Batman: Dark Tomorrow

" Not your father's batman, as far as quality goes..."

Supposedly at E3 01 this game was a Gamecube exclusive. After it was announced as multi-platform gamers of all consoles were stuck waiting for what looked to be the successor of Batman Vengeance, which was a good start to a new generation of batman games. Unfortunately, in the land of gaming one slip leads to your demise, and when companies forget to add a special ingredient called quality, the final product is disaster. There is no other way to cut it, the caped crusader has met his match.

Although batman has sprawled with the greatest of enemies, can he keep up with his wicked adversaries? This “bad guy” is so brutal his name can only be…Kemco! You see, he uses poor taste in video games to distract gamers in need of fun. If you think good guys always win, then Dark Tomorrow will be a shocking revelation for you. If change is good then what is this?

Batman is the nomad of the streets as he scrapes along Gotham city fighting the good fight against the baddies. The game fails to produce any real enjoyment whatsoever, but the feel of being batman is awesome…or would be if the game had been coded correctly. You see while fighting your camera swings around in a random matter. When you swing long lengths on your bat cable you will have no idea what is going on. The camera is possibly the worst thing to come out of these types of adventure games.

Platforming and action games were not really supposed to be mixed together right this. I would rather have either a 2D batman platformer, or a first person shooter. While my ideas may sound odd for a next generation game, if you can somehow get your hands on this pile of trash without wasting too much time or money you will soon find out any ideas at all would have been welcome from the developers.

What happened to the game testers? Although Vengeance was indeed very glitches, it didn't have ¼ of this games glitches which plaques the game in all areas. Iv'e had the game freeze on me around 10 times, the music has skipped tons of times, batman has been stuck in the air, invulnerable to any attack, has been a big black sliding block, and the worst of my complaints would be where the camera just swings around a building, forcing you to restart a level that you may have been near the end of. I don't care how much money, time, or experience you have on the game, stuff like this should never happen.

Now with all respect Batman nerds may still want to get this game. Although I am a batman fan I do not classify myself with the rest of you freaks that have fanny packs that you carry around calling them bat belts. I also do not sport bat goggles, watches, or other items on a regular basis. However, batman does have these utilities at his every wish through the “adventure” he has bat cuffs, bat cables, batarangs, night vision, and some other things that aren't coming to me right now.

Stealth, action, guns, combat, batman underwear! This “dark” game puts you in the role of the caped crusader searching to put all the baddies out of their misery. One big problem, this dark game won't let you kill your enemies (brilliant!) Instead, you must knock them (crouching tiger hidden dragon style if you wish) then snap out the cuffs and secure them around the enemies' wrist in a very painful and dark manner. The best part about this is the challenge! It is good to get all the enemies out cold and handcuffed so obviously they would wish to hunt you in a pack. Well get this, while you are cuffing up a bad dude, another will be shooting you with a gun or kicking you off of him (once again, the intelligence here is as blinding as a fresh bat mobile straight out of the neighbors marijuana fund-raising car wash.) Watch in horror as batman is relentlessly gang-banged by thugs of Gotham City.

Ugly brown drab backgrounds placed throughout a dead city, stiff controls, and jaggies everywhere! This isn't the correct formula for success. However, I would like to see another batman game come out for Xbox. A little more like Vengance and nothing like this at all. Batman Dark Tomorrow. didn't have good intentions, and didn't fulfil any of today's standards.

1/10

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 06/13/04, Updated 06/14/04