As we near the home stretch approaching the Arkham City release at the end of this month, I’m going to take a little bit of an overall look at the first crop of “modern” games, with the advent of the Playstation 2 and Xbox. With one notable exception, infamous enough for its own entry.
The Sixth Generation of home consoles, or just gaming in general, beings in 1998 with the release of the Sega Dreamcast. This was the era that we think of most readily as the beginning of the modern half of gaming, where the hardware started to finally match the graphics that developers were longing for. Batman had a few major outings in this era, and while none of them were on the level of what was to come, there was at least a couple “good” games, one “decent” game, and one that I will forever remember as my worst Xbox purchase of all time.
But before we get too far away, there was one notable final entry in the previous generation. Narrowly missing a PS2 launch, Batman & Robin, based on the nearly franchise-kiling film, was released for the first gen Playstation in 1998. This game wasn’t good, by most estimations. I’ve only played it once, and it was a long time ago. Made by Acclaim, and being the final Batman game they’d do for many years (until Neatherealm brought if full circle almost two decades later), the game was another example of an interesting idea lost in a mediocre game. An early sandbox game, you would select Batman, Robin, or Batgirl, and using them and their unique vehicle, navigate Gotham City, fighting random encounter crimes until boss-fight time.
The idea absolutely had legs. It was just a little before its time and tied to a terrible movie. As far as I can remember, and glean from watching playthroughs, it had the same problems as most of the early 3rd person sandbox games, where the camera and controls were shoddy, and glitches were common. But hey, a decade later this formula would be a science. All the same, this game, along with Gotham City Racers, a Batman Animated-themed racing game, unceremoniously ended the weak Bat gen-5 titles.
After that, Warner Bros. decided to take a more active role in their game developing and acquired developers to better oversee their properties. In 2001, partnered with UbiSoft, they released Batman: Vengeance across the gen-6 consoles. Basing the game on the Animated Series, using the series’ assets like style and voice cast, and using the new consoles’ abilities for graphics and cutscenes to up the ante considerably. I always assumed based on the inclusion of Mr. Freeze and no mention of either Robin that this game took place between the two series, but I suppose it could fit in at the end of The New Batman Adventures as well.
The game played in the now-familiar style of 3D platformer, with some combat and 1st-person elements as well. Again, some of these still presented some issues, like camera and control problems, but overall it was a very playable game with some great fan service for lovers of the shows. You even get the obligatory Batmobile and Batplane levels, but finally at this level of gaming those were truly good times.
Truthfully, the game isn’t very innovative or impressive looking back, and gaming sites scored it generally average, if favorably, and it was generally forgotten afterward. For a Bat-fan, though, getting a game where Kevin Conroy was Batman and you got to do Batman-things was fantastic enough to more than warrant the purchase. There was also a GBA port that was a traditional 2D platformer, and again, not groundbreaking, but it’s kind of a hidden gem for old-school fans.
The Animated universe got one more visit with Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu. Released in the fall of 2003 to some pretty soft reviews, this 2-player arcade brawler may not have been much substance, but it was a good, if repetitive, game that was at its worst some good button smashing for a couple hours.
You can play as Batman, Nightwing, Robin, or Batgirl in tandems, using either a co-op mode for story or competitive modes for more dickish story and some challenges. Sin Tzu, the game’s main bad guy, was supposed to be a big deal, being designed by Jim Lee and all, but that didn’t really pan out. Still, this game got a lot of crap that it probably didn’t deserve, and while not as good or immersive as its predecessor, it still remains a fun addition to an over all pretty good family of games based on the Bruce Timm and Paul Dini universe.
Lastly, there was a singular Justice League game, released for the Xbox and PS2, called Justice League Heroes. Released toward the end of the generation in 2006, this was a 2-player overhead brawler with RPG elements, similar in most ways to the X-Men Legends franchise the of the same era (the predecessors to the Ultimate Alliance games), and is in my opinion, the game most among all the past Batman games in need of a revisit. A very good-looking game on the consoles, it had good controls, a fun leveling system, and lots of extra characters and costumes that could be unlocked through the course of it. And that story mode was written by JLU favorite Dwayne McDuffie. If you’re up there reading, buddy, we miss ya.
The only real downside? X-Men could be played by up to four people, meaning that you could get all your buddies together on one big screen and smash some sentinels. Or, even in two or three-player modes, you had an extra character who would be game-controlled until you needed him/her. Justice League? Just two. And some levels, you weren’t allowed to choose which two. I’m still pining for a big multiplayer co-op Justice League game. And when I say co-op, I mean with my friends, be they in the living room, or online in a small crew. Sigh, someday.
What’s that? You remember one other Batman game from the early/mid 2000s? Oh, we’re gonna talk about that one, all on its own, next time.