The Best Batman Game No One Played
2. The 'Lost' BTAS Episode
Though Batman: The Animated Series 'concluded' in 1999 with the cancellation of The New Batman Adventures, it lived on in the form of the DC Animated Universe. Batman Beyond, Justice League and countless other animated movies all helped reiterate the brand's place at the forefront of DC iconography, with Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Andrea Romano, Dwayne McDuffie and countless others having produced a selection of shows as influential as they were genre-defining.
To many, this is what DC is all about. And so it should come as no surprise, then, that a whole lot of merchandise based on it emerged during the early 2000s. Vengeance was one such piece of merch, and while Ubisoft would have another stab at the license with 2005's Rise of Sin Tzu, Vengeance was the more competent package, boasting the gothic tone that made the original Batman cartoon such a terrifyingly good one when it first released.
Vengeance's story also follows in the BTAS format, right down to its colourful loading screens taking direct inspiration from the episode titles of that particular series. The plot itself is also compelling, and though a writer's credit for Dini, Radomski or Timm is nowhere to be found, it very much feels like a lost episode from The New Batman Adventures.
That, and it fits nicely into the continuity of that series, acting as a prequel of sorts to TNBA with Tim Drake nowhere to be seen.
Opening with a riveting sequence where Batman rescues a hostage strapped to some timed explosives, players head back to the Bat-Cave and soon suspect that Joker is up to something. The second mission actually ends with the Clown Prince's 'death', allowing Ubisoft to spotlight different villains in an episodic format akin to the source material on which the game was based.
Mister Freeze, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn all feature, and though it's a roster that couldn't dare match that of Arkham's, their respective levels are stylistic, absorbing and diverse. The game's third act is equally as compelling, bringing together the story's mystery in a satisfying and surprising way - one that bears a distinct similarity to TNBA's most lauded episode, Over the Edge.