The Dark Knight faces his greatest challenge yet: Subpar game development!
It's hard to think of any game as soul crushing as Dark Tomorrow. Touted in early promotional material as a hyper-ambitious title offering an open-world Gotham with a faithful story penned by Final Fantasy writer Kenji Tarada and veteran Batman scribe Scott Peterson, this was meant to be THE definitive Batman experience. Unfortunately for developers Kemco and HotGen (who ported the game to Xbox), the initial concept proved to be far too ambitious to bring to fruition, so they instead shifted to creating a linear, simplified level-based game. Indeed, the game definitely feels like something that was heavily cut down during development, leaving an empty shell of half-finished components in its place. Put simply, Batman: Dark Tomorrow is one of the most unresponsive, undercooked games ever to be released for GameCube. Unless you're only playing for an authentic comic book story, or are simply a masochist, avoiding the game altogether is the best course of action.
To the game's credit, it does at least make an OK first impression. The opening fmv cutscene sets the mood nicely, with perennial Batman foe Ra's al Ghul discussing his latest plot to decimate the world's population. From there, he proceeds to distract Batman with familiar foes like Mr Freeze, Black Mask, and the Joker. It's a pretty straightforward tale that won't win any awards for its writing, but it's delivered through decent-looking fmv sequences with surprisingly passable voice acting and well-written character interactions. If the gameplay were of the same standard, we might have had an at least passable comic book game on our hands.
Yippee, the gang's all here! At least their scene together looks good
Unfortunately, it's all but impossible to get past the gameplay, which is poorly conceived, almost to the point of being totally broken. From the first level, you'll come to realize the sheer pain involved in playing this game. The opening tasks you with swinging across Gotham City rooftops to reach the GCPD. A pretty good idea in theory, but the execution is downright painful. To the game's credit, the mini-map in the corner of the screen highlights where to swing to next, so there's no chance of getting lost. Instead, the frustration comes from trying to navigate to the next building while fighting the atrocious camera and janky controls. Once I finally made it to the GCPD, after barely managing to hold on to my sanity after countless plunges to my death, I started to breathe a sigh of relief. Surely, that was the Dark Knight's most arduous trial. The game gets better from here, right?
It gets worse. Much worse.
Confounding navigation
Let's start with the level design. Batman: Dark Tomorrow's levels manage to be both simplistic and confusing. Most of the game has you simply running from point A to point B, a task made all the more arduous by the game's rather poor direction. It's not clear which doors can be opened and which can't, which ledges can be climbed on, or which pathway is the right one. An early level, for example, frequently had me cursing under my breath as Batman ran down a street, only to be insta-killed with gunfire every time. Eventually, I found I was supposed to head down another street that was seemingly blocked off by a flaming truck. The game gives no indication of this, and it's fair to assume that's the wrong way based on the small, easy-to-miss area to slip through. And this was just the beginning. Typically the only way forward is by trying every door until you find the one that opens and jump on every ledge until he grabs on, or, hell, even try the same door and the same ledge over and over, since the game is so janky that Batman likely won't do what he's supposed to unless you've got him positioned just right.
Second, there's the combat. It sucks. Enemies have all the intelligence of a thrown batarang, simply rushing at you with whatever weapon is on hand. What's more, Batman's fighting moves are as basic as it gets: a kick button, a punch button, and a useless block. There's a combo system, which unlike just about every other game, isn't done through a combination of punches and kicks, but by holding down the left shoulder button, which is about as awkward as it sounds. You probably needn't bother with the combo system anyway, since simply mashing buttons is just as effective.
Batcuffs, huh? Apparently, this is Batman's most effective tool for keeping foes down
And yet, for all its simplicity, the devs throw one wrench in the mix that complicates things considerably: batcuffs. You see, in order to make sure enemies stay down, Batman batcuffs every single enemy he beats. Every. Single. One. Whenever this happens, a three-second cutscene showing him put the cuffs on plays, which gets old fast. The problem is compounded when he's up against groups of three or more, since enemies won't stop attacking when he's trying to cuff one of their buddies, and by the time you dispatch one thug, another one is bound to get up and put a few more holes in the bat. You can use gadgets like batarangs to try and get the armed thugs who are far off, which would be pretty cool if he didn't have to switch perspectives and aim every time he tries to use it. So, basically, the most effective method of dispatching thugs is to rush right into their line of fire and start pummeling. Boss fights sadly don't offer much respite from the pain. All of them follow a pattern of knock 'em down, run away when they counterattack, and then run back and repeat the process. What's more, the camera does a weird, dramatic close-up both when they get hit and when they score a hit, which is totally unnecessary and only serves to further drag out the fight. And the multiple endings that follow the final boss are an insult. It would be nice if the game itself gave some indication this was even a thing instead of requiring players to look online to discover how to get the game's 'good' ending.
Diabolical camera systems
Oh, and speaking of the camera, I'm convinced it was designed by the Riddler to utterly confound the Dark Knight. You see, you can't manually control it. Instead, it operates at fixed angles that switch at seemingly random intervals. Often times it's difficult to determine just where you've been, and which direction you're going in. The developers seemingly realized this, and included a line in your mini-map tracking your movement. Admittedly, it does help, but to have a camera as inoperable as this is inexcusable. It's especially a liability during combat, where changes in perspective will cause you to lose sight with who you're fighting, or change direction so you're no longer facing the bad guy. And during boss fights, it's complete hell. It wouldn't be a stretch to call this the absolute worst camera system of any game I've played.
The Dark Knight stands "triumphant."
It's a shame the gameplay is such a miserable experience, because the game does have some merits in regards to production. The game can occasionally look good in stills, with some dark, atmospheric locations with solid texture work. But for every nice area, there's another drab hallway with blurry texture work that wouldn't look out of place on n64. And I say it sometimes looks good 'in stills,' because it'll take only a second to notice how terrible the animation is for both Batman and the legions of samey-looking goons. The only thing that moves with any real fluidity is Batman's flowing cape.
But contrary to the rest of the game, the sound is actually pretty good, for the most part. Voice acting, while held back by less-than-stellar dialogue, is typically of decent quality, which each actor fitting their respective roles fairly well. The music, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, is also fittingly bleak and bombastic, though there are plenty of areas that are strangely silent. On the other hand, the sound effects are pretty bad, with attacks rarely feeling like they pack the appropriate 'POW!' befitting of a comic book.
When all is said and done, Batman: Dark Tomorrow really is a fairly cool comic book experience attached to a virtually unplayable video game. The cutscenes and story are sure to delight hard-core Batman fans, but it's hard to see even them enduring the janky, unresponsive gameplay just to experience it. This may well be the Dark Knight's greatest failure, and only those willing to suffer the endless pain need apply.
The Dark Knight stands defeated
Pros
- + Decent cutscenes and voice acting
Cons
- - Horrible camera and controls
- - Stupid level design
- - Brain-dead combat
- - Terrible animation
- - Poor use of gadgets
2
Gameplay
4
Graphics
6
Sound
3
Replayability
3
out of 10
Overall
The Dark Knight perhaps suffers his single darkest hour. Getting has back snapped by Bane is nothing compared to the hell he and anyone else playing this game have to endure. Any merits in regards to its production are completely undone by its damn near incomprehensible gameplay. It may be a stretch to call this the worst game based on a DC Comics character (Superman 64 and Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis are standing right there), but saying it's 'not quite rock bottom' is far from a recommendation. Steer clear.
to become a complete gamer. Just like a kid (parents fully control money) who wanna grow up to be a man (you control your money) must go through teen (parents semi control your money)experience before becoming a man
.
and you can even play 2 Players in co-op but hey. Not bad.
