Batman: The Caped Crusader (1988)
After hitting it big, Ocean tried to capitalize on the Batman licence by releasing another game, this time releasing it in North America. With two years of advancements in home computer technology, users were expecting another hit, but instead, Ocean outsourced the game because they couldn’t be bothered to create a sequel to their own hit game.
Batman; The Caped Crusader is an side-scrolling action adventure game developed by Special FX Software and published by Ocean Software for the 8-bit European home computers such as the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 and by Data East in the United States for other platforms such as the Apple II, Commodore Amiga and PC in 1988
Best known for using comic book style panels to show the action. In this game, Batman is faced with two of his most well-known adversaries, The Penguin and The Joker with the game split into two different parts, one for each villain. These parts can be played in any order.
Despite outsourcing the game was again well received upon release. Criticism was leveled on it’s reliance on mazes and puzzles. While the graphics were outstanding for the time, the game didn’t feature any scrolling, rather relying on new comic panels popping up when changing game screens.
BATMAN (1990)
After the release of the hit Tim Burton Batman movie, everyone wanted to get in on the Dark Knight. While we did manage to get the incredible ‘Batman’ on the Nintendo Entertainment System, one of the best games released on the system, we also got a lot of crap. Strangely enough, Sunsoft, makers of the incredible NES game also released a completely different ‘Batman’ on the PC Engine in Japan.
‘Batman’ is essentially what happens when you take Pac-Man and throw Batman in it instead. The game is maze-based and split into a number of different locations loosely based on the film, each with 12 small to medium sized stages.
These stages are inhabited by the Joker’s henchmen who wander aimlessly around waiting until Batman comes along and punches them. Each stage has a set objective that varies from level to level in an attempt to keep things interesting. Unfortunately, the game tends to become extremely repetitive after a short time