Catwoman [GBA]

Catwoman has hit the scene across all platforms thanks to a spotlighted theatrical release this summer. It's no secret that the movie's terrible, and the Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2 games based on the flick weren't exactly average gaming experiences either. The Game Boy Advance version, however, manages to work a bit better on the handheld than the console versions did on the corresponding systems. Though the repetitive nature of the combat brings the experience down a few notches, the game is far from a quickly developed "cash-in," offering a fun-but-limiting blend of Final Fight-style action with Prince of Persia inspired platform design.

Hot off its development of Balder's Gate Dark Alliance for the Game Boy Advance, European studio Magic Pockets was put to task by Electronic Arts to develop a handheld rendition of the Catwoman game design EA and Argonaut were co-developing for the console systems. The team took the technology it created for Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance -- a very capable isometric engine -- and expanded on it for Catwoman to allow for a much more versatile, action-based experience that put the character's trademark skills to use.

It's best to describe Catwoman on the Game Boy Advance as a much more action-based take on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, in a 3D environment. Levels are segmented into brawling action against as many as four thugs (any more and the game starts to slow down), and skillful platform jumping around the environments. As players leap around the nighttime city, crawling up and along walls, flipping through the air via strategically placed flagpoles and flipping over gaps in floors, they'll earn added abilities on top of the ones Catwoman already has.

At the very least, the game looks fantastic on the Game Boy Advance screen. The artwork, though dark and moody, still comes off with a vibrant flair. Backgrounds are structured with a lot of detail, with shading and lighting in places to appropriately fit the nighttime setting. The character sprites have been rendered with plenty of animation frames, giving Catwoman the appropriate fluidity to her actions. And on top of all this, the programmers even throw in a very subtle but effective lighting effect on the sprites that changes depending on where the character stands in the environment. You really have to look for it, and if the development team left the effect out of the game you wouldn't miss it -- but it does add an "ooh neat" element to the game, and makes it stand out from the rest of the umpteen isometric action games already available on the handheld system.

But the gameplay can't quite match the technology or art efforts that were put into Catwoman. The problem is, the action portions are very bland with very little technique beyond rapidly hitting the B button. Even though Catwoman can pull off more skilled maneuvers with a D-pad and B button combination, the game never really offers much encouragement to put these moves to use...so the brawling elements end up a mindless button masher. The Prince of Persia platform elements are designed well, but it's clear that the isometric perspective isn't tailored well for this type of challenge. The angled perspective always seems to cause a weird M.C. Escher-like effect to the environments, making it difficult to see where platforms sit in relation to the ones next to them. Occasionally the level designers move into a more direct side-scrolling layout, but not nearly enough...only brought up to put Catwoman's wall-leaping abilities to use.

It's not entirely bad, though, and despite following a similar design formula as the console game, the design seems to fit a bit better on the handheld system. There are some very cool ideas in Catwoman, and it'd be great to see these elements expanded in other action games. Her whip, for example, is used to great effect to disarm specific enemies wielding guns. This actually puts a bit of strategy in the action portions, since players have to back away from the pack to target the one enemy that can actually cause some serious damage.

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