While reviews of the film Batman Begins indicate that the caped crusader has made a turnaround of sorts on the silver screen, we can't say the same about him as a video game superhero. Yes, the new Batman Begins game from Electronic Arts and Eurocom certainly captures the fearsome new look of Batman as portrayed in the movie. And the inclusion of high-quality voice work from Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, and the other stars from the film also contributes a lot to the overall package. Unfortunately, the gameplay feels too much like a mishmash of several other well-known gaming franchises and ends up overly simplistic. While the game is still worth a look for Batman fans, you can't help but feel that an opportunity was missed to make something more special.
As Batman you have a variety of moves and gadgets at your disposal. Much like Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher, you can skulk quietly, which allows you to sneak up behind unsuspecting enemies and dispatch them with special stealth knockouts. These aren't stealth "kills," however, because there's no blood in this game, and no one ever dies. You also have the benefit of a radar screen in the bottom left corner, which shows you the location of your objectives and the position of all nearby enemies (even the ones you can't see). From time to time you'll also see a picture-in-picture screen pop up, which can show you nearby conversations between enemies or a security-camera view. Unfortunately, the picture-in-picture screen causes horrible slowdown in the PS2 version of the game; the GameCube and Xbox versions don't seem to suffer this problem.
No comments:
Post a Comment