Batman Vengeance

A darker justice must be served.

NA release: 18th November 2001
EU release: 3rd May 2002
JP release: N/A
Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft
NGC Magazine Score: 70%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

Batman Vengeance is a video game based on The New Batman Adventures, which is essentially season 3 of the classic Batman: The Animated Series, but with a new visual style to match the Superman TV show. By the time this game had come out, it had ended and had already been replaced with Batman Beyond, which already had a terrible video game on the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation.

On top of this, Batman Vengeance is its own story, and not an adaptation of an episode or film, which means that Ubisoft weren’t rushing to get the game out while the thing it was based on was still hot, which is clear to see in the game.

While this is still a cheap game aimed at kids, it still features a nice visual style (which does make it hard to see things at times), as well as the original cast reprising their roles, including Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill. There’s a mysterious kidnapping and The Joker in involved, with The Joker seemingly dying during the ensuing fight – although Batman believes that it’s a nefarious plot. The cutscenes are CGI (I think it’s a shame that they’re not animated in the style of the show), but the voice acting does elevate it, giving it a solid presentation all around.

The gameplay is a bit clunky and basic, but enjoyable. Combat relies a lot on blocking with only a few attacks, and using gadgets requires going into a first person mode, which is rather fiddly. One annoying mechanic is that enemies get up again unless you handcuff them, and you have a very limited supply, so you really only want to handcuff people if there’s a button or switch nearby. Another aspect is stealth, which the game goes into detail about avoiding light and clinking to walls in the tutorial, but it’s not really useful at any point and is less effective than just running past enemies if you want to avoid a fight.

There’s also no camera control other than pushing the C-stick left or right to reset the camera behind Batman, although that doesn’t work if the game is using a set camera angle.

There are a few additional parts, such as some vehicle levels involving the Batplane and Batmobile, with the Batmobile being a kind of quick time event. as you need to push L and R when arrows pop up in order to use the grapple to turn (miss one and it’s game over), and a few times you need to dive to catch people. They’re not good, but add a bit of veriety.

All in all, Batman Vengeance is a decent game, and for a game based on a licensed cartoon, that’s a pretty significant thing.

Fine

But when it comes down to actually playing the thing, there’s nothing here you won’t have seen a million times over. It’s a 3D world interspaced with identical goons, health and weapon pick-ups, chasms to leap over, locked doors to find keys for, and simple puzzles to solve. But despite the so-so gameplay, it’s surprisingly good fun.
Geraint Evans, NGC Magazine #67

Remake or remaster?

A spruced up re-release would be nice, but a more linear and shorter Batman game that looks like the classic cartoon would certainly be a great idea now.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to play Batman: Vengeance.