Now, it’s time for me to be honest. I wasn’t a big fan of Batman. The TV show bored me and the comics were never around when I was a kid as DC Comics didn't have the saturation levels they now do and not every town had a dedicated comic book shop or newsagent that stocked North American comics. I was however, a massive fan of Michael Keaton so when I heard a Batman film was coming out and that Ocean Software were making a game about it I got super hyped, after all the previous year the RoboCop game from them blew my teenager mind.

 

In June 1989 the film hit Cinemas in America and then on August 11th when the UK got it, myself and my then new friends from my first (and best job I ever had) went to the cinema one Sunday to see it, it was superb! We loved it! At that point the need for the game I had been seeing in my games mags exploded into overdrive. A month later in September Ocean Software released the game connected to it, anticipation turned into pure joy. Initially released for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, I was able to play it straight away thanks to being the owner of a Spectrum 128K computer.

 

Essentially a mixture of 3 different game genres into 5 levels that were knitted together to form an overall game this followed events from the film itself. The next part is taken directly from Wikipedia so I don’t have to type it out myself:

 

In the first level, styled as side-scrolling gameplay, Batman fights his way through the Axis Chemical Plant to confront Jack Napier, knocking him into a vat of chemicals and turning him into The Joker. Batman can use his Batarangs and grapple gun to defeat enemies. The grapple gun can also be used to climb to higher platforms and swing across gaps.

In the second level, Batman drives his Batmobile across Gotham City, dodging traffic and using a grapple to turn corners at high speed. Missing three consecutive turns causes Batman to run into a police roadblock and costs the player one life, regardless of the timer and health gauge.

 

The third level is a Mastermind-like puzzle set in the Batcave, in which Batman is presented with eight consumer products and must identify the three that the Joker has tainted with the deadly chemical Smilex. The player chooses three items at a time and is told how many are correct; a health penalty is incurred for selecting any incorrect items.

 

The fourth level takes place during the Joker's parade, in which Batman must fly the Batwing and cut away balloons filled with Smilex gas without crashing into them or the floats to which they are tethered.

 

In the fifth and final level, styled similarly to the first, Batman climbs to the top of Gotham City Cathedral and must stop the Joker from escaping on a helicopter.

 

Now the ZX Spectrum version (the one I purchased and played first) was mostly monochrome with very detailed background and character sprites, simple sound effects and some nice music. Everything about it looked and felt like a game from Ocean, often myself and others refer to something called ‘The Ocean template’ which refers to how a lot of their games were quite similar in that it felt like many of them were just made from a standard design with sprites changed. A lot of their Film/TV tie-in games often felt like several mini-games whacked together and Batman The Movie definitely had this vibe about it.

 

The thing is though… it worked! It was a great formula. Instantly playable and fun the platforming, driving and puzzle elements fused together brilliantly and with a decent difficulty level applied this was a real challenge to beat. One really great aspect of this was how your energy/life bar slowly changed from Batman to The Joker via a portrait image on the bottom of the screen. Myself and a friend were mesmerized by this as most life bars were simple horizontal or vertical green to red bars, this looked way cooler.