So, anybody remember The Adventures of Batman & Robin, the animated Batman series from the 1990s? Well, it had a few games. This is one of them. And it's not that bad, either.
Amused To Death
The game begins with Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred alerting Bruce Wayne to having picked up a suspicious sounding broadcast. The broadcast is of Harley Quinn and "The Joker Channel." Harley Quinn introduces The Joker, who hopes Batman is watching as he has some very special attractions at the Gotham City Amusement Park for all the children of Gotham City. He says tomorrow should be "a real scream" before laughing.
Alfred warns Bruce that this is a trap of some time. Bruce, who is Batman at this point, says he still has to go, and asks Alfred to get the equipment ready.
At this point, you will go to the equipment menu. You can chose which weapons you can bring with you, and thankfully, you can toggle between them all in-game. The Batarang and the Grappling Gun will always be equipped and cannot be removed.
The beginning of the stage has you running to the right and punching goons. You can also throw them into other goons, if you wish. There will be some guys jumping out of windows, as well as guys with guns. If you have Batarangs on your person, you can toss them at the armed men to disarm them.
You can attack with your punches and kicks with the Y button, jump with the B button, cycle through all your equipped gadgets with the X button and use the currently equipped gadget with the A button.
Pausing the game allows you to see how many lives you have left and allows you to return to the Batcave. If you do that, you'll start the whole level over, but you'll refill all your health and special items. Despite what I say about using the Batcave, only the "last life of the last continue" part works; if you go back to the Batcave on the last life of your last continue, you'll get all your continues back. Discretion really is the better part of valor!
After the stairs leading to the door that you can't open, you can take either the ground path or the upper path via the platforms on the building. The upper path will let you avoid the enemies altogether, but since this is the first stage, it doesn't really matter much which path you take.
You'll eventually enter the amusement park, where you will meet Harley Quinn. She will welcome you to The Joker's Funhouse, which is somehow built in his image (because Batman) and runs inside, with Batman chasing her inside.
Once inside, you'll see some new traps, such as the Joker robots that will shoot at you. Duck down and roll forward to avoid the gunfire, then keep doing crouch kicks on them until they die. To roll, hold Down on the Control Pad and keep pressing B.
Shortly after the beginning, you'll notice that some of the floors and ceilings will move up and down. Thankfully, you can wall jump in this game. Just jump towards the wall, then keep holding the Control Pad towards the wall and press B again to jump off the wall.
Be sure to have your grappling hook equipped, as it has infinite uses and you can use it to make it pass tall walls that you can't jump up and grab the ledge of. Also, spikes will be exposed as floors and ceilings move up and down, and they can do quite a bit of damage. Use the grappling hook to get past them.
In the next section, keep moving to the right to avoid the crushing ceiling. You will then come face-to-face with a giant nutcracker-like toy soldier! Wait for him to come to you, and when he rears his bayonet back, be ready to jump so you land on top of the toy rifle. Run up to the soldier's body, then jump up and kick the soldier in the face. From there, move back. After several jump kicks, you'll be able to take this giant soldier out without a problem.
You'll then meet The Joker, who refuses to give up without a fight. He runs off, and Batman gives chase. The Joker will then try to escape onto a roller coaster, and Batman chases him on another set of cars. Stay on the cars, and attack or avoid the bombs, making sure they do not touch you. If you duck between the first and second cars on the left, you'll be able to take out just about every bomb. Also, make sure to keep ducking on the loop-de-loop, as the white circles with the stars on them will do a lot of damage if Batman smacks into them.
You'll eventually switch to a Mode 7 view where The Joker will be next to Batman while standing on his own car, throwing bombs at Batman. While you can punch The Joker while both cars are right next to each other, you can punch the bombs back at The Joker and hit him with them.
You'll eventually go back to side-scrolling view. When you see the yellow square with the exclamation point in it, be ready to jump to The Joker's car. After some fighting words, be ready to duck down in the center of the car at the beginning of the battle. Attack The Joker if you can, and take as little damage as possible. You want to make sure those white spheres in the path of the loop do not smack into Batman. After the loop-de-loop, stop ducking, then run up to The Joker and punch him. When he leaps to the other side of the car, be ready to follow him there and punch him. Keep following him from one end of the car to the other as he jumps to and fro after each attack. A crouching kick is best, as The Joker can hit Batman with a spray of some sort, stunning him for a few seconds.
After Batman deals enough damage, The Joker gets away by jumping off the roller coaster, possibly jumping 40 feet to his demise in the process. So ends Stage 1.
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