Batman Returns

I thought it would be a beat-em-up. In a flash, I learned that Batman Returns on PC is dad's curveball between a point-and-click adventure and puzzle-solving — and I found I surprisingly enjoy it.

It's a story-driven title from 1993, when every publisher thought they could buy a Hollywood film license and squeeze money out of it. This time they hit closer to the mark than usual. You play missions in Gotham City where Penguin and Catwoman are causing trouble, and as Batman you have to sort things out — not just with your fists, but especially through logic and environmental exploration. It's a point-and-click approach where you navigate between screens, collect items, talk to characters, and figure out where each given key belongs.

Mechanically it's straightforward, but not dumb. The inventory works, the dialogs aren't needlessly dragged out, and the graphics are restrained in a cinematic way — a kind of Amiga-DOS hybrid trying to evoke the atmosphere of nineties Batman without being button after button. Sometimes the game grabs you with a scene or a detail, sometimes it holds you back by leaving you unsure what to do next and your computer isn't talking to you in native English. Hunting for the right item combination and the way forward isn't fun for the impatient — but if you haven't closed your eyes to the fact that you once spent a night looking for the right use of corn or some weird pipe, you know what's waiting for you.

Batman Returns isn't played today because it's the gold standard. It's played because it's a relic from the era when movie tie-ins didn't dabble in other formats. The library of text adventures in that direction was bearably thin, and here you could at least feel that someone had respect for the film source material. Mouse controls are pleasant by today's standards. The graphics hold their charm because they don't try to pretend to be more than they are.

If you have time for adventures and remember what clickable DOS looked like before Flash and web games, here's a little gem that fits into an evening. It's not a miracle, but it's not a waste of time either.