Batman Forever

Batman Forever for the Sega Genesis is the perfect movie adaptation. It's an ugly game with horrible production values, a miserable plot, stiff characters, bad design and a complete lack of original ideas. I didn't enjoy a single minute of it, instead finding it to be a grueling experience from start to end. In other words, it's exactly like the Batman Forever movie.

After both SunSoft and Sega took stabs at the Dark Knight, it's time for Acclaim to have a shot. True to stereotype, Acclaim delivers a sub-standard action game with distractingly bad graphics, horrible controls and an unforgiving difficulty. Say what you will about SunSoft's Batman and Sega's Batman Returns, they are masterpieces when compared to this turd.


Batman Forever ditches the standard 2D sprites, instead opting for fancy computer digitized graphics. I'm sure Acclaim intended this to stand out from the competition, but Batman Forever is no Mortal Kombat. This 16-bit Genesis isn't up to the task, turning what should be a bright and colorful action game into an ugly mess. Everything from the repeating bad guys to the crummy animation to the dark visuals stands out for all of the wrong reasons.

We see Batman fighting against two new villains -- the Riddler and Two Face. Neither of these characters is established in the video game, so let's hope you remember what happened in the horrible Val Kilmer vehicle. You walk slowly through a series of confusing levels beating up bad guys and solving riddles. Batman fights through a number of familiar movie sets, including the Gotham circus, Nygma's laboratory, the Second National Bank of Gotham, a subway station, the Batcave and a few other barely recognizable locations.


Gone is all of the technique found in Sega's Batman Returns. There's no need to swing around using a grappling hook, because this is a game about walking on flat paths and mashing buttons. The fact that they give you these toys and don't make you use them is indicative of what Batman Forever gets wrong.

The game does try to claw its way back up to respectability with a couple of two-player co-op modes. Never mind that playing as Robin doesn't make much sense in at least two early game stages, it's always nice to have a friend around. Sadly, once you bring Robin in, it's hard to look at the game as anything other than a mindless brawler. There are more platforming puzzles, but Batman Forever is ultimately as shallow as The Simpsons arcade cabinet.


Despite making the Mortal Kombat comparison in passing, it turns out to be fairly apt. Batman Forever plays a lot like Midways dreadful Mortal Kombat Mythologies spin-offs. The characters are stiff and the movements are imprecise. It has the feeling of a technology that hasn't quite been perfected yet. The controls are a mess, making even simple fights needlessly frustrating.

This is yet another Batman video game that doesn't give the villains a chance to shine. We're too busy watching the dynamic duo beat up bad guys that we never bother to care about the story. The sad fact is that there isn't much of a story; which is appropriate, because there isn't much of a game in Batman Forever.