The Goods

Batman. He's an icon. A legend. Children around the world know his name, and yet, his movies and games have been crap for years. Can Batman Begins revitalize the franchise? I'm thinking so, yep.

The Down and Dirty

Every comic book geek in the world is hoping that the new envisioning of the Batman saga, Batman Begins won't suck. After Joel Schumacher did his best to not only bury the franchise, but piss on its grave, the future looked pretty bleak for the caped crusader. Fortunately the new movie, opening in June, looks excellent, and fans of the Dark Knight are once again filled with hope. The game, on the other hand, is facing a double whammy, because as every gamer knows, the only thing worse than a licensed game is a superhero game. Batman Begins for the Xbox seems up to the challenge, however.

For the most part, the action of Batman Begins faithfully follows the action of the movie, although it does mess with the order of events a bit. Bruce Wayne doesn't actually become Batman until fairly well into the film, a scheme that simply wouldn't work for the game. Players start off as Batman and experience Bruce Wayne's training as a series of flashbacks, thus neatly filling in the plotline without sacrificing gameplay. Actors from the movie provide voice work for the game, adding to the authenticity and overall quality of the presentation. Speaking of presentation, this game is absolutely gorgeous, and not just because it has Christian Bale in it. (Oh, shut up, you've been reading about booth babes for days, I get to drool over Christian Bale for a minute.)

The level I played was early on in the game, so the combat was still pretty basic. Batman has a number of punching and kicking combos, and once an enemy has taken enough damage, pressing the B button executes a cinematic finishing move, such as throwing them out a window. As the game progresses, Batman will learn new moves and gain access to more gadgets, including, of course, the Batmobile, which will be used in two different driving missions. The developers actually created 40 kilometers of track for those two levels, and as they were inspired by the action of games like Burnout and Need for Speed, it's safe to say there's more to the driving levels than just getting from point A to point B.

Although the action is fast-paced and satisfying, it's actually not meant to be the core of the game. Batman Begins is all about using stealth and fear to defeat enemies. Scaring enemies might cause them to run, to surrender, to become erratic, or to just not fight as well as they could. Some enemies will be harder to scare than others, but Batman will have a number of fear-inducing methods at his command.

The Verdict

The fear element adds a new twist to the standard mission based structure of the game, and the graphics and control are super sweet. Although it only has about 10 or 12 hours of gameplay in it, Batman Begins looks ready to join Spider-Man 2 in the ranks of superhero games worth having.