“I’m Batman.” With those simple two words a new era in superhero movies was born. The 1989 Tim Burton classic Batman very much defined the modern superhero movie. Its slick visuals and darker tone took superhero films in a more serious direction that has remained to this day.
Though it seems like every other movie these days is based on a comic book, the Batman film series was the comic book movie series of the 1990s, with three follow-up movies being released throughout the decade, each of which being a mixed bag. Along with each of them were video games, which also ran the gamut from classic to terrible. With a new Batman movie coming out, here’s a look at some of the most notable video games that accompanied the original movies.
Batman
With a slick production directed by Tim Burton and the might of the expanding Warner Bros. empire behind it, 1989’s Batman was not just a movie, it was a media phenomenon. Burton and company seemed to perfectly capture the dark gothic cityscape of Gotham from the comics and translate it the silver screen. The look, the sound, even the movie’s metallic Bat symbol logo became a cultural icon. It was a huge hit at the box office that year and along with that launch came tons of merchandise, including video games for various console and computer platforms.
The game most people remember is the NES title. Developed and released by Sunsoft, Batman for the NES has great graphics, an amazing soundtrack and fun game mechanics. It has a lot in common with Tecmo’s Ninja Gaiden, with an emphasis on tough platforming segments and in particular using Batman’s wall jump. The two games also have in common a high level of difficulty; beating the Joker in the NES Batman is certainly a feat in itself. The game is a standout title in the NES library and definitely one of the highest quality Batman games ever released. Sunsoft released a pseudo-sequel for the NES, Return of the Joker, which is amazing technical achievement on the platform and a quality title in its own right.
Batman Returns
With the success of the first Batman movie, a sequel was inevitable. 1992’s Batman Returns had the Caped Crusader facing off against Catwoman and The Penguin. The script was penned by Daniel Waters, who had written the dark comedy “Heathers” and both movies share the same sort of themes involving societal misfits. As brooding as the first movie was, this one was even darker, but the movie’s tone didn’t stop the merchandising machine from cashing in and there were a few games released based on Batman Returns.
By this time Konami had acquired the license to make games based on Batman. Konami had built a reputation of doing justice to the licenses they acquired, with arcade games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons among other titles being high quality titles that didn’t just coast on name alone. Of all the Batman Returns games, the Dark Knight’s SNES outing was by far the best, surpassing the Genesis version by a mile (which for some reason was developed by Malibu Interactive and released by Sega).
The SNES game is a straight-up brawler in the vein of Final Fight. There are some impressive looking Batmobile stages, but most of the game is spent beating up members of the Red Triangle circus gang, then Catwoman and the Penguin himself. The graphics look great, with huge colorful sprites and cutscenes adapted from the movie, while the soundtrack replicates the mood of Danny Elfman’s film score quite well. The beat’em up action is fun, with satisfying moves like being able to knock your opponent’s heads together or throw them into the background. It’s another great licensed title from a golden era in Konami’s history.
Batman Forever
Though Batman Returns was a success (albeit a more modest one compared to the original), its dark plot was no doubt a bit controversial with concerned parents and consequently the film was seen as a less marketable than its predecessor. So 1995’s Batman Forever saw a new director, industry veteran Joel Schumacher, a new Batman in Val Kilmer, and the addition of Batman’s sidekick Robin played by Chris O’Donnell. The film still has a bit of a brooding tone, but everything is more campy and colorful. The result was a film with a huge marketing, merchandising and promotional tie-in comparable to the 1989 original.
With all that merchandising, one of the biggest names in gaming picked up the Batman license. Like Konami, Acclaim Entertainment had a long history with licensed titles, making games based on properties like the Fox properties “The Simpsons” and the Alien franchise. Unlike Konami’s efforts, these games were mostly of middling quality at best. While Acclaim had historical farmed out game development to external developers, around this time they were starting to consolidate their development resources. They started buying out developers they’d contracted with in the past, like Iguana Entertainment and Sculptured Software. Another developer they brought under their growing Umbrella was Probe, a UK-based company that had done a few games for Acclaim like ports of the Mortal Kombat arcade games.
Just like Mortal Kombat, Acclaim’s Batman Forever makes copious use of digitized graphics. Batman and Robin, along with the game’s enemies were all digitized from video footage. Acclaim had also been making investments in technology, in particular graphics technology and games like Batman Forever did look pretty good for the time, especially in screenshots. But Batman Forever just played horribly. Released for both the SNES and Genesis, the game’s control scheme is like that of Mortal Kombat, which makes fighting clunky and doing even simple things like shooting your grappling hook a bit of a task. It’s also ill suited for this game and its huge maze-like levels.
Unlike previous Batman movie games, all major platforms got basically the same terrible game. Acclaim also released an arcade beat’em up which was ported to the PlayStation and Saturn, with pre-rendered 3D graphics and insanely over the top gameplay.
Probably the best part of the Batman Forever games was the commercial used to promote them. Acclaim always went above and beyond to market their games, more so than other game companies and the commercial for Batman Forever, featuring a live action Batman gliding down to capture an escaped criminal, got more than a few people unduly excited for an otherwise disappointing game.
Batman & Robin
With the success of Batman Forever, it looked like the Batman movie franchise could go on, well, forever. Yet after the release of 1997’s Batman & Robin, it looked like the Batmobile had run out of gas. Despite a returning Joel Schumacher and Chris O’Donnell, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze, along with a Batman played by the popular George Clooney, the fourth Batman film dialed up the cheese factor to 11. It did well at the box office, but at this point it was a complete 180 from the darker, serious intentions of the original film. It would be 8 years before another Batman movie saw the big screen.
Still, there was a ton of merchandising to accompany the movie. If the intention was to make more toys to sell, then Batman & Robin at least succeeded in that regard.
Acclaim still had the license to make Batman games in 1997, but by that time the game landscape had changed. Sony’s PlayStation was the biggest player in the game by far. And games were far less linear than their 16-bit counterparts. With that in mind, a returning Probe Entertainment had higher ambitions for Batman & Robin on the PlayStation.
Batman & Robin emphasizes exploration more than any other Batman game before it. You can play as Batman, Robin or Batgirl, who can explore Gotham City in their vehicles, gather clues, train or use the computer in the Batcave and foil Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy’s plans. But owing in part to the technical limitations of the time, nothing from exploration to combat is particularly fun to play. The developers deserve credit for trying to make something big, but they were hampered by the hardware and development time they had to work with. Though the game fell short of its lofty promises, it did lay the groundwork for open world Arkham games that came along many years later.
The Future of Batman Movie Games
Christopher Nolan successfully brought Batman back to the big screen with 2005’s Batman Begins. The movie’s release was accompanied by its own game for the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox, which received middling reviews. A console game for the movie’s sequel The Dark Knight never materialized and although Batman has made several big screen appearances since then, no proper games based on these movies have ever been released.
Movie-based games in general have since fallen out of favor. If anything, a movie may get a mobile game based on it, but not a console game. As the delayed release of the Batman & Robin PlayStation game showed, games have gotten bigger and have required more time to develop so being able to release them along with the movies they’re based upon has become increasingly difficult. Since Warner Bros. has its own video game division that has produced games like the well received Arkham series, you’d think there would be games to accompany new Batman movies like 2022’s The Batman, but there aren’t.
So the question is, while Batman movie games have a rich history, will future ones forever stay in the Batcave?
I guess, we’ll find out later, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!