Batman Begins

"Holy Linear Gameplay Batman!"

So recently I caught the epic movie, The Dark Knight, in theaters and like everyone I've been swept in a Batman mood. So I decided to rent the video game adaptation of Christopher Nolan's first Batman film, Batman Begins. Unfortunately the game offers little despite having some great production quality.

You play as Bruce Wayne, the billionaire whose parents were gunned down in front of him when he was but a little boy. This urges him to fight injustice, develop the stealth and strength of a super ninja, and dress up as the thing he fears most, a bat. With help from his butler and Wayne Enterprises vast technology, he becomes a hero and starts to clean the corrupt streets of Gotham. It is the plot of the movie, and if you haven't seen the film, then obviously I wouldn't recommend playing the game. There's actually very little this game doesn't spoil, with every key scene either being shown or playable. In between missions you get tons of footage from the movie, as well as in game cutscenes that do a good job as well. If you like Batman, you'll like seeing him doing the things he does.

Mainly because the graphics are really superb, showing Gotham City exactly as it's shown in the films. It's dark yet somehow magnificent. The levels are all detailed, whether you're roaming through the giant Arkham Asylum, or going through the the training grounds of Nepal where Batman was trained. At least, I think it was Nepal. I have a hazy memory. It's so magnificently made that every area in the game looks great. And it's other saving grace is that they literally got all of the key players from the film to reprise their roles in the game. Christian Bale is Batman. Micheal Caine is Alfred. And you also got Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, and even Liam Neeson all doing voicework for the video game. When you can get such a great cast of actors lending their voices to your video game, then kudos to you. And their acting is flawless, you totally feel like you're in the movie. Great presentation, great audio, excellent graphics. It's a beauty to watch.

And you know for the first half hour I was really digging Batman Begins. You get to run around as Batman and the big difference between this game and any other Batman game, is that it's more stealth oriented. Your not just beating up waves and waves of drones. Well, you are, but now there's a fear element where as the caped crusader you're supposed to spook all of your enemies into fearing you so that they crumble when under attack. It sounds like a great concept no? However the game follows a very repetitive and linear path where you're expected to go step by step everytime, leaving no room for creativity or fun. It's a series of puzzles more than it is a game and it was so boring after awhile.

The gameplay is like Splinter Cell meets Metal Gear Solid, meets an old Batman game. You do everything that Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher does as you sneak around in shadowy areas, climb up drain pipes, drag yourself along zip lines, and even get the drop on enemies and interrogate them for information on what to do next. Using Metal Gear Solid's radar system, you can see green and red dots that are your enemies, and they have a cone vision that shows how far they can see and how close you are to it. The green dots are unarmed, the red ones have guns. If you try and fight a gun toting goon, you're going to die instantly. Bullets really hurt in this game. And that's where the fear element comes in. You're supposed to trigger some big shock so that the enemies are scared, drop their guns, and can be beatable.

Basically how you scare them is by literally almost every time, destroying the environment so that something flies out at them and makes them wet their pants. You destroy the upper platforms, and barrels nearly fall on them. You operate a crane, and try to drop something on them. You hit a gas pipe and steam pours out and etc. Since approaching goons with guns is suicide, you NEED to activate these traps. And they all have a cutscene that triggers when you set them off too....and cutscenes can't be skipped! The game has a decent amount of checkpoints and most of them are well timed. But every now and then you're going to die in the trial and error gameplay, and you'll have to watch Batman talk to that dock worker (for example) for over a minute again, and again, and again! Unskippable cutscenes suck.

And the old Batman game element kicks in because after you've spooked them, you jump out and beat the hell outta them. If you've really scared them, they'll actually try running away from you instead of actually fighting. You can add to the fear by throwing flashbangs and gas grenades at them as well. The fighting is okay, but I wish the camera was a little more dynamic. Sometimes you never see the guy you're aiming at, or the guy who's coming up from behind and it just gets annoying. But I never had any real issues beating up folks, because they were all easy as hell to take down. Even the supposed boss characters. And that annoyed me. If I'm going to be fighting key characters like Ras Al Ghul and The Scarecrow, why do they fight just like any other goon? Add some tension to it!

Batman also has a slew of gadgets as his disposable, which are mostly only used to help him traverse around the area or to spook all the groups of enemies. He has the Batarang which he can throw to cut ropes or whatever. He can't use it to attack enemies which I thought was odd, but whatever. The grappling hook so he can reach the unreachable areas in the game. A computer hacker to operate cranes and whatnot. And a lock opener for those times where Batman just doesn't have a key handy. A thing about the computer hacker and lock opener though, they're just a series of moments where you have to time yourself with the X button. And they never get harder. So they seem pretty pointless. And there are keypads where you have to interrogate guys to find out the number to as well. This is the gameplay in a nutshell. But again, the biggest problem with this game is that you have no freedom to do whatever you want.

All you did was run into a group of enemies, figure out how to spook them, and then you beat'em up and move on. This is all you do. It wouldn't bother me too much if there hidden unlockables or multiple ways to get around and/or spook the goons. But there aren't! Every unlockable that you get, you literally can get just from beating the game once. Oh and unlockables include comic book Batman costumes (if you wanna sneak around in blue and grey as opposed to all black) and interviews with the cast and crew behind the game. You don't get to choose HOW you spook the enemies, it's always the same method and it makes for unsatisfying gameplay. It's not a game you'd ever replay because it's the same experience every time. At least in Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid, there were multiple ways of entering an area, and tons of hidden equipment and whatnot to explore and find. Here they force you to do it the exact same way everytime and that's lame. I wanted more freedom.

Actually there is one fun diversion and that comes in from the 2 Batmobile levels where you actually drive around on the streets of gotham, hit the boosters, and take down enemy vehicles by ramming into them. That whole section actually plays like a Burnout game, because everytime you smashed an enemy the camera would show their car getting totaled in super slow mo. It's nowhere near as pretty as Burnout, but it's pretty much the same thing. Those sections were really fun. But again, it's two levels. Two?! It's a video game make up situations where he has to ride it some more! But I digress. I wish they had more Batmobile sections because the linear gameplay of sneaking around and spooking enemies just wasn't fun to me.

Batman Begins wasn't a terrible game that is awful and should never be played. I'm not saying it's the biggest travesty to ever be put on a disc. The atmosphere is perfect and you know maybe some people may get satisfaction on discovering how to spook the goons and traverse around as Batman. Maybe you will and that makes it a rental at least in my book. But take it from me, you have no freedom in this game and I wanted that so badly. Even if you get satisfaction from solving the puzzles they won't be challenging on a second playthough and that lack of replayability sucks. It's repetitive and linear and I just thought it should've been so much more.

IN THE END...
Batman Begins has perfect presentation with an excellent celebrity voice cast. Batman fans may definitely wanna try this game. But if you ask me, it's too linear to have any fun with. You're forced to do the same thing every time you play, and the game's not that long or replayable. But that's just my opinion of course. A nice attempt, but a misfire.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/28/08

Game Release: Batman Begins (US, 06/14/05)