Multimedia Talk Episode Zero (1st Submission Fail)

NOTE - Well we gotta start somewhere. Let's start with my first submission in the realm of Multimedia Talk, my review of Batman Begins on the Nintendo GameCube!

Multimedia Talk Episode Zero
Today's Topic - Super Hero Video Games
Featuring Batman Begins for the Nintendo GameCube
Publisher - EA Games

“Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves back up again.”

Not word for word, but the general gist of the main point of Batman Begins when I first looked at this game in it's Playstation 2 incarnation, the winner of the last generation console wars prior to the present gen which is now wrapping up, outlasting both the GameCube and the XBox for superiority. Sadly, if you thought Nintendo might
recover this now past gen console? Sorry. Nintendo bailed last November so it could get a head start on the next gen war with the Wii U.

Batman Begins, the start of the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy, takes a shovel to the Batman franchise’ grave and digs it up from it’s Joel Schumacher inspired premature burial, even going so far as even
outdistancing the original two Tim Burton movies which weren‘t bad… but weren‘t excellent either. Throwing away everything that made the first four movies less than perfect (even the first two Tim Burton movies which did well, but not excellently), Batman Begins starts fresh and makes a whole new movie that wins audiences over with it’s
stronger (darker) imagery, well defined characters, villains who are truly interesting and not just flash and smoke, and overall storytelling that is just a joy to watch... why The Dark Knight Rises did so well yet could have been better boggles my mind, let alone the strange fate now shadowing over any possible future Batman movie trilogy post Dark Knight Rises. Will it be a fresh Bruce Wayne trilogy with a new Wayne, or will it continue from Rises with that new guy Rises implied would be taking over as the Batman? Sadly if you were hoping the WB has a plan, and a idea for their future... even they don't see capable of thinking past Man of Steel and Justice League, heaven forbid.

But we are not here to talk about a new Batman movie, we're here to talk about an old Batman game. This one, Batman Begins on the GameCube. Yes. There is still the matter of the Batman Begins GameCube game. Movie based games are not exactly the best, with a lot of these “games” falling short of the splendor promised in trailers, disappointing more than satisfying. So that means Batman Begins is only halfway through the “woods”. The movie is good, but how will Batman Begins the game fare when put under intense scrutiny? Especially when we're talking scrutiny of the GameCube adapt, a version that might fall short of the PS2 version just for being... well... on the jGameCube... what can I say? For every Resident Evil 4 (better on the GameCube) we have 10 games that are better on the PS2... is this one of them? Let's see.

We'll start by recapping the PS2 version, then see how the GameCube version differs. You know the drill. The game follows the story of the movie from beginning to end, pitting you against the forces of darkness and evil (as well as bat villains Ra’s Al Ghul aka Liam Neeson & the Scarecrow)! Starting briefly in Gotham, you bounce to
Asia where you’ll learn the ways of the Bat from Liam Neeson, where you’ll move on back to Gotham where you’ll find crime boss Falcione, before you tangle with the forces of the Society of Shadows (Ra’s Al Ghul & Scarecrow)! But first, before you get into this game you need to learn how to play the game in question now don’t you! That’s what Liam Neeson’s level at the start is for, teaching you the ins and outs of using Batman to the best of your abilities.. now it's time to see if the GameCube controller makes this task easier or harder!
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Actually... I couldn't tell the difference. Yes the GameCube controller is a completely different beast from the PS2 controller, and some games the PS2 controller is just superior in comparison to the GameCube but this time... it did it's job and you can play it well enough. I don't have much to complain about in terms of that. Maybe not sticking the area sensitive button prompts in the upper right corner (where I sometimes neglect to notice them) or just putting the movie Batman logo up there (when you should just post the little Z button which is what you have to tap to do said actions) got my goat, but otherwise nothing worth really complaining over.

Does this game have stealth? Yes. Stealth in this game is sort of like stealth in Splinter Cell, where silence is golden. And yes, this is NOT a Splinter Cell clone (unlike Catwoman and it’s brush with Prince of Persia gameplay) because the action is entirely Batman, and all the moves are uniquely Batman (and don’t feel as if they were meant for Sam Fisher but just graphed over Batman’s polygons). Yes, you can still beat down the bad guys, but getting to that point sometimes requires active thought. Some of these thugs carries guns, and while
in previous games Batman has rushed in swinging to bring them down the same can’t be done now, lest you get shot down and it’s Mission Failed. You need to find a way to disarm your opponents, and that’s where the game’s unique “Fear Area” and “Reputation” meters comes into play. Reputation represents the amount of rep you have with the bad guys. The higher the rep meter, the easier it is to fight these guys as they’ll slip up more (and fumble under your fearsome form) making the battles easier as you build up rep (which you need to do every
level). The second unique meter is the Fear Area meter. The best way to disarm opponents is to strike fear into them, and to do that you’ll need to manipulate the environment around the criminals (dropping heavy objects, throwing theatrical grenades to shock them, or manipulating other parts of the background around them to generate fear in them) or affect them in someway like throwing smoke/flash grenades at them to shock them. The background in some areas are not for show, sometimes you can manipulate them through either the pushing of buttons, or the application of batarangs, to make them do things to instill fear in your targets. The more fear you generate in them, the easier it is to take them down (and they’ll drop their weapons which makes it easier to nail them -- and they‘ll also hallucinate about you if you have a full fear area meter when going in for the takedown).

It’s the use of the Fear Area/reputation meters which sets this game apart, but how will this all handle on the GameCube controller? Let's see... fine. It works, you just have to remember to tap the Z button sometimes to do things like break stuff to instill fear in your enemies, especially ones with guns as it seems once they shoot you
it's game over and redo from last checkpoint (which sucks if you have to travel abit to get back to the moment you failed). Being able to sneak up and take out armed opponents first, clearly marked on your radar in red, is a nice touch though... but it also makes the game incredibly linear as there is no randomizer to shake things up (shift who is carrying a gun for instance, or give you multiple options in terms of how to strike fear into your enemies).

Another plus, to an extent, is the quality time you spend with the new Batmobile, aka the Tumbler. Yes, I know some of you are not enamored with the new vehicle, but once you sit down in that theater and see the Tumbler in action you’ll forget the looks and realize it’s the way the vehicle does it’s job which is the most important. Once it hit’s the road that’s when it really starts to shine. It works like a dream, and does some pretty nifty moves to boot which makes it a solid Batmobile. And, not to disappoint, the Batmobile you use in this game also has some sweet moves. In two levels you’ll get to drive the Batmobile, the first to chase down a truck that might be holding a vital component of the movie’s big ending to the Black Market of Gotham (which you get to explore next level), while the second is the race to save Rachel (Katie Holmes) as she lies dying from Scarecrow’s toxins.


Previous Batmobile driving sequences (Batman Returns) has not lived up to snuff. Driving and shooting things at vehicles, big whoop. This time however there’s only shooting of rockets at the end, the rest is all high speed driving with high speed crashes! Yeah, no shooting but you CAN slam it with your enemy cars and send the flying with hard crash damage for their troubles… that and you can also slam innocent cars but don’t worry, nobody dies in these sequences. Maybe the Matrix style slow-mo sequences for every enemy vehicle crash might annoy after awhile for some, but I never tire of it! Damn! And once you beat the first Batmobile sequence you unlock a Batmobile Bonus in which you can race the level again in either Mission mode, or Time mode (which is VERY VERY VERY HARD!!) and you can choose between the Batmobile black or Tumbler camouflage paint jobs in this race!

That's the positive part. The negative part, from the PS2 era, is that this is short, and ultimately forgettable as it doesn't impact the game much. A mild interest but ultimately falls short. Wish it was better, because it is fun to play, but I wouldn't pay a sizeable bit for this game just on that merit... but wait, that's car control in the PS2 version when I talk above... how does the GameCube version hold up?... Actually I haven't gotten to a driving sequence yet, but I am going to go out on a limb and probably guess it controls the same as the PS2 version since everything else basically does that with the exception of what buttons to tap.

Speaking of extras does the GameCube version have the same content as the PS2 version in terms of extras?  Well, in the PS2 version we had interviews (though I wish they were unique interviews with each voice actor/actress instead of group montage interviews), we have movie galleries (the only downside is that the cutscenes are not scenes from the movie but montages of scenes put together to push the story forward), Alternate costumes (unlock four different classic costumes), the aforementioned Batmobile Extra and a Gallery of Fear (where your defeated enemies are locked away for you to learn more about them via info given as you click on their cells). While I have seen games with better extras in terms of movie adapt games, the extras here are still pretty ok overall. And that is what I call my Golden Rule of movie games. What is that?  For me the Golden Rule is that games like this should have the participation of the actual cast who made the movie.
After all if they couldn’t be troubled to be in this game why should you be troubled to play it. Which is why you should be troubled if you are a fan of the movies, because they took the time to do this… all of them! Christian Bale (is it me or does he just not sound all that into it at times in this game), Michael Caine, Katie Holmes (replaced in The Dark Knight of course), Liam Neeson (sadly however he didn’t participate in the cast interview segment), Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, etc.! You get exactly what you came for when playing a movie
game like Batman Begins, quality time with the people who made the movie what it is! And they all do a bang-up job! Not leaving their respective roles to lesser voice actors, the actual cast takes on their own roles and delivers a nicely done job! And really, if that isn’t additional incentive to jump into this game then I don’t know
what is... except the GameCube extras. Oh, it's the same by the way. Sometimes game adapts differ abit in the past between consoles (for instance the Batman Returns game is a completely different beast if your comparing between the Super NES and Genesis version) but this isn't one of those exceptions.

Even the PS2 version, which I liked fairly well, there are a few downers though... but let's see how the GameCube version measures up.

In the PS2 version picking locks and hacking computer locks  hark back to the simplistic hacking job of Ghost in the Shell : Stand Alone Complex for the PS2. The lock pick thing, in fact, is the same simplistic one push match the sections to “pop” the lock sequence as the “hacking” sequence of GITS : SAC, which is kind of lame if you ask me. At least the GITS : SAC hack job had a little variety, while the lock picking of Batman Begins is the same “lock” over and over again... is the GameCube the same? Yes.

The cutscenes of the PS2 version are all done in montage sequences, which is several scenes from the movie strung together to form a single cutscene to introduce a sequence in the game. I wish they just showed scenes from the movie (in order) to move the game along, ala Star Wars Episode II (which I thought sucked, you'd be happier playing LEGO Star Wars in my opinion if you go back to relive Episode III)I, but this is still good since the exchange is that you get to spend quality time with the stars of the movie (unlike Star Wars Episode
III) so I guess I can live with the cut scenes of this game... probably the same in the GameCube version but let's see... once again, yesj.

My last minor PS2 complaint is the fact that you can’t use some of your equipment whenever you want. That’d be mainly the batarangs and thrown grenades and other devices used for fear. Sometimes I wanted to
use something on a near bad guy but found my options limited (apparently batarangs and other things are situation sensitive things which can only be used for certain situations). But again that’s a minor thing since I am sporting a quick one hit takedown move that can be used when you sneak up behind guys so that even things up nicely… oh, and did I forget to mention the overhead take down move? When your hung up on your grapple and somebody walks underneath you you can perform this takedown which is you lowering down (cinematic moment) to grab the unsuspecting perp in dramatic manner.

GameCube version? Yup. It's the same again. Sadly.

Overall the PS2 version was a pretty average game for your collection off the bargain bin. Not too bad but nothing spectacular either. Basically a game for Batman fans and that's it. The GameCube version? Same. Pretty average and nothing really stands out about it. If you are a Batman movie fan you might get it for your old GameCube... and that is about it since only the first generation Wii plays GameCube games and the Wii U abandoned the GameCube completely short of any possible ports in the Wii U Ware shop in the future... but that's about it. A less than average middle of the road 2 out of 5.

Could have been better. Could have done more. Just didn't fulfill though off the bargain rack or trading off of GameTZ you might at least find a pretty interesting weekend play here. But only if your interested in Batman movie stuff. If not? Go play Mario.

See you next time! Keep on playing games... not burning them. Don't burn them! They're toxic and dangerous! Just play them! Nuff said 

(Well that's the first miss! No doubt more to come so stay tuned!)