Batman The Movie

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Batman must save Gotham City from a deformed lunatic called “The Joker”. There are five levels in total and the game starts at the Axis Chemicals, where Mr. Jack Napier transforms into the monster we know after being thrown into acid. The first level includes all sorts of toxic substances leaking from pipes and dangerous gasses extruding into the air. This level follows the classic platform style of gameplay. The Joker's men are everywhere and Batman must kill or them. He can use his bat-rope to climb into higher platforms or swing over gaps and his batarags to take down the enemies (who will shoot and drop bombs at him in frenzy). After defeating Napier, you must jump into your Bat-mobile; and then, the real thrill begins! The goal at this point is to chase the Joker's van speeding through the streets of Gotham City. You need to avoid all the other cars but you also have to turn your vehicle in time, at breakneck speeds, by shooting a grappling hook to grab any nearby lamp post. You only have three successful shoots and, if you miss, you’ll end up in front of a police blockade). It seems that the developers have actually given their most attention to this part of the game, at least on the Amiga and ST versions. This stage plays like an ordinary -high quality- racing game. The next stage is the Bat-cave, where you have to select three different increments of the lethal Smilex toxic gas, guessing the correct combination (this is done by the simple elimination method) so you can hand over its formula to the authorities. On the next level, you pilot your Batwing (your aircraft) and you fly rather low, over the city’s carnival festivals, taking out the balloons filled with Smilex that Joker is planning to use and take over Gotham City. The final stage of the game is the Cathedral, a platform stage that plays the same way as the Chemical Axis. In the Cathedral you must eliminate the enemies and finally confront your greatest opponent…The Joker!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The Atari ST version offers identical graphics detail and number of colors as the Amiga version (while the MS-DOS version running on VGA uses only 16!). Note that the ST game runs smoother compared to the PC and quite slower compared to the Amiga. The backgrounds are nicely done and detailed and the driving stages are very impressive, reminding of some great racing games of the time. Aurally, the in-game music and sound effects on the ST version are great. Into the game, you can only choose either sound effects or music; based on this option, it would be great if the ST featured some nice digitized sound effects (found only on the Amiga). The PC (MS-DOS) game cannot be compared since it’s limited to its speaker “beeping”.