of a series of platform jumps high off the ground. Of course, the developers throw you immediately into a series of fistfights and platform jumps at the game's start without the benefit of a training level, so you're probably better off suffering through the first action-packed level and enjoying level 2's somewhat more leisurely pace before forming an opinion.

Catwoman is at her best exploring her environments and traversing the different platform puzzles. She can climb walls, swing from poles and various whip-able wall points, cling to some vertical surfaces, etc. Along the way, she can use her cat sense to view the paw prints of Midnight, the Egyptian cat that gave her its feline powers. This works as a built-in hint system, giving you an idea of where you're supposed to go or what you're supposed to do when/if you get stumped. Most of the time, you have to use Catwoman's unique climbing or acrobatic abilities to reach certain spots, often with the character very high off the ground.

Fortunately, your health bar is very forgiving where high falls are concerned. (You will find yourself flat on the ground after falling several stories a number of times on some of the tougher platform levels, and you'll be glad you didn't die instantly.) If you manage to find Midnight the cat hidden with certain levels, you'll also gain access to eight additional lives for that level, but most experienced players should have no trouble completing a given level with just one life.

Combat against generic goons (and occasionally security guards and police officers) makes up the other half of Catwoman's game play, and your basic offensive moves are to either kick or whip your enemy. You defeat said opponents by knocking them into an exit point in a particular level (trash container, elevator shaft, out a window, etc.). As you complete each level, you earn points that can later be used to purchase additional moves (ability to disarm opponents, attack from a distance, taunt, etc.). You earn points by knocking enemies into destructible objects, performing certain moves on opponents, completing platform events within a time limit, finding Midnight and other objects within a given level, etc. Basically, the more points you earn, the larger your attack arsenal becomes.

Story: 3
Story is one area where Catwoman the game really lets fans down. You have the good-hearted cop after Catwoman for all the wrong reasons, the evil corporate executive out to kill innocent civilians for profit and of course our hero out for revenge. Are you interested in something deeper than this? Unfortunately, the short FMV cinemas provide little in the way of explanation or understanding for why the characters behave as they do. The game really only has these three basic characters (surrounded by a sea of generic goons) to hinge the story upon, but the little we know about them never expands beyond this.

Granted, the celluloid source material didn't give the developers much to work with, but the rich history of the comic book character could have been used to flesh out the story and characters somewhat. As is, we have little more than a few comic book cliches thrown together into some haphazard semblance of a plot. If you hadn't seen the film or read the comics over the years, you might wonder who or what Catwoman is. The game doesn't give you enough background to begin to know the characters, much less care about them.

Graphics: 9
Graphics is one of the other few areas where Catwoman truly excels. The title character does look a lot like Halle Berry (in leather) from the film, and the environments and lighting show enough detail and provide enough interaction to make Catwoman's world seem plausible. (You can tell the developer spent a lot of time working on the title character because she animates amazingly well and has a number of unique moves.)

A Sharon Stone look alike is here as well and looks close enough to the aging original to pass, but the developer must not have gotten permission to use Benjamin Bratt's likeness because the detective character is completely different. The hordes of generic goons, guards and stiffs you'll face all look alike and don't move nearly as well, but you'll often be too busy assaulting them to truly notice.

Sound: 6
Catwoman's audio has been universally slammed in the gaming press, but it's not nearly as bad as you may have heard. The orchestral background music fits well enough with the environments and changes with your location. The dialogue is the audio's biggest problem, and the problem is that there isn't nearly enough of it (by all the characters combined) to tell any kind of a story. You as the player are left to imagine for yourself what motivates the characters because they don't tell you much of anything about themselves.

The developers did bring in Academy Award-winning best actress Halle Berry to record a few lines of dialogue, but when I say “few” I mean it. She probably recorded her portion of the game's entire script in under ten minutes, and the supporting characters (including all the goons and grunts) added maybe another ten minutes total combined. I am giving bonus points here for using the voice of an award-winning actress, but the script writers really should have put some more work into this.

Play Time/Replayability: 3
Catwoman is a relatively easy game once you figure out how to use her various abilities and figure out where to go in each level. Unfortunately, you only get to play through eleven individual levels spread across a mere six locations. As a result, your whole adventure as Catwoman is over very quickly, about five hours or less for the average player. What's your reward once you've done? You can unlock some concept and production artwork galleries, but that's about it (no alternate costumes, no hidden levels, no harder difficulty levels, no secrets, nothing).

Final Recommendation
This game is fairly interesting given its comic book lineage, the involvement of Halle Berry and the poor press reviews received by both the game and the film it was based on. Despite the abundance of bad press (51% average at gamerankings.com), Catwoman the game didn't make it onto any of the "year's worst" nomination lists (unlike the film), and the game is certainly nowhere near as bad as last year's Charlie's Angels adaptation or this year's Bad Boys: Miami Takedown.

Catwoman quickly fell to the $20 value price range and has been spotted in various bargain bins since then. If you're a Halle Berry or Catwoman fan or simply like adventure games, you'll probably enjoy this title for $10 or less. If you're still undecided, you're probably better off renting it or skipping it altogether. Catwoman certainly isn't a bad game, but it does have some serious flaws holding it back.

Of course when you start off with a film like this year's Catwoman, you don't have a lot of quality material to work with. The developers should have relied more on the rich history of comic book material to flesh the character and story out. The game is simply ok as it is, but it could have actually been good or even great with further refinement.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/05