Old School Justice !!!!
User Rating: 7.5 | Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu XBOX
Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu is a game that brings to mind old school beat-um-ups of more then 10 years ago. It’s a fair game that holds it’s own but doesn’t stick out to win over very many people. The game is very simple, you go from point A to Point B and beat everybody up till you get to the boss. Every level has it’s own features, ok…not really. One level is almost exactly the same to the next. Any Batman (Animated series from the 90’s) fan will know who the boss is on that level. The variations from one level to the next are almost negligible with the exception of the last level and even then it’s not too much different from what you’ve seen so far. The game uses a point system to purchase moves as you progress through the missions. Much like Lord of the Rings games and Spider-Man. This makes the game feel like they force a handicap on you so that they can have easy foes in the start of the game and not have you just fly past them without breaking a sweat (though you can later, you’ll see). Game seems pretty dull so far huh? Well for me the game really shined was the bosses. To dispose of them takes more then just a “keep beating the tar out of him” mentality that most games of the genre has now days, or just select the proper weapon then beat the tar out of them (though it was cool in the Mega Man series). The game took a wait and see approach watch the enemy and then exploit when you figure them out. Much like the MGS series, the bosses are simple, once you figure them out. The game has a few flaws though. The first being the lack of four-player action. With Batman, Robin, Nightwing, & Batgirl as playable characters it should have been an option. The other thing is that you have to keep constant pace through the game. In every level you have timed objectives, save hostages, disarm the bombs…whatever. Every mini objective you reach it resets the timer to finish the next. When the timer reaches zero you lose a life and 15 seconds is added to your time, fail to reach the objective again, loose another life and get 15 more seconds. This stops you from hanging around and “playing it safe”. At first I found this annoying but after a while I like how it kept the pace of the game moving. Run and Gun is never a bad thing right? All in all this game is ok, but a good diversion for a few hours. So take a look at it if you like side scrolling beat-um-ups and/or Batman the Animated Series. 
