10 Criminally Underrated Comic Book Video Games You Must Play

9. Batman: Rise Of Sin Tzu

Batman Rise Of Sin Tzu
Ubisoft

One of the many video games based on Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu released in 2003 and sort of... disappeared soon after. Not literally of course, but one could be forgiven for forgetting the game even exists, given the lack of attention it's received in the years since.

Developed by Ubisoft (back when their name was Ubi Soft - how retro), Rise of Sin Tzu put players in the shoes of Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Nightwing as they took on Sin Tzu, a brand new Batman villain created by superstar artist-turned-editor Jim Lee.

Sin Tzu himself may not have caught on as well as BTAS' other famous creations (Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya), but he was a formidable threat for the game and boasted a fun design.

The basic premise involves Sin Tzu organising mass breakouts at Arkham Asylum and Stonegate Penitentiary, which leads Batman to take on some of his more famous adversaries in Scarecrow, Clayface and Bane, among others. Gameplay itself was fairly rudimentary, not pushing any boundaries as far as the beat-em-up genre is concerned, but the addition of co-op made the whole thing worthwhile.

If you're a fan of BTAS and want a fun enough excuse to jump back in, you could do a lot worse than to play Rise of Sin Tzu.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.