One of the movies that I was really looking forward to this summer would have to be Batman Begins. And you know what it didn't disappoint, but the game on the other hand is a different story. It's not a bad game really, but it compared to other super hero type games it could be better. Well let's start off with what went right. First off they got all the actors from the movie to come in and do the voice overs for the game. Christian Bale, Katie Holmes, Michael Cain. Hell they even got Morgan Freeman in there. Of course the rest of the audio doesn't let you down either, the music and the over all ambiance of the game is really well done. You really get both a comic book and movie feel from the game. The graphics are also well done. All of the characters in the game look like the actors they are based on. Some of the enviroments are pretty dark and dull, but it makes up for it in the batmobile chase scenes when there is hardly any sign of slow down or lag in these parts of the game. Now for the gameplay is where the game begins to stumble. First off the most enjoyable part of the game for me was the Batmobile levels. Because this game was made by EA games it's clear that these levels must have been using the Burnout engine from the sense of speed and the ability to "take down" the enemy vehicles in a very Burnout way. However in the entire game there are only two batmobile levels. More would have really made the game a better variety, but then again you didn't get much of the batmobile in the movie so why should you in the game. However on the plus side I wasn't a big fan of the newer batmobile till I played the game so something good came out of it. Now the rest of the game plays similar to a Splinter Cell type experience. With one major difference, you're Batman and you do things with style. Unlike Splinter Cell your main objective is to scare the criminals before you face them. Unlike a Splinter Cell where if you are found the only thing you can do is hit the person with your elbow as they shoot at you. Batman can indeed fight them, however if you don't "scare" the criminals first it's pointless to face them. Many of the criminals are holding guns and if you face them while they are still holding their guns you'll be dead in about 5 seconds. So in order to drop their guns you need to do something within the environment to scare them. Like throwing a batarang at a car to set off it's alarm and freak out the criminals. Also you have a variety of tools at your disposal like a flash bang to blind your enemies and like in the movie you can get the HF Transponder to call a swarm of bats to encircle your enemies. However this item is very rare to come across and another thing is that you can only use these items once the enemies are already scared. Also you can't throw batarangs at the bad guys and that's a crime in itself as every other Batman game that I have ever played allowed you to throw the batarangs at the enemies. This is just wrong. There are some open points in the game where you can sleath out a bad guy by sneaking up behind him or if you're above him slide down on a cable and then pull him back up with you. These moments are nice, but overall the games very linear. When you enter an area with enemies you basically look around the area to see if the game wants you to use something in the environment to scare the bad guys or just go in an fight them. Another thing that bothered me that the battles with the big villians in the game Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul are the same as if you were fighting anyone of the other enemies in the game. Not even sure you could even bother to call it a boss fight if that's what it's supposed to be. Also during fights I had camera angle issues, the game is filled with load times. Although there are scenes from the movie in the game there aren't brought through to well and worst of all is that the game would actually freeze on me. I haven't had a game freeze on me since my sisters ex-boyfriend rented LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring from Blockbuster and the back of the disk was all messed up, but this game was brand new. Right out of the package. The game does have a few saving graces, for one if you didn't enjoy Splinter Cell because you thought it was too hard or boring than this game will keep your interest and Batman is one of the coolest comic book character ever and the game isn't so bad that it'll ruin your movie or overall super hero experience. You can also unlock other Batman suits to play in once you beat the game and that's pretty cool, right?
