Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

"There is no God."

''Holy horrible games, Batman!'' What do you get when you make a really bad Streets of Rage clone and fail to put any type of saving grace in it at all? You get Bullcrap Beyond, that's what. Sometimes bad games are fun to play solely because you can get a laugh out of them. Well, guess what? You can't even do THAT with this game!

Story: 3
How exciting, Joker's goons are beating the crap out of some wussy security guard at some stupid building with a bunch of chemicals in it and it's up to *THE NEW BATMAN* to save the day. Bruce has been reduced to a has been who gives his successor advice from home. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Gameplay: SHOOT ME
ARRRRRGH!! What is this!? Walk up to enemies, mash attack button, go through door, watch boring cutscene, repeat. Oh yeah, you can jump kick too, although you won't have to at all. There are some weapons and items you can pick up along the way, but trust me, they're not as cool as they sound by far. The nunchucks you get (right at the very beginning of the game) are so slow it's not even funny, plus the weapon only does damage on it's last frame of animation. Oh well, at least your enemies are also slow, not to mention retarded, so they just walk right into the nunchucks, as well as your fists and feet. Oh, did I mention that if you jump on a table, your enemies can't hit you at all and you can whup them at your leisure!?

The final nail in the gameplay coffin is this: A small exclamation point icon indicates that a box has an item in it (just like in real life! :: rolls eyes ::).

Graphics: 1
The graphics in this game make the graphics in the GBC port of Crystalis look spectacular. I hope you love slow ass tile based scrolling, because this game sure has a lot of it! As if that weren't enough to make the game look bad, the animation on all characters on screen is so slow that it's ''beyond'' laughable. The fact that the characters are big doesn't save them at all. The backgrounds also need major, major help (the walls in the lab look like they are made out of a bunch of different sized microwaves and refrigerators). Also, they used waaaay too much red, blue and purple when they colored this game. Nope...nothing pretty in this game at all.

Ah yes, another GBC game that tries to make a game look cooler with worthless cutscenes. Guess what? THEY don't even look good!

Sound/Music: 1
There are only about three songs you will hear while playing the game. They are all retarded and WILL get on your nerves (the instruments sound like sick animals, seriously). The sound effects don't help at all, either. You'd think that programming a noise channel in an 8 bit game wouldn't be THAT hard...

Control: 1
Oh yeah, reeeeeeal responsive. You have to press the attack button six times to perform a three hit combo! I've played Tiger LCD handheld games with better control than this.

Replay Value: 1
Forget about replay value, this game has no PLAY value.

Bottom Line?
This game sucks, plain and simple. Unless you're a Batman-o-philiac, don't come near this game at all. In fact, don't even set foot in a store that has a cart inside. It really is THAT BAD, which is why I give it a 1.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 09/04/01, Updated 09/04/01