Comics are completely hip right now which means loads and loads of movies and games inspired on comic characters. You only have to look at movies like Elektra and Catwoman or at games like Batman: Dark Tomorrow to see that's not necessarily a good thing. Traditionally comic book games are beat 'em ups that pit a well-known hero against a truckload of anonymous hoodlums and a few comic book villains. While the quality of comic book games isn't rising drastically, at least developers are trying to make the games more true to the comics instead of just taking Final Fight and putting their hero in it instead of Mike Haggar. This change is quite welcome, not just because comic fans can now really play their heroes, but because it gives comic book games much needed variety.

Well sure. I'd look cool too if i had a cape and a spotlight with my name on it.

Batman Begins is, as you've probably already guessed, one of those games. Based on the upcoming movie with the same name, this game focuses on how Bruce Wayne started putting on his mask and cape. It also takes a step away from simply beating up punks and lowlifes. Taking cues from both his own comics and the Splinter Cell games, Batman now uses the shadows to sneak up on enemies. Don't worry though, you still get to kick a lot of behind, but you don't just rush into a room and start dealing damage in this game. Batman uses fear to weaken his enemies, so before jumping into a fight you should try to look around for machines to turn on with a batarang or other things that'll scare the hell out of anybody around. You're often forced to do this because Batman isn't bulletproof, just a few bullets will easily kill the caped crusader. So anytime you see a group of bad guys with guns you better make sure they're scared enough to drop their weapons or it's Game Over for you.

Controlling Batman feels more than a bit like controlling Sam Fisher. He walks slowly but steady in a semi-crouched fashion when in stealth mode, he can perform stealth attacks when approaching enemies from behind, he can even interrogate them if he needs information. In fistfights Batman is a lot more able than Sam however, which makes the game feel like more than just Splinter Cell in a cape. Bats can punch, kick and jump during the fights, and he has a context sensitive attack button. If you're surrounded, this button performs an attack that knocks away anyone standing near Batman; if enemies are nearly down it executes a nice finishing move. All the moves are non-lethal, because that's the kind of guy Batman is, but they sure look really painful. When interrogating an enemy he uses the environment to beat what he needs to know out of him; Batman may not kill anybody, but he's not afraid to hurt anybody along the way.

Impressive being able to fight with that thing on.

Because of the stealth and scare tactics, Batman Begins feels a little forced. We've played a four level demo of the game, and although it looks very nice and controls fine, it feels a bit too linear. It's very cool to be able to scare a bunch of thugs witless before beating them senseless, but in most rooms there seemed to be only one way to make it out alive. That kind of takes away the feeling of being a creative crime fighter. There was only one large level among the demo levels though, so we can't really say how this will work out in the rest of the game. This level was a romp through the Gotham city docks, filled with corrupt policemen and regular criminals. The other levels were shorter; two of them were tutorial levels in which Bruce Wayne learns how to be Batman, the other was a Batmobile level. The tutorials were nice; since Batman has quite e few moves at his disposal this time he gets shoved in a lot of different situations. The most intense level however was the one in which you get to take the new Batmobile for a spin. Developer Eurocom had a little help from Criterion for these levels, a company you may know from the excellent Burnout series. As a result the Batmobile levels feel quite a lot like a simplified version of Burnout. They're fast and you get to take out other cars like in Burnout 3, what more could you ask for?

What we've seen now from Batman Begins looks good. The visuals are fine; they give the game the dark atmosphere that the license almost demands. The mix between stealth and fighting feels a bit strange now, but that'll probably fade after playing for a while. The levels we played were a bit too linear for our tastes, but the puzzles that needed to be solved to scare the wits out of the enemies were done very well. We're not sure how many driving levels the game will have, but you don't need to be afraid of boring driving missions with sloppy controls, the one we played was very entertaining. Now let's just hope Batman Begins continues the tradition of faithful comic book games, and maybe even raise the bar a bit. If not, there's always Ultimate Spider-man, Fantastic Four, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, X-Men Legends 2, the new Superman game and probably lots, lots and lots more to satisfy your comic book gaming needs.