The Sega CD version has a completely original episode based on the fantastic Batman: The Animated Series show, which is the highlight of an otherwise mediocre product where you go around racing the baddies like Poison Ivy, Riddler, Joker, Clayface in your batmobile/batwing across the streets/skies of Gotham City. Sounds cool but the game doesn't play well with an atrocious framerate really hampering the experience, whilst the majority of the driving sections are uninspiring shooting stages. Props to the great visuals and the soundtrack though, but look out for the Riddler's virtual arcade stage... shudder.

Irem's last game for the arcades—and what an incredible way to bow out.

There’s fabulous maneuverability around the stages: you can climb and attach yourself on almost anything, whether that’s a dodgy looking ceiling or any type of vehicle or machine gun. The game almost begs you to use those as you’re always on your toes, with the enemies shooting left, right and centre from almost anywhere.

In one boss fight, the huge contraption thingy shoots this screen-filling circular ring of death at you, which demands you to constantly switch between a helicopter, a gun-toting jeep and on-foot. Exhilarating stuff.

The graphics engine was used in Irem’s previous games like Undercover Cops, In the Hunt and GunForce I, and it has never looked better. There are detailed animations for almost everything in this game and it’s justchef kiss. The shooting has to be great and it is—there’s a dual gun-combo of a light and heavy and the added power-ups makes it a power fantasy at times.

You don’t get any story beats and there’s also no ending (as I imagine Irem ran out of money), so that sucks. But you do get a performance based scoring system where you’re ranked based on how many hostages you save and medals you collect—all the way from Private to Marshall.

This team went on to form Nazca and create the revered Metal Slug series on the Neo Geo. I’m excited to try those…