Batman Returns - Final Rating

Written by Joe Pranevich

Christmas in July August!

There comes a time in everyone’s life where they need to put away their toys and provide a numerical rating for a tie-in adventure game written in 1992. More than once, in my case. But before we get into the all-important rating, let’s recap:

Batman Returns is the final game by Bill Kunkel’s Subway Software. Unlike the majority of the games that we play, we have Mr. Kunkel’s own words on the development process in a series of editorials as the “Game Doctor”. We can appreciate his joy at being able to work with the Batman mythos followed by his horror as he realized he was not making the game that he dreamed of. Instead of producing a Batman game that he could be proud of, he had to shoehorn in an adventure game on top of a movie that he did not like, with studio interference telling him what he could and could not include, with a development house that seemed ill-equipped to build the game that he designed. It is perhaps no wonder that this was his final game with Subway, although that may have been as much due to his changing fortunes in the magazine world as frustration with the game design one. Reading his words, I could not help but to root for the game to be better than its reputation. It also saddens me to no end that Mr. Kunkel is no longer with us; he feels approachable and would have been an amazing person to interview. I failed to mention it earlier, but we have also lost Joyce Katz (née Worley), the third member of the Kunkel/Katz/Worley trifecta. Of the three original developers and business partners, only Arnie Katz appears to still be with us, but I have been unable to locate him in time for this post.

Rather than dwell on that, let’s consider what we have: the first ever Batman adventure game and the first game to focus on his abilities as a detective. We successfully pieced the clues together to locate Penguin’s lair and prevent him from becoming mayor of Gotham. We stopped an army of marching penguins with rocket launchers. While we failed to bring Catwoman into the light, I’m going to imagine that there’s a world in the DC multiverse where Burton’s Batman and Catwoman managed to eventually get together and find a good therapist. They both could use one. Batman drove off into a snowy sunset and we can at least be thankful that no one thought to create a game based on Batman Forever.

Batman Returns - World’s Greatest Ichthyologist (Won!)

Written by Joe Pranevich

He is the terror that flaps in the night. He is the baloney sandwich that sits too long in the office refrigerator of crime. He is… someone else entirely. But where were we? Oh, right: Batman Returns, a completely different type of night-flapping terror. Last time around, I lost the game. I was supposed to find a blackmail tape that Penguin planned to use to throw the public against our current mayor, but I failed and Penguin broadcasted it to the city. He won the special election and Batman was humiliated. Even worse than that, I was back at square one to work out what I missed that led me down this dark path. For this post, I plan to play the whole game over again to see what I missed. If I could not find the solution, I would either leave the game as a “Lost!” or do a Request for Assistance.

At the risk of getting ahead of myself, I found the missing item quickly in my second playthrough. What follows is a second pass through the whole game, highlighting the things I missed the first time before continuing onward to the end. If you need a refresher on what I already found, you can always check out the previous post. I intended to present this over two weeks, but real-life challenges meant a delay in getting the first part out. Please accept this double-sized post as an apology.

Batman Returns - World’s Greatest Thumb-Twiddler (Lost!)

Written by Joe Pranevich

Who’s the dark knight detective that’s a hit with all the chicks? Batman! Your darned right. Welcome back to Batman Returns! Last week, I completed the first day by discovering (and stealing) an innocuous awards ceremony tape from the mayor’s office. We spent the day exploring and dealing with thugs from a circus gang, but did not spy either Penguin or Catwoman. Thus far, the game feels a bit thin with empty areas and not a lot that to explore thanks to the verbless interface. That said, the graphics are quite good and I’m enjoying bits of Danny Elfman in the soundtrack-- his Batman theme is one of the musical highpoints of my childhood and adds so much to this game.

And yet, you might sense that something is off. As Alex Romanov noted in the comments to my last post, I made a critical mistake that I did not discover until the end of this session. Things didn't go well for the Caped Crusader. Rather than whitewash it, I will narrate what happened and you can see for yourself how I spent the next four hours of play time. I am not sure whether I was completely doomed after the first day’s mistake or if there was some way that I could have recovered, but either way this is a “Lost!” post. I will try again from the start next week.

Batman Returns - World’s Greatest TV Watcher

Written by Joe Pranevich

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Batman! I hope you got your score votes in because it’s time to play Batman Returns. Given how excited Bill Kunkel was to create a Batman game, I am secretly rooting for this one to be better than its reputation, even if he was ultimately dissatisfied with the result. By the time the rating comes, I am certain that I can grade it without bias.

The game opens at twilight on a December night in Gotham City. The skyline is oddly muted; the incandescent bulbs in the towering offices are barely able to pierce the gloom. Danny Elfman’s iconic Batman score rises up through our computer speakers. Suddenly, the Bat-Signal appears in the clouds. Once again, the Gotham City Police has called upon the aid of their secret benefactor-in-the-shadows, Batman. We zoom in to the Batcave where the Caped Crusader is dressed and ready for action. The bat-cursor appears. What should we do first?

Game 109: Batman Returns (1992) - Introduction

Written by Joe Pranevich

I grew up loving comic books. My parents wouldn’t let me buy them, but I still had a tiny little suitcase of issues that I had managed to snag at flea markets with my own money. Looking back on it now, it’s adorable just how much I loved the idea of comics even as I barely owned any and didn’t even understand the difference between Marvel and DC. My big break came in high school when I bought boxes and boxes of them off of one of my mother’s boyfriends, no doubt getting a huge discount as he both tried to look mature enough to date my mother while also trying to be nice to me. Contained within the boxes-- most of which still sit in my basement twenty-five years later-- were a treasure trove of 70s and 80s heroes, especially Doctor Strange and a nearly-complete run of the original Defenders. Even more important than the books were the times that he and I spent together; I grilled him for hours about the histories of major characters and he was always kind enough to humor me. He even took me to my first comic book store. I kept in touch with him long after he and my mother split up. He was an adult geek, the first I had ever known, and that was amazing.

One of the characters that he helped me to love was Batman. I remember how shocked I was to learn that the Robin I knew from TV reruns wasn’t even Robin anymore and that there had been two more since then. In large part because of his collection, I was more a Marvel kid than a DC one, but Batman and his rotating team of whiz-kids was someone I could get into. Bruce Timm and his series sealed the deal and I’ve been a Bat-fan ever sense. Twenty-five years later, I am excited to look at Subway Software & Spirit of Discovery’s Batman Returns (1992), the first ever adventure game featuring the Dark Knight. As this is also the 80th anniversary of the character, I can’t imagine a more fitting time to delve into the history of Batman and Batman-related games, before plunging into our topic at hand. It’s a huge story, but I’ll be brief.