Batman: Vengeance for GameCube

I have been a fan of Batman for a long time. I became hooked starting with the animated Batman cartoons. Why don't they ever show the Batman Beyond cartoon series? The first two Batman movies were great when Batman faced off against the Joker and the Penguin. Batman's cool car, outfit, bat plane, grapple hook and his throwing toys added to the overall popularity of Batman. The main deal with Batman as most of you know is that when he was a child he witnessed the murder of both of his parents which was the spark that transformed him into the "Dark Knight".Over time Batman acquired help from Robin and Batgirl. In "Batman Vengeance" the player will experience how it is to be Batman and will seem many familiar characters in this game.

STORY/SETTING: The story takes place in Gotham City with the Joker as the mastermind behind a terrible plan. This game begins with Batman finding a woman that is bound by the hands and feet and is restrained. There is a bomb counting down to detonation right beside her. Soon the player learns that the Joker is behind this. The Joker seized her son Toby as a hostage demanding a ransom. That is not all. Batman finds himself in a conspiracy that could leave Gotham City in ruins. The other characters play a role in this story.

CHARACTERS: This game features some familiar villains, thugs and a sidekick. In this game players will fight against familiar villains such as the Joker himself, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, the Joker's personal assistant Harley Quinn, thugs, Ivy's thugs and some more. These villains look just the way they did in the animated Batman series. I had a problem with Batman'sinteraction with other characters in this game. Batgirl's role is to basically give Batman important information but you can't even play with batgirl. This is dumb all she does is sit in the Batcave and in one spot of the game you have to save her. This game could have featured more characters that were in the animated series and could have let you have more interaction with them.

GRAPHICS/SOUND: There really are not any failings here. The graphics are smooth. The characters look stunningly real and the city looks good. The cinema scenes are awesome. There is really not much to say here. The voices of the characters are so realistic sounding you would think you were watching Batman the animated series.

CONTROLS: The controls are pretty much basic but contain a lot of stuff that really helps. Players basically can punch, kick, block and glide using Batman's cape(which is really cool). There is even a first person option which basically allow you to use the bat grapple, duck, zoom in and out, and aim weapons. Players can even use combo-like special moves that can take out more energy of thugs which is real cool. For the batmobile you can accelerate, fire spikes, and turn left or right. When you control the batplane you can fire electrical spikes and pods, use a turbo boost and roll left and right. More on the batmobile and batplane a little later.....

GAME PLAY: There are some interesting cool elements and some elements that could have been much better. Players can hand cuff their beaten thugs yet you could still have been able to have more hand cuffs. You can free-fall meaning you can dive down from high places to rescue people, however the game did not give you many chances to utilize this ability a lot. For myself I enjoyed the grapple hook because you could move to places you would not be able to go. Controlling the batplane and batmobile is really dumb. See, the screen moves so you have to continue going foward which makes it hard to maneuver around buildings when using the batplane and when you hit a building you have to start back. Why not just allow players to explore a free environment? When the player is controlling the batmobile the screen moves the same way but now in order to turn left or right you have to press the L or R button while the screen is still moving. I had a problem with this game in terms of exploration because even while controlling the Dark Knight in Gotham City the game restricts the player to only certain areas. This game needed more characters to interact and to talk to. Why can't game developers make more games feel more like real life? Players can not even interact with Batgirl except when she is giving Batman some useful information. This game could have been LONGER. I can not remember when I finished a game so fast, my goodness. What is up with Nintendo bring out these short games? I even e-mailed Nintendo about the short length of the game and they said that maybe I finish games faster than I used to. What a stupid excuse. Anyway this game is short, has few characters and does not let you explore Gotham city or interact with more characters. This game is terrific in most aspects but would have been a LOT better with many more levels, characters and a city that you could explore more.This game had over 40 mins of pre-rendered scenes. Ridiculous. They could have used that space for more gaming.I just hope in the long run that some game developers find a way to create more successful comic book hero games.