Batman

Title		Batman
Publisher       Ocean
Game Type	General Action
Players		1
Compatibility	ECS
HD Installable  No
Submission      Andy Thomas (andy@adamantium.demon.co.uk)

Review
Movie licensed games tended to show poorly on the Amiga.  Batman was, I
feel, one of the exceptions, if only because it was really more than just
one game.

The game starts in the Axis Chemical Works as a platformer, with the aim
of reaching the soon-to-be-Joker.  You had to dodge the bullets of the
henchman along with the drops of acid leaking from pipes.  At your
disposal you had a bat rope of seemingly infinite length.  You could be
forgiven for thinking that you were doing an imitation of Spiderman at
times!  The great thing was that you could swing about on your rope to get
enough horizontal speed up to make it to the next platform.  You'd
commonly aim to do this while a hood's back was turned to avoid his shots,
then swing in behind him and get rid of him with a batarang shot.  If I
remember rightly, you could also batrope the hoods into oblivion as well,
which meant you could get them from below with a diagonal shot.  All great
stuff.

The next two levels were very different.  In one you had to play an
apparently simple game and figure out which cosmetics the Joker had
tampered with.  Not always easy to do, because you only had so many
guesses and time to do it in.  At this point I should mention that there
was no saved game situation here; the lives you had were the lives you
had.  So after you'd used up your lives on the puzzle, you were back to
square one!  Anyway, after the puzzle came the Batmobile level.  Quite
cleverly done, and IIRC, you just had to complete the course under a
particular time.  As in the movie, you could use a batrope to lock onto
lamp posts and swing yourself round corners when indicated.

The fourth level was similar to the Batmobile one, but this time it was
the Batjet being piloted and you had to snag enough balloons, and avoid
hitting enough, in the time available.  I can't remember if the Batmobile
section had this effect, but with the Jet, as you crashed into things it
started to look increasingly the worse for wear, with smoke pouring out of
it.

The final level returned to the platform style for the showdown in the
Cathedral.  This was a lot tougher, but still doable.  Your final aim was
to get to the roof and snag the Joker's helicopter with your Batrope,
thusly doing him in and completing the game.  All in all one of the better
movie licences of the day, and certainly one I came back to, even having
completed it, which I've always believed is one of the best indications of
how good a game really is.

Alphabetical list.