GAMbIT Magazine June 2014 | Page 32

6 lesser known batman games

BATMAN (1986)

Simply titled 'Batman' the games was a 3D isometric based action-adventure game released by Ocean. You know, the company that released the stunning 'Water World' for the Nintendo Virtual Boy. The game wasn't released in the United States and was exclusive to our friends across the pond releasing on the Amstrad PCW, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum and MSX Microcomputer.

The game tasks you (Batman) to rescue your young ward Robin by collecting seven parts of the Batcraft hovercraft (it was a different time) that are scattered around the Batcave, because why would Batman keep his vehicles in one piece.

The gameplay takes place in a 3D isometric world and is notable for implementing an early example of a system that allows players to restart from an intermediate point in the game on the loss of all lives rather than returning all the way to the start. The checkpoints in this case are known as “Batstones” because “Batballs” was presumably taken.

‘Batman’ was well received by the computer game magazines at the time. Famed ‘Crash Magazine’ gave it a rating of 93%, ‘Your Sinclair’ scored it 9/10 and ‘Sinclair User’ gave it five stars rating it as a “classic”. For the Dark Knights first outing the game was pretty fantastic, even if Batman looked like he had a slight beer belly.