The Adventures of Batman & Robin (1994)

My thoughts are for the Genesis game, which is a run-and-gun platformer that has you throwing a million ninja stars (sigh, batarangs) at endless waves of mobs, a la Gunstar Heroes. I'll also note that I'm not familiar with the cartoon this is based on, nor am I a big Batman or comics book fan. (I mean, I saw some movies, they're good.)

Let's start with what's awesome about this game. The graphics! Holy crap, this is one of the best-looking 16-bit platformers you'll ever find. Right from the start, the game dazzles with its cool and gloomy film noir-esque aesthetic. Really fluid animation for all the characters. And the environments are drawn in a way to give the world a more three-dimensional feel to it. There's a lot to feast your eyes on in the background and foreground, but it's still possible to keep focused on the fast-paced action close at-hand. I also got to mention that the music for this game is amazing. One of my favorite Genesis soundtracks, without a doubt. Crazy techno sounds that keep building in intensity and never lets up -- gave me goosebumps at times.

So the game is a technical marvel that everyone with a Genesis ought to check out. But is it fun to play? Well... it's pretty repetitive stuff, I'll be honest. The game is also ridiculously difficult. (Like, Battletoads difficult, lol.) Supposedly it's possible to get good enough to beat this game, but that ain't happening for me in this lifetime. I used a rom mod called the Batvantage mod (basically keeps your attack power meter full), which made the game actually playable. Not a complete walk in the park, but manageable. The game's four levels end up just taking about an hour to play through (mostly thanks to some unnecessarily long shmup segments), but it's overall an entertaining romp, especially if you can get a friend in for co-op.