Batman (The Movie) is a multi-scrolling platform game released by Ocean and severely based on the 1989 film of the same name. It was released in 1989 for the Amiga, Atari ST, PC (MS-DOS), Amstrad CPC, Amstrad CPC+, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum.
Review
STORY / GAMEPLAY Batman must save Gotham City from a lunatic villain called “The Joker” who plans to take over and bring crime and chaos. The story line is loosely based on the 1989 blockbuster movie “Batman”. The game features 5 levels of action. Your mission starts at the Axis chemical plant (were Mr. Jack Napier fell into acid and transformed into the deformed “monster” we all know...the Joker!) As Batman, you have to hunt down Napier and fight all his deadly gang members in order to proceed to the next level. Your main weapons are your fists, your kicks and your trusty batarangs. You can also use a bat-rope to climb into higher platforms. On each level, the action perspective changes and you also drive (or pilot) your Bat-vehicles (like in the second level where Joker is chasing you and you have to run to your Batcave driving your Bat-mobile.) While driving or flying, you have to avoid various obstacles and traps (e.g. police blockades) –and, believe me this is NOT easy as the gameplay gets frustrating, at least in most of the game’s versions (actually it’s hard to control the Bat-mobile, while the Bat-plane seems more controllable.
GRAPHICS / SOUND The graphics are great on the C64 version with plenty of details and using proper colors. The sprites are large and fast moving and the scrolling is smoother compared to the CPC/CPC+ and ZX, MSX versions. As for the sound, the Commodore version offers an impressive main menu music and some excellent in-game scores thanks to its SID chip. Unfortunately there are no sound effects at all, which is quite odd!