So last night I had a whirl on the Megadrive platform-beat-emup Batman. It arrived on the Megadrive July 1990, following the release of the much hyped Batman reboot film the year before. Folk may remember that the film build up saw comedic actor Micheal Keaton slated as the choice to play Batman, only to go and completely nail the role and crush the whole camp vibe associated with batman in one single blow.
Incidently, I don't care what folk say, but Jack Niks Joker is also my fave film joker to date. Ledgers was good, but Nichlesons to me just felt crazier and more eccentric.
Batman nails a lot of key elements of the genre and creates a superb, albiet short-lived, experience. It has a great atmosphere and nice graphics certainly help with this. But what takes it to another level are the absolutely fant-fucking-tastic rock-synth tunes, which are blasting throughout and really get the juices flowing. Simply superb music.
There's also quite a few movie tie-ins, you get to fight the Joker of course, the dude with two swords, the henchman with the boombox etc. - you even get to "create" the Joker too. It actually reminded me how detatched some other games of the era could be from said movies they were supposidly representing.
Throw in smooth, responsive, fun and fast paced gameplay and I was loving it. The combat feels nice & chunky and, whilst the game is actually a tad easy, there's still plenty of tricky bits here and there. Clever, interesting level designs with constant introduction of things to keep you on your toes, and again odd driving/flying sections to break things up.
It definitely lacks depth, and isn't a game which holds any surprises once you finish it. You'll return to it, but not for a while until some unfamiliarity has been allowed to settle in again.
Definitely holds up. A very short-lived experience, but a great one.