Batman (1991 Arcade Review)

Batman
Platform: Arcade
Developed by Atari Games
First Released April, 1991
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

This is the high score screen. Yes, really. I don’t know why but this cracked me up badly. Kim Basinger isn’t even looking at the camera and has a face like she just detected the scent of a fart, and Michael Keaton has this face like “yep, I was Mr. Mom and now I’m Batman. Suck it, haters! Also, I just farted.”

My previous experience with an Atari Games movie tie-in was when I reviewed Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, which got the look and the feel of the movie right, but it just wasn’t fun. Today, I played Batman, which is based on the 1989 Tim Burton film. It gets the look and feel of the movie right, but it just isn’t fun. Damnit. In fairness, Batman comes so close to being a decent, if generic, action-platformer that it can taste it. Too bad about the projectiles, though. See, the only moves you have to dodge the crap enemies throw at you is jumping and ducking. Ducking isn’t effective if enemies aim low, leaving only jumping. But, jumping is weirdly stiff and low energy. It’s almost like you’re jumping while wearing fifty pounds of hard rubber.

These jack-in-the-boxes throw multiple bombs at once.

Since Batman is designed to squeeze quarters from players, OF COURSE most enemies throw projectiles at you, and your only defensive moves aren’t exactly reliable. This is especially true if there’s other enemies around throwing other projectiles out of sync, which there usually is. You could be in a situation where enemies run in from behind you with knives while one guy is shooting you with a gun, another is throwing a knife, and a guy is heaving bombs at you. Now, enemies can damage each other. That’s good, but they also seem to be wired for suicide missions. Your sprite is relatively large and the area you fight in is typically cramped. When it’s guys who throw grenades at you, fuhgeddaboudit. You’re probably going to die, and half the time, you won’t even know for sure which baddie got you. Sid the Squid, perhaps?

In this screenshot, the level’s title card hasn’t even vanished yet, but there lies the Caped Crusader, dead as a doornail. This is on the easy setting  with the lives jacked-up, mind you. Besides unlimited continues, the one kindness Batman offers is that your items carry over between lives. If not for that, I don’t think I’d have finished a few areas in the game.

A coin-op being brutally difficult isn’t exactly stunning. The fact that this Batman coin-op, released at the peak of Batman’s 90s popularity, is a complete non-entity is downright jaw-dropping. I’ve played a lot of unfairly hard coin-ops that are basically robber barons with a coin slot, and there’s always fans with fond memories lining up to defend them. Atari Games’ Batman has no such defenders. This despite the fact that most of the set pieces in the movie are included in the game. Hell, you even throw Jack Nicholson into a vat of chemicals, just like in the movie. There’s Batmobile and Batwing sequences, and even the Danny Elfman score from the film is here and very film-accurate. Seriously, go have a listen yourself!

Wow! That’s pretty dang impressive for a game made in 1990, right? I can’t imagine what a thrill that must have been for gamers of this era to hear this thing in arcades. Literally, I can’t, because I’ve never once heard a single person bring up Batman in conversation. I’ve been on Twitter for over twelve years now and follow a lot of classic game enthusiasts. Batman: The Arcade Game never gets mentioned. Some arcade regulars weren’t even aware the game existed. That makes sense for Three Stooges, but Batman? Wasn’t Batman HUGE in the early 90s? Well, apparently Atari Games recognized their Batman wasn’t very fun (or stable, for that matter). The game was finished in 1990, but it didn’t actually reach arcades until April of 1991, and only as a conversion game. The Arcade Museum has a “rumor” that only 1,000 units were shipped out. One of which apparently ended up in Michael Jackson’s hands. For a coin-op developed at the height of Batman’s popularity, that’s a red flag so big that it could cover Gotham City.

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You can punch, which requires you to get right up next to enemies. I preferred to use flying kicks instead. There’s two different kinds in the game, and oddly enough, you don’t even have to press the attack button to use them. They happen automatically when an enemy is near and they’re pretty reliable. Batman is a very glitchy arcade game. One of the most glitchy I’ve ever played, especially of this kind. There were times when sprites for enemies would be just floating and slowly sinking along the side of a building, not doing anything to hurt me but just lingering there like it was their spirit trying to escape the game. There’s also lots of collision issues. Given that, you’d worry about an attack that happens automatically, but it’s the most effective move in the game. Just walk towards enemies. If you don’t have a lot of speed or momentum, the jump button will unleash a crane-style leaping high kick. If you’re moving fast, he’ll do a dropkick. Except for the boss fights where they’re harder to utilize, I stopped bothering with the punches altogether. I survived more grenades thanks to the kicks. Also, there’s this strange body-check thing that happens when you run into an enemy but you’re not attacking. You both recoil off each-other. I discovered this was the easiest way to beat the first boss. Weird.

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There’s also three item pick-ups, though you can only hold one at a time and you cannot punch while holding an item. Also, all three items are projectiles, including the grappling hook. If you’re not using the grappling hook for platforming, it fires out what looks like directional arrows at enemies. The Batarang is just a generic gun type weapon that doesn’t return to you, or at least I don’t think it does. The gas canisters are the most effective weapon by far. Not only do they directly injure enemies when you hit one with them, but then they explode with very generous splash damage. Frankly, it’s shocking anything about this coin-op Batman is generous, but those gas canisters are all over the place and they work against all enemy types, including bosses. In fact, anytime I fought a boss and I had an ample supply of them, I don’t think I ever took a single hit. While I enjoyed passing gas at enemies, the combat just doesn’t have a decent feel to it. It’s feathery and lacking in impact. There were also times where I punched right through enemies (though to the game’s credit, it SEEMED like when that happened to me, it was the same for them too). Batman is one of the most unpolished coin ops I’ve played.

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As a platforming game, Batman is failed by its terrible jumping physics. How bad are they? Let’s say you want to hold onto the ultra-effective gas canisters, but right in front of you are the Batarangs. If there’s a platform above you, you can hold up and jump. Then, AND ONLY THEN, you can perform a high jump. Or, if there’s a platform below you, you can jump down to it. If neither of those options are present? You can’t even jump high enough to jump over the item that’s less than half the size of your character on the ground. So when you get a gap this big:

You have to hold your breath because you can’t count on being able to make the jump. And since the collision isn’t very good, when it looks like you’re clearing it, it’s entirely possible you’re still shorting it. These gaps are all over the final level and are really a bigger challenge than any of the enemies. They might as well be the last boss!

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There’s also three vehicle sections that are pseudo-rail shooters. In all three, you control crosshairs to shoot enemy cars and the projectiles they fire at you. The two Batmobile ones are as basic as car combat gets, and they’re annoying as all hell. Despite the fact that your gun sure looks and sounds like a machine gun, you have to pump the attack button to fire. No holding it down. Well, that sucks. The car sections are boring and samey, but at least the Batwing has a novel hook. In that level, you actually have to steer into balloon strings. And I realized how silly that is as soon as I typed it. That might be the least heroic sentence anyone has ever written about Batman, ever. But, at least it felt different, and hey, it beats the god awful platforming sections.

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So, that’s Batman. From a technical standpoint, it’s one of the worst arcade games I reviewed in 2023. The film came out in 1989, but the game didn’t hit arcades until 1991. So, why does it feel so unfinished? I really don’t know. There’s not a whole lot of information about this game out there. The sad thing is, if they redid this as a three button game that adds some kind of blocking move, it might have actually become decent. Or hell, just make the jumping better. I get that he’s wearing like fifty pounds of hard rubber and so jumping is probably quite hard, but it’s a superhero game where you don’t feel remotely superhero-ish. I won’t go so far as to say that Batman is completely worthless. It completely slays Taito’s Superman arcade game, which has none of the technical hang-ups as Batman but is just so boring. Batman, even though it’s basically a complete failure, certainly isn’t boring.

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Heck, I even like that all the boss fights against the Joker are won by pushing him backwards. Hey, it’s something different than a typical life bar, and he’s not even THAT spongy. There’s moments in Batman where you can see the potential for a memorable and exciting Batman game. It doesn’t feel like they phoned this one in at all. However, it does give off the vibe that, because they missed the wave of popularity and relevance of the first film’s June, 1989 release, they lost their will to stick the landing on the final product. Konami wanted to do the coin-op based on the film, but Atari Games had the inside track on it, and they didn’t even really do anything with it. Levels are short, Combat is dull and lacking in OOMPH, and there’s overall inelegance to the whole experience. And now, I totally get why maybe only 1,000 units of this were sent out.
Verdict: NO!