Review: 'Batman: Vengeance'

From...

By The Man in Black

(IDG) -- "Batman: Vengeance" is an action-packed hunt for the Joker and company through the mean streets of Gotham City, as inspired by the Warner Bros. cartoon show. Warner is a sister AOL Time Warner company to CNN.com.

The 3-D visual and audio style is topnotch, and the cinemas are a blast -- even if some camera views are awkward and some areas are a little too dark and muddy.

The workmanlike controls take some pain out of maneuvering the cam and manage the energetic, er ... com-Bat ... nicely. You nimbly flip between third-person and first-person action, and Batman displays some cool moves, including long gliding leaps using his cape and an awesome skydiver-like free fall.

Basic hand-to-hand fighting consists of just simple, two-button jamming for kick and punch but there's a few combos and power moves. The first-person action is more versatile, using a Bat arsenal that includes the Bat-grapple and, of course, Batarangs.

There's much to praise about the effort behind this rough-hewn but imaginative game. If you're a fan, you might tackle this tale of the Dark Knight with a Vengeance.