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| OLD GAMES |
| REVIEW SITE |
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| BATMAN old and new |
| Spectrum and Pc |
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| Batman was originally released on the Speccy way back in 1986, by Ocean. Unlike most of the later movie tie in games, this was a more puzzle orientated game, viewed from the same Isometric view as the Ultimate games such as Knightlore or Fairlight. The team behind this game were also responsible for the hugely succesful Head Over Heels. |
| The story behind the game is that Robin has been Kidnapped, and its down to you as Batman to get out there and rescue him. Well actually thats what the instructions said, but the fact is that you never actually get to go out as such, as the game is spent exploring the vast batcaves, trying to find parts of the dismantled batcraft. Along the way your going to need to get a few other things to help you along the way, such as a bag, some boots and some make up! Okay so i was lying about the make up, but it did sound like a visit to the local perfume shop! |
| It would be easy to find all of this stuff if it wasnt for the fact that our heroes little batcave isnt quite as small as it always seemed in the tv show, in fact its about 150 screens worth of area, meaning there is a fair bit of exploring and mapping needed to get anywhere in this game, and thats without worrying about the evil little baddies that seem to have found their way into the supposedly well hidden, high security batcave. Most screens in this game revolve around some puzzle or other, be it a fairly simple one that involves pushing a block into a certain place to some really difficult ones that will really have you pulling your hair out. |
| By now you may be wondering whay ive called this Old and New, well if you shift your mouse over one of the pictures you should get another picture pop up. This is from the remake, which is an almost identical copy of the original, named Watman, which is basically a version of the game with enhanced graphics and sounds, which is playable straight from your PC. The remake has also been ported to the Gameboy Advance named Gwatman. |
| As you can see by the screenies, the graphics have been increased quite a lot, and the amount of colour actually does make a difference during the game, making some distances a little more possible to judge. The great thing about this remake is that the team behind it have pretty much left the original game alone, only tweaking certain areas a little to make it work, so the game is very faithful to the original in terms of gameplay. The graphics on the other hand look and feel a lot better, and bring this game up to date a little, whilst still having the same basic look of the original. |
| As games go this, both versions, is one difficult little game, offering months of frustrating gameplay, but it is still enjoyable and shows a few good ideas. The Remake is well worth a look for people that want to try the game with more colour, or just want to be able to run it without using an emulator or an original Spectrum. The Remake is available over at retro remakes, there is a link in the approprietly titled links section on the site! |
| GRAPHICS - original 6/10 remake 8/10 PLAYABILITY - original 7/10 remake 6/10 LASTABILITY - original 6/10 remake 6/10 OVERALL original 8/10 remake 7/10 |