The History And the games of Batman the Movie - Arcade console documentary

i'm patman and these are my happy little games 2022 was shaping up to be another wonderful year of bat mania even though the batman is not scheduled to open in theaters for another month merchandising is starting to pop up in just about every place you can imagine so far we have toys t-shirts batman oreos and even the batman calzone from little caesars at various points over the last 83 years the batman family and their villainous rogues gallery have taken over the world in everything from print to merchandise to cartoons and movies we've seen batman in every shape and size but at least most of them had their charms such as rainbow batman that ombre the classic 1966 adam west batman the batman of zoran r the turkish batman george clooney's batman never leave the cave without him okay forget what i said about that last one my point being the character has endured the test of time and in 1989 we were in the midst of another wave of bat mania that had not been seen since 1966's adam west tv show for the first time ever batman was going to be released as a big budget action film on the big screen thanks to the directorial efforts of tim burton and the star power of jack nicholson and michael keaton today we are going to take a look at the video games based on the movie what major changes were done to this game halfway through its development process so flip that switch and head for the batmobile because this is the history and the games of batman the movie the character of batman made his debut in detective comics 27 back in 1939. bob kane had come up with the initial idea but it was bill finger who modified the design and turned the character into the batman we know and loved today for example bob kane's original design featured the character in a red and black suit and a small domino mask similar to the one the lone ranger would wear as visualized here by artist arlen schumer bill finger suggested that they mute the colors of the costume and give the character a full head mask similar to a bat he also created most of the mythology surrounding the character including the bat cave the origin of batman in which a young bruce wayne witnesses his parents murder the vast characters from the series including the penguin two-face commissioner gordon catwoman batmite alfred ace the bad hound and my all-time personal favorite batman villain dr hugo strange artist jerry robinson one of the all-time golden age greats helped with the creation of robin and the joker the character appeared for the first time in live action in the 1943 saturday morning serial batman which starred lewis wilson the very first wave of bat mania took place in 1966 with the classic tv show starring adam west this is still one of my favorites and will always hold a special place in my heart in 1979 michael loosland who was a lifelong batman fan purchased the rights to the character to develop a live-action serious take that would wash away the ill effects of the adam west camp version except for a short period of time where they were considering ivan reitman of ghostbusters fame to direct the movie with bill murray and eddie murphy portraying batman and robin i am sure glad we missed out on that anyone who lived through the summer of 1989 can remember seeing that iconic batman logo wherever you went initially fans were outraged when they learned that michael keaton who was best known at this juncture in his career as mr mom would go on to portray the dark knight detective they were more than pleased when they learned that jack nicholson was cast as the joker despite him almost turning down the offer at the last minute he has stated in interviews that he made close to 60 million dollars from the movie and merchandise so he is very glad that he took the deal tim burton was tasked with bringing the movie to life from a script by sam hamm danny elfman was brought on board to conduct the iconic score even though the film wasn't scheduled to be released until june 23rd of that year a very early teaser was rushed into theaters in january this alleviated many people's concerns and there was such an uproar over the teaser that people were paying full price for a ticket just to see it and leave immediately after people were also selling bootleg copies of the teaser that were recorded off tv let's go back to 1987 where video game company sunsoft had just purchased the rights to the character they set out to create a video game based on the comic book version of the character featuring the various villains from the series the game started out life as an entirely different game that sunsoft had in development but went unreleased this would explain why batman appears to do some non batman type maneuvers the various weapons such as guns the double wall jump and bursting into a bat flame when he dies the title was first previewed in nintendo's power issue 8 and showcased some major differences in the game for starters the cut scenes were entirely different featuring comic book swipes from brian boland's work on the killing joke something else that was different was that you didn't even face off against the joker as the final boss he did appear in a cutscene at the end of the game but you actually had to fight firebug as the final one i'll go into more detail on these later in the video [Music] the video game from sun song or the nintendo entertainment [Music] let system battle begin [Music] batman the video game was released by sunsoft for the nes in 1990 as the story goes the citizens of gotham are preparing for their 200th anniversary celebration but crime and violence still rule the city the main man in charge of all this craziness is none other than the joker you take on the role of the caped crusader himself as he sets out to take down the various goons and thugs using your wonderful toys to aid you in your mission the first thing you notice when starting the game up is that batman has decided that the only color that will strike fear into the hearts of men is purple because that is now his primary color rumor has it that they base the character color scheme and design on prince but again that's just a rumor the game takes place across five levels with various sub stages throughout your moveset is pretty basic giving you the option of either punching or using one of three weapons the first one is your trusty but perhaps a bit rusty batarang this is weaker than punching but it does have a longer range and can hit enemies multiple times you also have a spear gun which shoots a point of projectile and dirks which enables three of the shurikons to be fired in a spread pattern your ammunition referred to as pellets in the manual as a way to cover up the batman is filling his enemies full of lead is limited but there are refills scattered all throughout the game also available across the maps are heart refills which you will definitely need because this game gets really tough you can control the height of batman's jump by how long you press and hold the jump button to progress very far into the game this is something that you have to master something else that comes along with it is the ability to wall jump by pressing the jump button again and timing it just right as the levels progress you will need to make more and more precision jumps you can clearly see the influence from ninja gaiden but that's not a bad thing again though not a very batman type maneuver but all things considered it's not surprising despite some of the color choices it goes without saying that the graphics are fantastic the backgrounds are dark and moody and despite the last level taking place at the top of the cathedral there really isn't much to tie it into the movie itself the animation is very polished especially with the background scenery there are also a number of cutscenes that use a mixture of comic book art and digitized stills from the movie unfortunately we don't get any of danny elfman's score from the film but we do get some original tunes composed by nobuyuki hara these are fantastic and really set the dark gothic mood even though the movie only featured the joker as the only comic book villain this game offers up some little seen comic book baddies including deadshot shakedown heatwave kg beast knight slayer and maxi zeus among others the five stages you will encounter are gotham city [Music] access chemical factory [Music] underground conduit [Music] laboratory ruins [Music] and gotham city cathedral [Music] the bosses you will encounter are killer moth [Music] machine intelligence the electrocutioner dual container alarm firebug and finally the joker this game is tough extremely tough thankfully there are unlimited continues if you do manage to defeat the joker you grab him by the lapel and throw him off the top of the cathedral [Music] bye so [Music] so apparently batman was killing in video game form long before zack snyder came along the prototype of the game was leaked a number of years ago when we finally got to see all of the extra cutscenes that were changed as i mentioned the final boss of the game is firebug who isn't that difficult to defeat the ending cinematics were changed as well which has you knocking out the joker and then the game abruptly ends [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] there have been a few rom hacks for this game but a cool one that i discovered changes the color of batman from purple to dark gray and black another one i discovered was a hack to convert the game into christopher nolan's dark knight movie that same year the game was also released for the original game boy as the story goes batman was seen listening in on a conversation between commissioner gordon and one of his police officers jack napier has escaped into the access chemical factory and is up to you to apprehend him before playing this game you might need to stop the optometrist and get a pair of glasses because the sprites are absolutely tiny this is more of a platform shooter which is reminiscent of super mario land the levels are much more faithful to the movie than the nes version and batman plays completely different essentially you have to run around shooting people you have a few different projectiles at your disposal including a batarang a short gun a normal gun a wave gun that shoots in a powerful pattern a power gun that can actually penetrate walls a laser gun and a bomb that will destroy everything on the screen you can even pick up a bat shield which will temporarily make you invulnerable you can also pick up hearts which will regenerate a quarter of your health the game takes place across four levels with a couple of cutscenes peppered throughout the stages you encounter are gotham city [Music] access chemical factory [Music] [Music] flogalheim museum [Music] the batwing stage [Music] and finally the gotham cathedral there are not as many bosses to fight in this game as opposed to the others but the first one you face off against is jack napier a flying gun ship [Music] an airplane [Music] a helicopter [Music] and the joker [Music] despite the small and stature size and the lack of colors the game is still a lot of fun to play i can recall exactly where i was when i beat it for the first time when i was flying on an airplane for the first time coming back from washington dc when i was 16 years old if you enjoy batman and super mario land you might want to check this one out and now for something completely different which is the pc engine version when the game was first previewed in the magazines it was a standard side scroller similar to the other versions of the game but for whatever reason it was changed to an overhead action puzzler instead what it boils down to is that this game is a bomberman clone which when you think of batman is not the first game type that springs to mind the goal of each level is to collect a preset number of items plant bombs or clean paintings that the joker has vandalized all before the timer runs out you also have to release the balloons that contain the poisonous gas on certain levels as well the joker must have been scouting the clown colleges because there are tons of baddies available which you have to take out with your trusty batarang there are various power ups scattered throughout the levels to aid you in your quest such as a faster batarang multiple batarangs bad boots which let you walk faster a clock to increase the timer a bomb that will decimate all the baddies on the screen and a star which will make your character invincible for 5 seconds you do get an extra life every 15 000 points a handy dandy password feature is also available there are five levels in the game with the first four levels having 12 stages each for a total of 48. the levels you encounter are gotham city flugelheim museum [Music] access chemical factory gotham city part two [Music] and the cathedral the final boss of the game is the joker whom you have to face off against at the top of the cathedral [Music] the graphics are what you would expect from a bomberman clone the sprites are easily recognizable despite their microscopic size what's great though are the cut scenes and it's just unfortunate that there weren't more of these because what's here are fantastic [Music] so [Music] so [Music] the playability is pretty good and if you're familiar with the bomberman series of games you'll have no problem with this one it's definitely not a typical batman game but if you are a batman fan especially of the tim burton movies you should definitely check it out speaking of the sega genesis let's go ahead and check out batman's first outing on sega's 16-bit system it was released in july 1990 for the mega drive in japan but didn't come out in north america until a year later due to the exclusivity contract nintendo had with certain publishers the game takes place across six levels that closely mirrors the plot of the original film batman has his usual assortment of wonderful toys including a limited amount of batarangs and a grappling hook which can ascend to a platform directly above since the batarangs are so limited you might want to stick with good old punches and kicks that take care of the joker's gang you can also go on the defense mode by holding b to block but it only works on attacks from the front you can also jump and do a double somersault which helps you jump further there are a few power ups you can pick up such as hearts which will increase your health a batarang icon which will give you five batarangs or missiles depending on the mission or a bat head icon which will give you an extra life the stages you will encounter are gotham city streets [Music] access chemical factory [Music] flugelheim museum [Music] gotham city streets where you drive the batmobile [Music] in the sky over gotham where you fly the batwing and gotham cathedral [Music] [Music] there are bosses at the end of each stage which include kickboxer [Music] jack napier [Music] nuclear power blaster turbo attack copter [Music] and finally the ultimate showdown with the joker [Music] the graphics are really well done with lots of color on screen and smooth animation the driving and flying sections worked really well and helped to break up the scrolling thunder portions of the game the music and sound effects make perfect use of the 16-bit genesis audio and are reminiscent of the original nes title only done much better in my opinion there are even digitized stills and animated cutscenes in the game i actually found some misinformation in the manual for this game they have the third level boss listed as bob the goon which if you've seen the movie is definitely not the case the character is actually lawrence the boombox goon who the joker mentions by name in the flugelheim museum lawrence well worth the play if you haven't tried it already let's switch over and talk about the computer game that was released based on the movie ocean software were once again tasked with bringing a batman title to the pc the first game was an isometric puzzler simply titled batman [Music] [Music] the second game to come along was the action adventure game batman the cave crusader and features some really nice graphics and comic book style panels [Music] in late 1988 the masterminds at ocean were offered the chance to produce a tie-in based for the upcoming 1989 batman live-action film they jumped to the chance but the problem was high secrecy that was involved surrounding the project aside from a few production stills and storyboard sketches the team were not allowed access to any other materials they were able to read the script but only at pinewood studios where the movie was currently being filmed director tim burton did allow the team to come onto the set and view some of the early footage but they weren't allowed to take any material back however they were allowed to sit in the batmobile the approval process was very strict similar to the arcade games issue with jack nicholson's likeness one such issue was that batman's ears were literally one pixel too long two of the most well remembered levels in the game were the driving and flying sections but these were only put in because of such limited information they were able to use due to the high security on the project it worked out for the better because these driving games are fantastic and at the time were much better than the full price driving games available on most home computer systems it wasn't easy for the development team when it came time to draw the main vehicle sprites because warner brothers would not give them any reference materials to use back at the office bill harbison who was one of the artists on the project came across a small batmobile in a toy shop and was able to use this as a reference the graphics on all the versions of the game were really good but it truly shined on the amiga the sound effects and music were also well done and there were even a few digitized stills and voice clips from the movie batman the movie was released for various home computers in 1989. this is an action game which sees you take control of batman as he sets out to stop the nefarious joker using all of his wonderful toys the game is comprised of five levels featuring a mixture of action platforming driving and puzzle solving each level is based on a specific event from the movie age level also has a time limit and a health gauge which is represented by batman's face slowly turning into the jokers with more damage that he takes if you take enough damage you will lose a life batman has his grappling hook which you will need to pull yourself up and swing across large gaps you also have batarangs for knocking out the various criminals the five levels you will encounter are axis chemical plant [Music] the streets of gotham in which you finally get to drive the batmobile the batcave in which you have to identify the products that are tainted with the deadly chemical smilex [Laughter] the fourth level in which you fly the batwing and cut away balloons that are filled with the deadly smilex gas [Music] and finally the cathedral [Music] if you are able to defeat the joker you are treated to a nice digitized still and some nice digitized speech i want you to tell all your friends about me the game was a huge success for ocean and commodore even bundled it with their amiga 500 system appropriately titled the batman pack this game along with dragon's lair was one of the main reasons i purchased an amiga back in 1989 that doesn't hold up quite as well as some of the other entries i've mentioned but it's still fun to play especially the batmobile and batwing sections the game was also released for atari st commodore 64 xenx spectrum abstract and ms-dos in 1989 atari designer gary frank was just given his dream assignment making a video game based on batman mr frank was a lifelong batman fan starting with the 1966 adam west tv show he had worked on one other superhero ip and that was the superman video game from atari he wanted the batman game to be a single player double dragon type game with lots of special effects voices and especially the danny elfman score from the movie he was quoted as saying he wanted to make an interactive movie for the arcade latent production a videotape of the game was sent over to jack nicholson for approval mr nicholson felt that the likeness was not representative of him and would not sign off until major changes were made mr frank had no choice but to hold the production and make the necessary changes they had to send it to mr nicholson three times before he finally gave his approval batman the arcade game was released in late 1990 by atari the game sees you take control of batman as you attempt to stop the joker from unleashing his lethal laughing gas you have an attack button and a jump button to aid you in your mission you also have the ability to pick up batarangs to throw at the enemies and there are plenty of enemies to throw at you'll encounter a lot of the same thugs that you saw in the movie including bob the goon the thug with the samurai sword and more the enemy design is extremely varied which is a nice change of pace the game follows the movie's plot very closely with you starting out on the streets of gotham city the graphics are very good although something about the batman sprite just doesn't seem right everybody else in the game is animated properly but batman walks like he's got diarrhea and is trying to make it to the bathroom in record time the backgrounds are exceptional especially on the museum level the first thing you notice is the actual music from the movie by danny elfman this adds so much to the gameplay experience and it brought a smile to my face while i was playing it there are loads of digitized stills from the movie as well as the voices of jack nicholson and michael keaton michael keaton only has four or five lines in this game but jack nicholson has between 20 and 30 with some of the lines being recorded specifically for this game and were not in the movie [Music] the levels you play through are gotham city and batman axis chemicals [Music] flugel high museum [Music] gotham city outside of the museum [Music] and the gotham city cathedral [Music] there are also points in the game where you are in both the batmobile and the batwing where you have to shoot either the cars on the ground or shoot the balloons in the sky personally i would have liked to have driven the batmobile or flown the batwing but i can understand why they didn't put that in the game i'm sure they would have wanted to add a steering wheel as well which would have driven the cost of the game up considerably the bosses you encounter are jack napier [Music] bad guy [Music] and finally the joker [Music] the ending of the game is a bit different than the movie instead of joker hanging from a helicopter and batman firing his grappling hook around his leg batman just punches joker off the side of the building which kills him [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] when michael jackson's arcade collection went up for auction this game was among the various machines there also among his collection was a 1989 batman movie statue but instead of michael keaton being in the suit it was michael jackson himself it's possible that you may have never seen this game just like me i first read about this game in electronic gaming monthly which was the holy bible back in the day no screenshots were ever shown and i've never ran across an actual arcade game the only time i ever had the chance to play it was on maim now let's talk about the conversions unfortunately there aren't any this is another of the unconverted gems of the arcade the reason being is that video game maker sunsoft held the home console rights to batman so there was no way a conversion of the arcade game could be done when i found out they were making a batman arcade game i was super stoked i went to every arcade in the area but never got to see an actual arcade game now thanks to meme i've been able to play it in my opinion it's pretty good not great but it's not bad either i enjoyed it but maybe it's just because i'm a batman fan if you ever see this game out in the wild you might want to check it out because it could be the last time you ever see it i might as well go ahead and mention the 1991 day day east pinball machine this was one of my favorites to play back in the day right alongside the adams family and terminator 2. it was fairly easy to keep racking up those high scores which meant more free games this game used a ton of digitized speech and music from the movie it's a bit of a rarity to find in the wild nowadays but you can always use emulation if you're unable to locate one [Music] there was also a handheld tiger lcd batman movie game and there you have it folks the comprehensive history of the video games based on batman 1989. there are some real gems in here so if you've never had a chance to try these games for yourself be sure you do you'll be glad you did if you enjoyed this content or any of my videos be sure to like comment share and subscribe also if you would like to support me on patreon please click the link below thanks everybody for watching

Channel: PatmanQC - History of arcade game documentaries

Views: 30,342

Keywords: NES, arcade, SNES, amputee, Xbox, PlayStation, Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, retro, video, gamesAtari, Colecovision, Intellivision, Jaguar, entertainment, system, Game, Boy, Genesis, Mega, drive, CD, X68000, Amstrad, spectrum, MSX, 2600, 5200, 7800, 400, 800, 1200, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, 360, switch, wii, wii-u, Atari, games, Bruce Wayne, Robin, DC, Gotham city, Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, Bob kane, Bill finger, Michael uslin, Adam West, Burt Ward, Michael Keaton, Batmobile, Jack Nicholson, comics, 1966, 1939, Tim Burton, Arlen Schumer

Id: gWf0P8jlAOk

Length: 44min 26sec (2666 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 06 2022