App Trigger
Fansided

Batman Day: The five best Batman games ever released

By Eric Chrisman

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 22: A Batman costume from the 1995 Batman Forever film worn by Val Kilmer and designed by Rob Ringwood and Ingrid Ferrin is on display at the DC Comics Exhibition: Dawn Of Super Heroes at the O2 Arena on February 22, 2018 in London, England. The exhibition, which opens on February 23rd, features 45 original costumes, models and props used in DC Comics productions including the Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman films. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 22: A Batman costume from the 1995 Batman Forever film worn by Val Kilmer and designed by Rob Ringwood and Ingrid Ferrin is on display at the DC Comics Exhibition: Dawn Of Super Heroes at the O2 Arena on February 22, 2018 in London, England. The exhibition, which opens on February 23rd, features 45 original costumes, models and props used in DC Comics productions including the Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman films. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 5
Next

In celebration of Batman Day and 80 years of the world’s best detective, here are the five best video ever games starring the Guardian of Gotham himself!

Batman is undoubtedly one of the biggest superheroes of all time. Starring in tons of comics, movies and TV shows (mostly animated), the Caped Crusader has been around for 80 years as of 2019. Over those eight decades, there’s been a lot of video games too!

While one could say the majority of other media starring Batman is at least pretty good, his video games by and large have not been. This might be attributed to being both a superhero game and a licensed game, two genres that rarely turn out well.

It’s not easy to capture what it’s like to be the world’s greatest detective in video game form but a handful of video games have managed to do just that in the last few decades.

Here are the five best video games starring Batman (note that this is “starring”, so no games where he is part of an ensemble like Injustice).

#5. Batman: The Video Game (NES)

The Batman movie directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton was a phenomenon. Thirty years later, it is still a lot of people’s favorite big-screen take on the Caped Crusader. It’s no surprise that a tie-in video game was developed and released not long after the movie the following year. What was surprising is that the game was actually pretty good!

Batman: The Video Game was about as good as you could possibly get for a superhero game in the 1990s on the NES. Part of that is certainly reflective of the fact that most games of that era starring well-known superheroes were utter trash. But Batman: The Video Game stands on its own as a great game that still holds up really well today.

That probably has to do with the fact that the game is only loosely based on the film and doesn’t follow it that closely. You visit some familiar settings, have a climactic showdown with The Joker at the end, etc. But you also encountered plenty of villains from the Dark Knight’s rather large rogue’s gallery that did not make an appearance in the film such as Deadshot, KG Beast, and Killer Moth. It still holds up today as a very fun (if incredibly difficult) game that was a pretty decent representation of the character it was based on.

Home/Opinion