Batman: Vengeance

Batman: Vengeance is a video game based on The New Batman Adventures.

It was published by Ubisoft, initially released on October 15, 2001, and was released for Xbox, GameCube, PS2, Game Boy Advance and PC. Its ESRB rating is "t" for teen. There are nineteen levels of gameplay in both third-person platform style and driving gameplay.

Overview[]

Character designs are based on The New Batman Adventures. Spanning five episodes, presented in a style intended to emulate that of the original animated series (complete with episode title cards), Batman Vengeance takes the Caped Crusader through nineteen levels of gameplay up against a series of familiar villains unknowingly involved with one central plot to wreak havoc on Gotham City.

It features the voice cast of Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hamill as Joker, Diane Pershing as Poison Ivy, Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn, Michael Ansara as Mr. Freeze, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as Alfred Pennyworth, Tara Strong as Batgirl, Lloyd Bochner as Hamilton Hill and Bob Hastings as James Gordon, all reprising their roles from the animated series.

Plot[]

Part 1: A Girl To Die For[]

Batman Vengeance - A Girl to Die For Title Card — "A Girl to Die For" title card.

At the Gotham Chemicals plant, a young woman, bound and gagged, is struggling on the floor, staring fearfully at a time bomb ticking away a few feet away. Batman comes to investigate and, seeing the bomb, lifts the young woman into his arms and escapes the plant just before it explodes. On Mary's person, Batman finds a ransom note from the Joker, demanding $5 million for the return of her young son, Toby. Later it is discovered the Joker has a large plan at the Gotham bridge to kill Batman. Batman follows the Joker's clues to the bridge wear he fights some goons until he reaches the highest part of the bridge. The Joker has Toby in his hand on a large wrecking ball. Batman fights the Joker by throwing Batarang's at him while Joker tries to smash him. Joker decides to drop Toby in the river forcing Batman to save the boy so he could escape. Batman catches Toby and gets back on the bridge. It has been discovered that Toby was a booby trap by turning out to be a bomb and exploding. Batman is weakened and it's discovered that Mary is really Harley Quinn. Harley attempts to kill Batman by trying to drop her hammer on his head. She is stopped by the Joker who says that only he can kill Batman. Batman quickly recovers and fights the Joker in hand-to-hand combat. Batman soon wins and knocks him on the edge of a bridge. Batman tries to save him, but Joker uses his joy buzzer gimmick and Batman drops the Joker's hand and apparently falls to his death. Harley gets upset and jumps after him, but she is stopped by the Batman. Harley then says she is through with crime and walks away.

Part 2: In Cold Blood[]

Batman Vengeance - In Cold Blood — "In Cold Blood" title card.

Mr. Freeze receives a tape about a miracle treatment known as liquid Promethium, created by a renowned chemist, Dr. Isaac Evers. Angered, Mr. Freeze decides to attack Dr. Evers' facility, freezing security guards who didn't evacuate in time and demanding Dr. Evers. Investigating the facility and saving the guards, Batman eventually comes face-to-face with Mr. Freeze himself, who freezes Batman and absconds with Evers. After an aerial chase between the Batwing and Mr. Freeze's helicopter, Batman saves Evers and asks him about the tape Freeze alluded to. During his response, Evers lies that he has a grant from the Wayne Foundation, mystifying Batman and Batgirl. Traveling to the Gotham Industrial Center, Batman learns that Mr. Freeze has taken over the facility, locking the doors, planting freeze bombs around the facility. After finding out that Evers has locked himself in the facility as well, Batgirl discovers that his Promethium treatment was too unstable to receive government funding, and that every increase in Evers' budget coincided with one of the Joker's bank heists. Batman eventually finds Evers' hiding place, but only finds his computer disk and a murderous Mr. Freeze, who dryly comments that "the good doctor was making bad medicine". To defeat Freeze, Batman is forced to plant remote charges on suspended tanks so that they crash down on Freeze. Eventually, Freeze's helmet cracks, and Batman is forced to use the villain's own gun to create a protective layer of ice around the agonized villain's head.

Part 3: Plant Food[]

Batman Vengeance - Plant Food — "Plant Food" title card.

The chapter begins with Batgirl doing reconnaissance, tracking Mayor Hamilton Hill as he meets with a mysterious trenchcoated wearing figure by a train station, who hands Hill an unknown vial. Concerned, Batgirl contacts Batman. Meanwhile, Poison Ivy is in her laboratory, when she hears a sound outside, and finds a vial containing a glowing green liquid labeled "Gotham Chemical" on the ground. After analyzing it, she pours it onto a plant in a nearby cage with a rabbit. She smiles cruelly as the plant rapidly mutates and presumably kills the rabbit offscreen.

Batgirl follows the trench-coated stranger onto the train but is forced to radio Batman for help when she finds herself accosted by humanoid plant-creatures. Batman boards the train himself and works his way up the cars to the front of the train, where Batgirl is fighting Trenchcoat. The thug jumps the train and tears off in a car, and Batman and Batgirl give chase in the Batmobile. The pursuit ends in the car crashing, but they find no body, and only an apple. Back at the Batcave, Batgirl finds that the apple contains a writhing, mutated plant of Poison Ivy's creation.

Discovering that Mayor Hill has traveled to the plant-infested remains of Gotham Chemical, Batman follows him there and learns from Hill that he and several other major figures in Gotham have been infested by Ivy's mutated plants, which will devour their hosts if they aren't given a certain type of plant food. Being the only person who can provide this food, Ivy is using this to blackmail Hill and extort him.

Shortly after this revelation, Hill flees when the trenchcoated wearing stranger from before confronts Batman once again, shedding its disguise to reveal that it is one of Ivy's mutated plant-men (as seen in the BTAS episode "House & Garden"). Knocking it into a vat of acid, Batman finds Hill pleading with an unimpressed Ivy, who is holding the antidote for the plant inside him. Upon spotting Batman, Ivy summons a gigantic plant monster to attack Batman, which uses its three tendrils to suspend itself from the pipes above a vat of burning chemicals. Batman must use his Batarangs to break the creature's grip on each pipe, then open the pipe's valve to release corrosive steam that withers each tentacle. After knocking the monster into the chemical vat below, an unfazed Ivy tells Batman that it will only come back stronger. In response, Batman grapples to the other side of the room, and pulls a lever that causes a massive electric current to flow into the monster, killing it. In its death throes, one of its tentacles connects with Ivy, shocking her into unconsciousness and causing her to drop the antidote. Batman hands it to a relieved and deeply grateful Mayor Hill.

Part 4: Fool's Grave[]

Batman Vengeance - Fool's Grave — "Fool's Grave" title card.

Batman returns to the Batcave, severely injured, where he proceeds to explain to Batgirl what has happened: after apprehending Poison Ivy and exiting the ruins of Gotham Chemicals, Batman spotted some of the Joker's goons hijacking a blimp, and decided to go and speak with Harley, who seemingly gave up her life of crime following the Joker's death. She informed him that, with the Joker gone, some of his men were still operating on their own and left with some of the Joker's "toys" and the blueprints to the historic Gotham Gasworks. Arriving there, Batman discovered that the Joker's men were sending his flammable toys into the pipe network, which lead throughout the entire city, and opened the gates to the sprinkler system to flood the complex's pipes, in order to stop the toys. After defeating the Joker's goons, Batman found a tied-up Isaac Evers, the apparent mastermind behind the Gasworks plot, who claimed that he only wanted to burn down Gotham Industrial in order to collect on the insurance money, as he couldn't collect on the damage left by Mr. Freeze without revealing his financial backers, particularly the Joker. With the Joker having funded the research with filthy lucre, Evers would be arrested for criminal facilitation and conspiracy if he revealed his affiliation with the notorious criminal and resorted to hiring the Joker's goons and using his equipment in order to throw the cops off his trail after burning down his business, but the gang eventually turned on him, tied him up, and embarked on their own agenda of sending the toys throughout the city. Afterwards, Batman took the tied-up Evers to Commissioner Gordon and the police, who were waiting for him outside, but Gordon was suddenly hit by a Batarang and Batman was framed for the incident. Hunted by the police, Batman barely managed to escape from them after a long chase across the rooftops and through several buildings, as well as destroying a police helicopter; and was picked up by Batgirl in the Batmobile, who returned with him to the Batcave.

Part 5: Infernal Jest[]

Batman Vengeance - Infernal Jest — "Infernal Jest" title card.

With the police now after him, Batman's investigations shift towards discovering who has framed him and how everything that has occurred since the Joker's death is connected. He ultimately decides to investigate the Joker's old hideout at the Funnibose Warehouse, hoping to find Harley or any other useful information, and disguises himself, to avoid police attention. At the warehouse, Batman finds it still swarming with the Joker's toys and goons, but no sign of Harley. However, he comes across a knife that the Joker was holding the night he fell from the bridge, confirming that the Joker is still alive.

Returning to the Batcave, Batman realizes that, with the Joker's plans occurring over such a long period of time, his end goal is massive and threatens to destroy the entire city, while Batgirl tracks the blimp stolen earlier by the Joker's goons to Gotham Gasworks. Once Batman arrives there, the Joker finally resurfaces on the roof of the building, joined by his gang, and reveals that he was behind the entire crime wave that occurred after faking his death, by subtly manipulating the other villains and using Isaac Evers' research, having worked with the scientist and funded all his experiments and operations through his ill-conceived fortune, to produce large quantities of the highly flammable Promethium; weeks earlier, the Joker had arranged the fake kidnapping scheme to fake his own death in order to reside in the shadows and out of the police and Batman's scope, while he manipulated the other villains: he was the one who sent Mr. Freeze the promotional tape on Promethium to provoke him into attacking Evers' lair, so that his men could convince Evers to hire their services in an insurance scam with the use of Gotham Gasworks; he also gave Poison Ivy the plant enhancement chemical and used her schemes to his advantage, as Ivy rebuilding Gotham Chemicals allowed him to later mass-produce his own signature Joker toxin in a quiet fashion, without Batman noticing; and finally, he also used Harley to relay false information to Batman, to send him deeper into his plot at the Gasworks and ultimately frame him for attacking Commissioner Gordon. Using Evers as a scapegoat for the earlier Gasworks scheme, the Joker reveals that he manipulated Batman into opening up the pipes to the sprinkler system, which the Joker now plans to pump with his Joker toxin, mixed with Evers' altered drug to make it highly flammable, all over the city through a feed tube connected to the previously stolen blimp, now filled with the deadly compound, and burn the city to the ground, while its citizens choke to death on their own laughter. The Joker's ultimate "joke" is that Gotham would be completely destroyed, with the punchline being that Batman has been unknowingly manipulated all along to aid the Joker's plans.

Having revealed his plan to Batman, the Joker prepares to escape in the blimp and watch Gotham from above as it becomes engulfed in flames and toxin, leaving behind Harley and several of his goons to slow the Dark Knight down. As the Joker boards his blimp, Batman battles his goons and manages to shut down the gas flow, before confronting Harley and one of the Joker's henchmen, armed with a jetpack, explosives and flamethrowers. After defeating the henchman and subduing Harley, Batman manages to board the Joker's blimp just in time before it takes off, where he successfully stops the flow of Promethium and Joker toxin in the sprinkler system. However, the Joker has a backup plan and prepares to use the remaining compound stored in the blimp to destroy the city by setting the blimp on a collision course with the heart of Gotham, the City Hall, to explosively release the compound into the air. Nevertheless, Batman deteriorates the gas and disables the autopilot, after solving a mechanism created by the Ace of Knaves to protect the auto-pilot controls, before destroying the blimp and defeating the Joker, saving him for falling to his death, and thus foiling his plans for good.

In the aftermath, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Harley, and the Joker are all locked up in Arkham Asylum, while Commissioner Gordon calls Batman to thank him for saving the city and apologize for sending the police after him, as they have found Harley's fingerprints on the Batarang that hit him. As Gordon wonders how Batman has figured out that the Joker was alive from the beginning, the Dark Knight disappears and retreats to look out over the city, when the Bat-Signal ignites behind him.

Production[]

Development[]

Ubi Soft producer Reid Schneider has stated that production of the game was focused on its story elements. "We wanted to tell a great story that would transcend." The games script was written by J.T. Petty who, along with Schneider, worked directly with Warner Bros. and DC Comics to ensure the game's tale was "suitably titanic".

In order to deliver "gameplay that the player had never seen before", Schneider's crew went into "almost painstaking detail" to make sure Batman moved the right way, leading to programming over 500 distinct movement animations.^[1]

Production gallery[]

Title card concepts[]

Cinematic storyboards[]

Publicity[]

Print ads[]

Website[]

Wallpaper gallery[]

Publicity art gallery[]

Other platforms[]

↑ "Alphas: Batman Vengeance" by Greg Orlando for Next Generation Magazine Lifecycle 2 Vol. 3 #6 (June 2001)

[1] "Alphas: Batman Vengeance" by Greg Orlando for Next Generation Magazine Lifecycle 2 Vol. 3 #6 (June 2001)

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