Atmospheric but flawed, Batman Returns is a decent platformer with interesting ideas but very broken overall. Let's start with the positive things.

The first impression you'll get is that the game is really atmospheric. It has 5 acts and each of them are richly designed in graphical terms. Everything is so gloomy, and the backgrounds are greatly detailed too. Also, that presentation at the beginning... perfect atmosphere.

The music is good too, I love the intro song and some songs from the levels, those cheap GEMS bleeps really suit the sombre mood Batman Returns tries to deliver.

Now, let's get in its biggest flaw. The second impression you'll get is that the game is painfully hard. I know there are games where this level of difficulty is the main attraction, but in those games the difficulty is well implemented (most of the time), here... not so much. I mean, no matter what you try, everything that moves will hit you because the collision boxes are all over the place (this later in the game becomes almost infuriating). Of course there are a lot of lives and health restoration items to mantain you with life no matter how much you got hit, but there are so many cheap deaths around the corner... and near the end of the game it's almost impossible to beat a level without losing 4/5 lives. At least, you have infinite continues.

In order to win the game, you'll have to conserve as much throwable weapons as you can so you can use them to quickly defeat the bosses. Now, some bosses are so overpowered that will kill you in a blink and you'll not get anything in compensation, you'll spawn with the same quantity of weapons you had when you died (so, if you wasted them while fighting a boss, sorry! There's nothing for you). The horizontal camera is short so it's hard to react to an incoming enemy or know where you will land in a jump. All of these flaws lead to some unsatisfactory-satisfactory kind of experience that's not so enjoyable.

This game could be a little bit better if the enemies were more easy to hit and the collision detection were better. As a veredict, play this game if you want a challenge and a good visual experience, but if you want to have fun, there are better games to try.

One of the best games I've ever played, if not the best. Irrational Games knows how to create a great immersive experience by taking the immersive sim concept Looking Glass was demonstrating with their games, and merging it with a complex FPS-RPG system where you can almost create a completely unique character everytime you play. Also, the storytelling is superb, with some thoughtful commentary from people in the game (with the help of audiologs you find while exploring the spaceship where you're trapped), and SHODAN. The opressive atmosphere is amazing too, the soundtrack fits very well with the places you visit in the game.

Nothing more to say, this game is a must.