I am a fan of the animated Batman TV series, and have been looking forward to this game for months, ever since seeing it at E3 back in May. There hasn’t been a good video game based on the animated show since The Adventures of Batman & Robin on the SNES (avoid the Genesis game of the same name, however). Unfortunately, although Vengeance is better than most of the Batman titles we’ve seen in the past several years, it is far from great. Vengeance cruises in, just barely, at mediocre.

There is some good to be found here. Ubi Soft got most of the series’ original voice actors to reprise their roles for the main characters, so Batman, Joker, Harley and others all sound exactly as they do in the show. The graphics also do a good job of capturing the feel of the series, right down to the title cards before each "episode," although they could be better.

Unfortunately, the story is lame. I was hoping for something with the same finesse and style of the TV show, but the plot is really only a bare-bones filler to put Batman up against a bunch of his most notorious enemies, including the Joker, Harley, Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy.

The bigger problems start appearing when you begin playing the game. First, Batman doesn’t control as tightly as I’d hoped. It feels like there’s a split second delay between pressing a button or moving and the onscreen character performing the action. It’s not horrible, and you can compensate for it, but it’s there, and after playing Devil May Cry, with its dead-on super-tight control it’s unforgivable, and it hurts the game.

However, the biggest problem in Vengeance lies in several gameplay decisions the developers made. There are so many instances of restricted gameplay and artificially heightened difficulty that you’ll find something on nearly every stage that will have you ready to snap the disc in two. I’ll take these problems individually.

First, Batman is able to use his grappling gun to scoot to high places quickly, but only in certain areas. A little icon appears onscreen when you can grapple, and you’ll need to go into first-person view, select the grappling hook from your list of items, and then look around for the bat symbol that pinpoints the one place you’re able to grapple onto. This is a ridiculous design decision, obviously in place because the designers weren’t able to create environments where Batman could grapple anywhere, like he can in the cartoon, without compromising the integrity of the stage. For example, one stage has a tall room filled with platforms. You’re able to grapple up to a platform near the middle of the room, but from there you must use a combination of jumping and climbing to reach the top. There’s no logical reason at all why Batman couldn’t simply fire his grappling hook at some point higher in the room, perhaps the ceiling, and reach the top easier, but he can’t.

Next up comes the use of the Batarang, the weapons Batman employs to disarm thugs before beating the snot out of them. In the cartoon, Batman is able to rapidly fire his Batarangs with a lightning-fast flick of the wrist and immobilize his opponent before they have a chance to react. Not so in Vengeance. In fact, using a Batarang in this game is so difficult that you’ll simply choose to never throw them unless the situation absolutely demands it. Here’s the procedure for using Batarangs – press R2 to enter first-person view, and then use L2 to cycle through your items until Batarang is selected. Now you can use the left analog stick to move Batman from side to side while simultaneously using the right stick to aim your shots. Finally, press X to throw the weapon… of course, by the time you’ve jumped through all of the hoops necessary to throw a Batarang, you’re probably dead.

Fighting is one area of the game that’s actually handled well… once the game recognizes that you’re in one and has adjusted the camera and kicked in the fighting controls. See, there’s no lock-on button in Vengeance, although once you’ve engaged an enemy the game will automatically lock you onto him and switch your controls over to the punch/kick setup used for fighting. Before this can happen, though, you’ll have to land a hit on the enemy or get hit, and it’s usually the latter, since many times lining up and actually connecting a hit before the lock-on cam takes effect is hard to do.

Finally, although there are some elements that make it seem like Vengeance is a game geared toward younger players, like the simplistic grappling hook, the level of difficulty will easily frustrate the under-12 set quickly and permanently. The game is very dark (which is fitting for Batman, but does not help gameplay), in fact, the very first thing you must do upon starting a game is to set the brightness, a self-conscious gesture that proves the designers realized their game was too dark. The route to progress through stages is often vague and not at all obvious, and there are so many artificial obstacles in place (like boxes that in one level Batman is able to jump onto but in others cannot) to restrict your movement that getting from point A to point B often becomes a matter of running around the edges of the level trying to figure out where to go next.

Vengeance is an unfortunate case of style over substance. Ubi Soft was so keen on capturing the dark look of the TV series that they managed to completely miss the mark when it came to making gamers actually feel like they are wearing the cowl and cape of the Dark Knight. Vengeance looks good, but the designers completely dropped the ball when it came to story, gameplay and level design. Rent it if you’re a fan of the show, otherwise avoid it.