Batman: The Caped Crusader: From CGW cover (1989) to 29th worst CGW game (1996)

[cwpab]

What changed from this...



...to this?



In 1989, Computer Gaming World magazine put Batman: The Caped Crusader on the cover and made a generally positive review of the game, even if they complained about escaping from enemies being more effective than fighting them (and the Batmobile and Batwing not appearing in the game).

In 1996, the same magazine included the same game among the 50 worst games in history, specifically in 29th place. In just one paragraph and without a screenshot, they complained again about avoiding combat being better, but calling the game "mindless" this time.

At Christmas 1988/89, a Spanish child (me) asked for 3 things in his letter to the Three Wise Men (some sort of second Santa on Jan 7): the board game Corre, Yeti, corre ("Run, Yeti, Run") and the Amstrad CPC video games La guerra de las vajillas ("Dishes Wars") and "Batman". I don't know exactly if I ordered the isometric one from Ritman or The Caped Crusader, but I suspect it was Caped because it came out in December 1988.

My parents bought me Corre, Yeti, corre and La guerra de las vajillas, but not Batman: The Caped Crusader. But the following Christmas, they suspiciously bought me the A toda máquina ("Full Steam") pack, with Batman on the cover. What happened? The mystery is still there and, if the 1996 magazine is anything to go by, I was lucky not to receive the game.

But the biggest mystery is how a cover game becomes the 29th worst game in history in just 7 years.

[dodogildo]

Isn't this the exact same topic from Lemon64 forums?

[cwpab]

Yeah, I wanted to see what this forum thinks about this too.

[andycadley]

Tastes change over time I guess. Batman the Movie and, perhaps more so, the NES Batman game showed what should have been done and so the older 3D Ritman title and the comic book style puzzles of Caped Crusader just seem a bit janky and distinct from the franchise.

Or, if you're more cynical, Ocean weren't paying for advertising space by 1996.

[cwpab]

Ocean weren't paying for advertising space by 1996

Was this an issue also on the UK? Here in Spain, the CEO of the publisher house behind the biggest computer gaming magazine (Micromanía) and console gaming magazine (Hobby Consolas), a company called Hobby Press", admitted

1) ignoring bad games because hey, you know, we want to focus on good games (thus omitting key information for players)

2) alerting developer companies when a game was bad before publishing a review

3) literally changing magazine scores given by reviewrs, via the director of one of these magazines, up and down depending on their relationship with the game publisher (thus Super Mario Bros 3 was given a bad score)

4) giving, of course, Spanish games absurdly good scores "to help local industry"

And I also noticed that, for example, some games were not given cover treatment suspiciously (Resident Evil 1 was not given the cover: instead, it was Atlanta Soccer), and others were directly ignored for 1 year becaus they didn't receive free copies (this happened with Space Quest V).

Any stories from other countries? 

[cwpab]

It should be noted CGW is an American magazine, and the game was released there 6 months later to match the Batman movie premiere. So there was a lot of batmania going on when CGW put Caped Crusader on the cover.

PS: I will probably show a pic of my letter to the Three Wise Men by Christmas.