Batman Vengeance Review
Ahh, yes, the famed masked stranger has taken flight on all three next generation consoles, and I think I can safely say that they could release this game on the Atari, and it still wouldn’t have made a difference. The graphics are bland and dead, the gameplay is boring and uninspired, and the story is another save-Gotham-city-and-rescue-the-girl format that we’ve seen too often.
What about the graphics? There’s no detail, and I mean none. The walls, streets, and pavement all have this monochromatic display of grays and blacks, which gives the atmosphere a very boring feeling. Quite the opposite of what we’re used to seeing from Batman’s previous adventures. A prime example is when you’re at the city skyline looking down. You see nothing save for fog. Adding streets and moving cars would have greatly enhanced the feeling that you get while looking down from 50 stories above the ground. It’s pretty retarded, considering there are games like MGS2 which offer incredible amounts of detail.
On the flip side, the animations are good and well-executed (very fluid), and things such as cutscenes are sprinkled throughout, which are always a good break from the game.
Gameplay wise, BV is average at best. I found that I had to stop often and scroll through which item to use, which was often annoying when I had to chase something in a certain amount of time. Batman has a good range of moves, but they grow old pretty quickly as your progress. When fighting enemies, I found that out of 5 or so moves I could have used, I just punched, kicked, punched, kicked, until I won.
Occasionally I had to block a bad guy’s move, but it was just to relieve me of the boredom. Not to say that all is bad, however. After you beat enemies, you have to cuff ’em so they don’t escape, which was new to me. Swinging around cities is also fun, but, like everything else, grows old after awhile. I found that the gameplay was extremely predictable, with little to no thinking involved to make it past the training stages. I found that the game would just lead me on until I found what I had to do, which made it very easy to play.
I wasn’t too sure on the story, but Joker is up to his usual antics again, and Batman has to save Commissioner Gordon from Joker’s clutches, thus saving Gotham. I mean, how many times have you heard this? The story is the main reason you play the game, to find out what happens next, and in this game it was all too obvious. The sound is actually quite good, and it keeps in tune with the game.
When you boil down to the core of BV, it’s easy to see that this game is targeted towards kids. A more mature gamer quickly gets bored, as there are no twisting puzzles and unsolved mysteries to keep you on your toes. I think this game had amazing potential to be good, but something happened along the way…maybe BV2 can change all that, as Vengeance will have to settle for a rental at best.
Visuals: 5
Sound: 8
Originality: 4
Replay: 5
Overall: 6