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In the past, Batman games have been less than stellar. Developers constantly failed to capture the true essence of the timeless super hero. Ubi Soft is here to change that. Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu is most likely the best Batman game to come out in ages. Read on to find out why.

Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu is the first Batman game ever to introduce a brand new villain to the franchise, Sin Tzu. Created by famed comic book artist, and illustrator of last years popular ‘Hush’ series of Batman comics, Sin Tzu is a cold and calculating menace looking for a challenge. The story goes like this: All is quiet in Gotham City as Batman (or Bat friend, I should say…more on that later) goes through some routine thug bashing until suddenly Arkum Asylum is broken into and taken over by Sin Tzu and his men, and the inmates released. Sin Tzu plans to wear Batman thin before his final encounter so that he will be easy pickings. While this story may be recycled over from the older ‘Nightfall’ series of Batman comics, it still works rather well, because that particular piece of Batman history never actually took place in cartoon continuum.

Batman: Rise of Sin Tzuoffers a lot of firsts in a Batman game, first Sin Tzu, and now the ability to play as one of four Bat Friends: Play as either the Dark Knight himself, Batman, his trusty sidekick, Robin, Ex-Robin gone solo Nightwing, or the sly and quick Batgirl. Each one has a barrage of his or her own moves, though Batman and Nightwing, and Batgirl and Robin seem to play similar to each other. Batman and Nightwing have a more beat ‘em up feel to their moves while Robin and Batgirl have a more acrobatic, quick paced feel. You can play as either one of these four characters, though there's no added incentive since the game is always told from Batman's perspective, no matter who you are.

In addition to the moves each Bat Friend has, you have the liberty of using points that you’ve accumulated through the levels by throttling bad guys to purchase newer, fancier moves, some of which are very cool looking. The game takes a different twist on gameplay than most of the Batman games of the past by taking the route of a brawler/beat ‘em up game in the same vein as Konami’s latest Ninja Turtles offering, and the change is a welcome one. You may not think Batman to be beat ‘em up game kind of material, but think about it for a second, what does Batman ever do? Knock around countless nameless villains to get to their boss and beat him/her down to the ground and send ‘em packing. What do you do in beat ‘em ups? Think hard now… Exactly, see? A match made in heaven.

Essentially, the gameplay is very simplistic, and you can probably beat the game (for the most part anyway) by just using the punch button, but the additional moves lend themselves to adding style and flair to your baddy beating antics, and there are a lot of moves that do a world of more hurt than your average punch/kick combos. Much like any good brawler, ROST boasts tons of objects throughout its levels to throw or blow up, and tons of fun to be had while doing it. Each level is broken up into 3 or 4 sub levels before the obligatory boss fight, each with its own objective, may it be defusing bombs, saving civilians or what not. The game, in perfect brawler fashion is a lot more fun in 2 player mode than one player, but the game is still tons of fun if you play it by yourself.

ROST has a lot going for it, including slick visuals. The game has clean, smoothly animated characters, Bat Friend or otherwise, the environments are bright, detailed and colorful, the FMV story sequences are beautifully done and really help you feel like you’re playing an episode of the show. Some very nice graphical touches round out the set, such as rolling fog that separates in your wake, lights that flash when destroyed that leave your vision slightly skewed for a moment, or the coolest effect in the game, which takes place in the second level: the hallucination grenades. The hallucination grenades will cause the screen to start waving around and your enemies will start to look like skeletons, or other outrageous specimen. This is a really cool effect, and a very nice touch to the presentation of the overall game, even if it’s only in one set of levels.

Taking a page out of the book of Vengeance (the last half decent Batman game, also based on the animated series) ROST uses all the voice talent from the cartoon to bring the game to life, and Sin Tzu, who has never appeared on the show, has a nice, methodical sounding voice and is well acted. In addition to the top-notch voice acting, there are some generic but good rock tunes playing in the background during your thug pummeling bat-antics. You get your general bashes and whacks for your sound effects, but really, that’s what you hear on the show when Batman is laying waste to some random nameless goon, so it works rather well.

The one major thing ROST has working against it is time: You can probably run through the game in a matter of a few hours, but the true Bat Fan will want to run through will each character and unlock all the extra goodies. Some may complain about the simplistic button mashing mechanics of the game, but that would be the point where I am to remind them of this simple fact: ROST is a brawler, a beat ‘em up; of course it’s going to have simplistic button mashing gameplay mechanics. ROST is definitely a step in the right direction for the Batman game franchise. If they can apply the slick presentation, smooth controls, and top-notch sound to some sly 3rd person action gaming, we may actually get ourselves the perfect Batman game. Here’s to hope.