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Really fine game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 48
Date: December 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game looks really good, not only because of the graphics, but all of Batman's gizmos and gadgets from all of the movies are here, even the Batmobile and the Batplane. You fight jokers henchmen, Ivy's, Mr. Freeze's, and you even fight them! This game looks awesome through and through.

Lives up to expectations... almost

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 26, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I must say that I am mostly impressed. This game is the first Batman video game I've ever played that I enjoyed (the others, quite frankly, were awful). The graphics are great, the movement is very fluid, and the animated sequences are fantastic. They developed no shortage of moves for Batman, such as gliding with his cape, or hiding in shadows against the wall.

The problem is that the game can be very frustrating at certain points due to the limitations in control. It would have worked much better if its controls were more like Halo and Max Payne, in which you move with one thumbstick and control the viewpoint with the other. Here, Batman's perspective is limited and you constantly have to press the trigger button when you want to look in the direction that Batman is facing.

The fight scenes are good, as are Batman's martial arts moves, but there are certain parts where it is very awkward and frustrating to maneuver him. The biggest example of this is when fighting Poison Ivy's minions hand-to-hand; the very slight delay between pressing the button and the execution of the move is just long enough for the plant guy's to knock you on your butt.

Having Batman use the grapple is neat, but very limited: you use the grapple only to certain select spots where they allow you to do it, and not to any surface that would likely be able to hold a grappling hook. It's not like Spider-Man (which in most ways was obviously Batman: Vengeance's biggest inspiration) where you can pretty much use the web to attach to whatever you want.

The car and plane chases are lame. There's no other word for them. The detail is scant, control is very limited and if you deviate even slightly from the set path, you lose and have to restart from the checkpoint. Basically, it's as if the developers spent five minutes working on the vehicle sequences.

If you compare this game to trend setters such as Playstation's Spider-Man, which set the standard for urban superhero games, or X-Box's Halo, which has amazing graphics, fantastic control and great vehicles, Batman falls a little short. Still, for anyone who loved the animated series (which I did), it is a heck of a lot of fun to interact in Gotham City, the atmosphere of which the developers flawlessly mirrored for this game. I was very impressed by the graphics and it was so great that they got the original cast from the cartoon to provide the voices here.

Very cool...controls a bit difficult

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 27, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Overall, this game is very cool and feels as if you are right in the animated cartoon that this is based on. Graphics are excellent as well as the cut-scense which are nicely done. Batman's movements are very fluid and using the different items we all know and love from the famous utlity belt is great.

My favorite is being able to jump from up high and glide down by extending your cape into a pseudo glider/parachute. Also, free-falling is pretty fun as well ( as in jumping off a bridge to catch someone who has fallen/been thrown off). Thank god that once you catch the falling person in mid-air, the game takes over and grapples you back to safety automatically (I'm only human, ya know)

The only con is that control does take a little getting used to. Most of the time, you move Batman in a 3rd person perspective (like Tomb Raider) but you must often switch to 1st person mode to use the different items such as the bat-grapple and batarangs, etc. While it's easy to switch back and forth, it takes some practice is remember the different controls for each mode....

Not a Solid Port and Doesn't Save Correctly

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've had to restart this game three times because for some reason the game wants to save to a memory card instead of the hard drive The people who ported this one from PS2 didn't thoroughly Q&A this critical feature. Don't eject the disk or you will lose a days worth of playing!

Dialogue and cut scenes take up much valuable game time and are pretty obnoxious if you are restarting the game from the beginning.

The punch kick combat is very primitive as are the car and jet controls. There is a game called Oni by Bungie that has breathtaking grappling and kung fu moves and it predates this one by at least a year.

Rather than being a real game this is more like a narrative of the T.V. cartoon and you get to play a bit here and there. I'm not alone on this please read reviews under other game platforms. One person hits on what I'm trying to say by comparing it to Dragons Lair or Space Ace.

Or perhaps we could be looking at a new form of interactive cartoon/gaming hybrid? If so it should cost half the price of a real game!!

A Comic Book Video Game Done Right..

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Reviewer warning: Since I am biased to the character and the entire Batman mythos, my ranking maybe higher than others.

As a Batman aficionado, I couldn't wait to get Batman Vengeance for the Xbox. And the game is great on some levels. It totally immerses you into Gotham and the characters that reside in the grimmest city of them all. Going up against the Joker, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Harley Quinn and the Joker were akin to playing for the World Champion Boston Red Sox (another dream of mine). The story line seems very different than most of the previous incarnations of Batman through out the years as it involves the strange abduction of a child who may not be what he seems. The rendered graphics for both the environment and the characters appear just like a 3-D cartoon. The splicing of the game's "cinematics" and "real time" action is hardly noticeable. Once and awhile, there are some helpful hints that are provided through an on-screen display to help out the gamer if there seems to be a problem getting past a level. The option to save your game to the Xbox's hard drive was very nice as the game directions only state the use of the 8MB flash memory. And the use of the original actors' voices from the TV series brings a sense of authenticity that is really appreciated to this gamer.

Unfortunately, as for Xbox game play, there are some issues that are hard to overlook. While Batman Vengeance looks just like a 3-D rendering of The New Batman Adventures television series, it is only a direct port (or in other words, conversion) from the PS2 game that was released in the Fall of 2001 which does not take advantage of the graphical features and processing capabilities available in the Xbox platform. There are frequent load screens that appear in-between scenes that definitely slow down the play of the game. There is no saving "on the fly" as the game requires you to quit your current progress, go to the opening screen, and then save. The use of the gadgets (Batgrappler, Batarang, etc.) can be somewhat confusing due to the sheer volume of items available (all items are shown but not always available) and the small font used for the quantity number in the lower left of the weapon display (hard to tell between 5 & 8 sometimes). Also, Batman Vengeance is also somewhat like Two-Face (who does not appear in this game, much to my dismay) as it does not know whether it is an action/adventure third person game (like Tomb Raider) or a first person shooter game (like another Xbox game, HALO) since you must toggle between the two.

Overall, the game pleases more than it disappoints. It is fun to play once you get use to the toggling between the two perspectives and seeing the graphics are enough for any fanboy used to seeing visual garbage put out on other gaming systems to make the purchase. But for the hardcore gamer, you may want to check out HALO first as it is a game created specifically for the Xbox and uses the Xbox's strengths quite well.

not good

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: December 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

this game is very bad the contols make it so you cant do anything dont buy this game and get halo or something

Boring

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 31, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This has to be the worst Xbox game I have ever played since I have owned the machine. The graphics could be better, the storyline is weak, and the levels are extremely boring. Placing enemies few and far between so there is very little action. Also, you can't skip through the videos during the game, which are really boring, and long too. I'm very glad I rented this game instead of buying it.

More Generic Console Garbage

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: December 31, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Yet another generic console title mired in slow load times, awkward interface, and over abundance of cut-scenes.

Everything this game could have been it simply wasn't.

Maybe the game gets better later on, but the first chapter alone is enough to make me realize how low the bar has sunk for this to be a critically acclaimed game.

Good, but...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 16 / 16
Date: January 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I expect a lot more from an X-Box game. I understand that this is a game with multiple versions on all the major platform systems. The problem with this type of game is that it's only as good as the weakest system it's made for, in this case the PS2. I don't have any problems with the PS2, but having seen the graphic possibilities from my other Xbox games, I'm a bit spoiled. If this were my first Xbox game, or it were another PS2 game for me, I might be able to go up another star.

The big highlight of the game is the excellent CGI cut-scenes featuring the voice-actors of the animated series. It was those scenes that really created the atmosphere of the animated series and made the game worth playing. Each scene was like a little reward that reminded me of the old-school games from my youth. The in-game graphics also retained that art-deco quality of the series, but not without flaws.

Of course the coolest thing about the game is being able to control Batman and all of his cool gadgets, and it does an excellent job in that respect. I was a big Batman fan as a kid, and even as an adult I have to admit that Batman is still uber-cool to me. It's hard NOT to like Batman. In the game you get to fly the Batplane, beat the crud out of henchmen, whack the Joker with Batarangs, and swing from building to building on a grappling-line. The game tries to do so much, that inevitably there are some weaknesses in the interface, but I didn't find that too irritating.

Unfortunately the novelty of being Batman wears off pretty fast. Some of the missions get tedious, especially the Batplane scenes. If I were a kid or a young teenager this game would be a lot more fun, but as an adult whose played WAY too many games, I found the game play a little too antiquated. It's not bad, but it's old-school console roots made me realize how far games have come.

My biggest complaint however is the graphics. While I like the simple deco style taken from the series, I found the visuls a bit too grainy and rough. As I said before, the graphics are on-par with a PS2 game, but I think other Xbox gamers will agree it doesn't really meet the bar. If I were writing this review for the PS2 version it would be much different I'm sure.

So in summation, if you are in the 14 and under crowd, or just a major Batman fan, you'll probably really enjoy this game. If you're and old fogey like me that expects performance from a game rather than novelty, you might want to skip it or rent it. Either way, it's not a bad game, just not up to my standards.

Clumsy controls; PS2-port graphics

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: January 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

By the poor standards of Batman games, this is not bad; it's pretty true to the animation's style and it's got a fair number of cool gadgets and vehicles. But the graphics are really sub-par for an Xbox title--it's clear that this was a first-gen PS2 game that was ported to the Xbox with no visual improvements.

The controls are also inexact and confusing. Too often you need to be in exactly the right spot for an action key to work; for example, to handcuff a downed enemy you can't just be around him, but need to be in some mysterious position near his feet that seems to change with each instance. And some jumps need to be pixel-perfect--frustrating!

I'd recommend this for Batfans only. Our household Bataddict (age 4.5) loves it, but his Dad has to do all the hard bits, which is to say most everything, simply because of the clumsy design.

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