Batman & Robin's Forgotten Video Game Adaptation Is Even Worse Than The Movie

Kevin Feige thinks that "Batman & Robin" is one of the most important comic book movies ever made, but he might be the only one. I suppose you could argue "Batman & Robin" is important in the sense it demonstrated how not to make a superhero movie. The film was officially the fourth installment in the "Batman" movie franchise that kicked off in 1989 with Tim Burton's "Batman." After that film's sequel, 1992's "Batman Returns," scared the living hell out of kids worldwide and upset Warner Bros.' commercial partner, McDonald's, Burton was ousted as director and the reins were handed to Joel Schumacher.

Schumacher gets a lot of flack for his two Batman movies, but the fact is that 1995's "Batman Forever" is an oft-overlooked entry in the saga that is way more groundbreaking than you realize. 1997's "Batman & Robin," however, has lived in infamy ever since its debut. Star George Clooney basically disowned the movie, fans and critics rallied against its overtly commercial sensibilities and campy tone, and the film's legacy is really defined by the fact it almost killed the Batman franchise — and comic book movies in general — forever.

Despite being universally derided, there are some positive things that can be said about "Batman & Robin." Its Gotham City, for example, might be one of the most impressively rendered in all of Batman movie history. And while the style of Schumacher's Gotham might not suit every fans' tastes, its depiction in the film is genuinely impressive for its scale and detail. But for every positive you try to wring about the blunder that was "Batman & Robin," there's something even worse to tip the scales in the opposite direction. Take, for instance, the official video game this movie spawned, which might be even more terrible than the movie.

If you really wanted to be nice about "Batman & Robin," you could say it had a lot to teach us about bad comic book moviemaking. You could also make a plausible argument that the film is one of those "so bad it's good" kind of things. The video game? Not so much. "Batman & Robin" was released for the PlayStation one year after the movie debuted, and it managed to match the film in terms of upsetting pretty much everyone.

The game itself was designed by developers Probe Entertainment and released by Acclaim after being delayed from a fourth quarter 1997 rollout. When it did finally arrive in August 1998, it wasn't entirely clear what Probe had been doing with the extra time it was given since the game was full of frustrating bugs and quirks.

"Batman & Robin" allowed players to play as Batman, Robin, and Batgirl, though switching between these characters inexplicably changed certain aspects of the game. Playing as Batgirl, for instance, made obstacles that Batman could traverse with ease suddenly impossible to overcome — and that was just the start of the game's problems. The one major positive of "Batman & Robin" for the PlayStation was its open-world design. Probe created an expansive and detailed Gotham that players could explore via the Batmobile or on-foot. But doing so wasn't always the most pleasant experience, as the game featured a fixed camera that prevented players from altering their point of view. That camera was also exceptionally buggy, often obscuring the most important elements of the level design from view.

There were issues with the story design, too. Batman has to find clues in order to track down the villainous Mr. Freeze but doing so was a needlessly confusing affair. Aside from the fact that some clues didn't seem to advance the game in any way, finding them was nothing short of a nightmare, as clues would be hidden in almost unreachable places and would completely disappear after players left a certain area. Add to that a bizarre game mechanic that required players to switch between two different control systems on the fly, and the game accomplished its apparent goal of making players simply not want to exist anymore.

Arnold Schwarzenegger might have no regrets about his role in "Batman & Robin," but Probe Entertainment surely had a few about the video game. Review aggregator Game Rankings listed "Batman & Robin" for the PlayStation as having a 47.37% score based on eight reviews, which is a lot higher than you might expect given what critics actually wrote about the game.

IGN wasn't too withering in its appraisal, writing that "Batman & Robin" was "a roller coaster mishmash of amazingly refined details and awkward execution." Next Generation, however, gave the game two stars and labelled it "pretty damn horrible," adding, "We're going to be charitable and assume this was a game Acclaim was contractually obligated to release and quietly ignore it." AllGame similarly dubbed it a "clunker," while GameInformer named it "Acclaim's best Batman title yet" before adding, "but it's still bad."

Before the "Arkham" games, Batman video games didn't have the best luck, as evidenced by the canceled "Dark Knight"-based video game that wound up posting a multi-million dollar loss. But even that debacle can't compare to the fiasco that was "Batman & Robin" the video game. Even the infamous "Superman" N64 video game (which is considered one of the worst games ever) had an excuse (licensing issues and studio meddling made its development basically impossible). "Batman & Robin," on the other hand, was just plain bad — something that's, admittedly, in keeping with the film on which it's based.