Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

"Beyond boredom"

Batman of the future (the english name for Batman Beyond) is unsurprisingly based around the cartoon series/ film of the same name. It's not the batman we know anymore as old man Bruce is now a pensioner with his feet up on the ol' bat table, training new boy Terry in his spare time. This being the future and all, Terry's equipped with a range of even cooler gadgets and weapons as he tries to take on that pesky Joker and save Gotham city.

The story is held together through short cutscenes and text between each level, although it's really just an excuse to beat up loads of enemies. That's pretty much all there is to Batman OTF. It's shallow, repetitive, and has been done miles better with classics such as Double Dragon. There are some entertaining weapons to find, but even they're not mastered well enough giving this game almost no appeal beyond the fact that it's Batman.

Gameplay consists of running through a room, seeing enimies, hammering B until they all disappear, and walking into the next room where *gasp* another bunch of guards are waiting. It's an incredibly easy game, given that all you have to do outside of combat is jump from one load of boxes, strairs, or platforms to another, avoid some orange stuff on the floor or the green stuff coming out of the wall, and go through a hell of a lot of doors. It's often hard to find the right way to go given how many doors there are and the hardest part is not turning the game off when you get lost, because it's so damn boring. Combat is hardly better; all it consists of it hitting B and dodging people who seem to love charging at you. There are some highlights in the Boss battles and weapons, but it's so dull and repetitive that even with only five simple levels, you'll find it hard not to turn the game off.

The graphics are the best part of this otherwise lackluster game as they seem like the only part which has had been paid attention. It may be a rubbish game, but these are some of the best graphics on gameboy with great looking levels and a good cartoony vibe to the characters and cutscenes. There are some good looking effects that compliment the boss fights too.

As you'd expect from Batman, gadgets are a plus. There are good weapons in the ‘nun chaku', ‘bat disks' and stick thingy, although the best gadget by far is the jet boots. Criminally you can only use them once before they run out though. Why? Why have Ubi Soft contributed to they're downfall by stopping the most fun part of the game from being fun?

In a nutshell:

Graphics: 9- Decent character models, good effects, great levels.

Sound: 3- The ping when you turn on the Gameboy is more interesting

Gameplay: 3- Repetitive, badly designed and boring. Good boss battles and gadgets can't save this trash.

Lifespan: 2- Five short levels mean you can do this in an hour and a half max., although fans of the show might go back.

Overall: 3/10

Perhaps not as bad as it could have been, but there's no appeal here whatsoever. Just don't bother.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/04/04, Updated 08/24/04