Batman Begins

For the record, I fall under the "casual gamer" category and have played a total of seven games on the current run of consoles (sans X-Box 360). I've played the likes of this game in "Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb" and "Obi Wan Kenobi" (hey, this brings my screen name full circle with video games!) and love them for the sheer challenge involving coordination and problem solving. "Batman Begins" isn't quite at the same level in terms of challenge. It often uses visual cues to tip you off, while the latter games leave you mostly looking for the objects by yourself. But it makes up for it out of the sheer fun! One of the lesser things about Batman that I love are his use of the grapple gun, and there are plenty of opportunities to use it. Also the whole "predator" feel of it is very empowering. The drama comes out high as well.

Perhaps it's both naive and cynical of me to love the game out of theme (like you haven't caught onto that yet) and ease of wielding power throughout the game, but I think everyone is entitled to choose an entertainment genre they can play the simpleton to.

While the Kilmer and Clooney movies left Batfans moping, the recent video games have been even worse. But, much like the film version, Batman Begins is a glorious rebirth for the tragic crimebuster.

Playing like a pacier version of Splinter Cell — with dramatic, movie-style presentation that puts Metal Gear Solid to shame — it's a stealthy action-adventure where players creep around the shadowy streets of Gotham City, solving crimes and ambushing mobsters.

Uniquely, Batman Begins allows players to scare their rivals witless; when you spot a crook a special meter indicates their heartbeat, and you can then hide in the shadows and kick over objects to make your opponent jittery and nervous, only making your grand entrance when they're quivering like a jellyfish.

The game also allows players to jump behind the wheel of the new tank-like Batmobile for hair-raising dashes across Gotham, sequences that are as shallow as Adam West's Batman TV series but just as much fun

Well, for starters, I'm not a big fan of Batman. My hero is Spider-Man! I also like Superman, thanks to Christopher Reeve and Tom Welling (Smallville). Every Batman game I have played has been a major disappointment. Bad graphics, bad gameplay. Not until this AWESOME game! WOW!! I've never had so much fun playing the Dark Knight. Great graphics, great gameplay, (takes getting used too.) The voice talents are of the movie's cast: Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Micheal Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, Cilian Murphy as Dr. Crane, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, and so on and so forth. The levels aren't too hard to work you're way through, it just takes some patience. This game is pure stealth. Unlike other Super hero games: Spider-Man, Superman, etc. Where you fight you're way through areas, this game is stealth, but, yes, you can fight, DUH! He's a crimefighter for crying out loud. Good storyline. Kinda hard to follow along with comparing it to the movie, which was AWESOME!! Great game for gamers everywhere! Although, no tight donning man can EVER beat Spider-Man!

Before the 'Batman: Arkham' series of games came along, this was the epic Batman game and, despite those games, in many ways still is.

It's such an intricate and personal look at Gotham City and the Batman character and moves things along from the film in such a way that Batman fans will be both intrigued and rewarded.

It's not really a free-roaming game, but the locations are fantastic, comprising locations from the film, such as Wayne Manor, Arkham Asylum, the Gotham Docks, Ra's al Ghul's monastery and the monorail tracks whilst expanding on others, especially The Narrows and Carmine Falcone's club. At the same time, unlike the 'Arkham' games, Gotham in this game is not a sightseeing tour, which actually makes it better and, ironically, preserves the sense of scope that Nolan invested in 'Batman Begins' as this is a Gotham where anything goes!

Whilst Nolan's Batman trilogy has drawn to a close, this game seems more ageless than the films, as it has serious hints of Frank Miller's 'Batman: Year One' and Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's 'Batman: The Long Halloween' in there. It's modernistic, but not as tied down in a saga as Nolan made his films. There is a great sense of Falcone's stranglehold over the city, combined with the new threat posed by Dr. Crane and his mysterious partner in crime.

Stalking villains is quite fun, as is interrogating them, and takedowns are not difficult to perform. There are also some Bat-gadgets, albeit not too many.

There are two really stand-out sequences here.

The first is the entire Arkham Asylum sequence, which faithfully adapts locations from the film in building The Scarecrow's domain for gamers to enjoy. Although the asylum is devoid of housing costumed villains at this point (other than the more than creepy Crane, of course), it has the feel of a sort of Hammer Horror film about and is even referred to as being reminiscent of "a cheap slasher" film and gives the player a sense of this location as being as important as one of the key characters in the Batman entire mythos, not just in the events of 'Batman Begins'. Christopher Nolan's wife, Emma Thomas even gets a sly cameo here.

The second and equally enjoyable is (you guessed it) driving the Batmobile. It makes you feel like a kid again and, certainly, out of all the on-screen Batmobiles, this is the one that you'd really want sitting in your driveway!! You get to smash up enemy cars and trucks, use missiles to attack assailants and speed around the streets of Gotham, improving Batman's reputation with ordinary Gothamites by doing genuine good. Even though, like the rest of the game, the driving missions are not free-roaming and are usually time-restricted, they're just as enjoyable as the scenery rushing by looks good and up to the standards of the other locations, whilst the car looks and feels great! But, perhaps the most enjoyable feature of the Batmobile is its turbo- booster, which allows you to jump bridges and squeeze through tight spaces. If only they sold cars like this...hint, hint!

This game has real atmosphere to it and, prior to the 'Arkham' franchise, remained the definitive Batman gaming experience, taking Nolan's realistic Gotham and throwing in heavy hints of what it would be like to actually be Gotham's resident defender.

Added to this are not only cinematics from the film, but the film's main cast reprise their roles in the game as well, all except Gary Oldman (perhaps because Sergeant Gordon makes such a fleeting appearance here). Even Mark Boone, Jr and Tim Booth appear as Detective Flass and Victor Zsasz respectively. And Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow gets an even better treatment than he does in the film, adding to the character's durability, but not ruining his performance in the film itself.

It's just a shame that EA Games pulled their adaptation of 'The Dark Knight', which looked set to do just as great (if not better) work entertaining players as this.

A great game and a great Batman game!

Overall Batman Begins is a good movie tie-in game. Not great. But close, and definitely worth a playthrough, especially with current used prices below $10 across all platforms. (It looks great on my Xbox 360, as it's on the list of backwards-compatible games, and I have the original Xbox release.)

I was relieved the devs got all the original actors for the game's dialogue. Definitely a plus.

The Batmobile controls great in the two driving levels that thankfully add some much-needed variety to Batman Begins. Yes, this game lacks variety. It's very linear, and the entire game plays like this: You get to an area, see some thugs, figure out how to frighten them, then attack when they are scared. If you rush into a fight, you'll quickly die in a hail of bullets in most cases. Problem is, there's mostly only one exact approach to each encounter, which is the greatest weakness of the game and limits the replayability. I do like that rushing into a fight will get you killed. It reinforces the fact that Batman is only a man after all, lacking the super powers of his peers.

Batman has gadgets to help him fight crime, but they aren't as developed as I'd like, often requiring case-specific use. For example, the batarang is only used to clear debris or break some support structure or whatnot to open up your path. Kinda lame since I wanted to hit some baddies with my bat-shuriken. And that super sick high frequency emitter that Batman uses to summon bats in the film? Super lame in this game.

Combat is okay. The controls feel delayed but once you get the timing down, there's enjoyment to be found within the rhythm of this dance. It was like playing Ninja Gaiden 3 instead of Ninja Gaiden Sigma or Black, the latter having very responsive controls and requiring precise timing. That's not what you do here. There's no combo system. The fighting looks cool tho and feels satisfying when you clear a room of enemies without taking any damage.

I played the game on the easiest difficulty, not wanting to spend too much time with this slightly outdated game. But nothing kept me from ultimately enjoying my time with Batman Begins. I just wish I could have played the game with the alternative costumes, as they appeared to only be unlocked after beating it.

Honestly surprised the rating is so high (currently an 8.2), as this is higher than some of the more recent Batman games. My guess is that most ratings were given before the next gen games were released. If I had played this back in 2005 I would have been more impressed. Nevertheless, it's still a solid experience playing Batman Begins in 2020, and I definitely recommend it to every gamer who is a fan of Batman.