With all these strikes against it, Batman: The Rise of Sin Tzu is an easy game to write off sight unseen. Once you hear it is another Batman fight-fest and after you hear a couple of people grumbling about how hard it is, you might not even pay it the courtesy of picking up the box and looking at the back. And, indeed, if you absolutely hate the genre, you only like doing things once, and the license leaves you cold, you should skip Sin Tzu. It's unlikely anything here will convert you. But those with some experience under their utility belts will find a thing or two to appreciate.

The first rule of warfare: never underestimate your opponent

Even though Rise of Sin Tzu features a new villain to take on (the title bad guy was designed by veteran artist Jim Lee just for this game), the story is pretty much your generic "Oh, no! The villains have escaped and they are joining forces!" tale. Sin Tzu is an opponent Batman has never faced, but to get to him you have to fight through a handful of familiar faces. The boss battles are the kind that requires you to deduce and exploit the enemy's weakness, but they demand some patience and tight control even after you figure them out.

The regular goon-in-the-street, of course, can be taken down with rapid hits and well-placed projectiles and explosions. The action twists all over each level map, sometimes headed to the right, sometimes up, and other times straight back where you came from. The breakable objects are plentiful but not too diverse and there are no wall jumps or other fancy interactions with the background. All of the playable characters - Batman, Nightwing, Batgirl, and Robin - can handle themselves and you will put away hundreds of criminals before you're through.

The star attraction control-wise is the unlockable combo system. Moves are divided over five menus, with the first set "unlocked" at the outset. As you progress, more of the menus become available. Individual moves are purchased with money earned at the end of each level, and the better you do, the more cash you get.

Players first beginning the game may fall back on the easy three-tap combos and maybe use a throw here and there once one is purchased. And, truth be known, the good old triple-tap will work just dandy on most enemies. Later on in the game, however, when the thugs become more numerous and more aggressive and the timer grows more unforgiving, players stuck on the baby combos will frequently find themselves in a bind. Some enemies block all punches or kicks, and all of them delight in throwing exploding barrels of toxic waste at you from off-screen, so don't expect to lean on the X button for forty minutes and get away with it. This ain't Metro City - prepare to block, dodge, and run like hell away from swarms of enemies and to ticking bombs. Even in two-player mode and Normal difficulty, this game gets very intense.

Shelf upon shelf of wonderful toys

Besides the moves lists, there is a ton of extras to unlock, mostly in Batman's trophy room. Unfortunately, the selection is largely unimpressive and definitely overpriced. The 3D models of characters and vehicles aren't a big whoop, and the majority of the other items suffer from being displayed in too low a resolution. This limitation is particularly disappointing in the Graphic Novel collection. For a nice chunk of change, you can unlock the cover and three pages of famous comics in the Batman family. Inexcusably, there is no way to zoom in on the pages to appreciate the artwork and read the text. Besides maybe the toy collection, which features some of the finest action figures of past years, and possibly the weapon collection, the trophies just aren't as good as you'd expect them to be for all the effort it takes to unlock them. You will have to play through four difficulty levels and a two-player game to get everything, barring a cheat of some kind.

The unlockables are good for one thing, though: introducing the world of the Dark Knight. The trophies and the movie bonuses provide a fairly detailed look into the goings-on in Gotham City. One of the reasons I scored this game so highly is for its obvious commitment to Bat-fans. As a museum, there are a lot of kinks to be worked out, but I won't say the programmers did a bad job. I would have liked those close-ups, but what is there is definitely a good start - just make more of it accessible earlier the next time.

All eyes on the East

Sin Tzu, whose origin story is a bonus cinema on the disk, is a stereotypical Chinese warlord who comes across like a cosmic-ray-enhanced version of Chinese strategist Sun Tzu. In fact, much like Sun Tzu and his Art of War, Sin Tzu is the author of a tome of war strategies, which Batman has read. Throughout the game, the villain and his army of ponytailed fighters spout off and inspire cheesy lines about the East overcoming the West, "Western dogs," and even a pun on the term "Chinese takeout." Perhaps with all the anti-French rhetoric that's been going on this year, the French-Canadian developers wanted to divert unwanted attention with jingoism from days past. Whatever the reason, the remarks and the bright yellow skin and pointy fingers of Sin Tzu are a bit much.

Overall, this is an excellent purchase for fans of the character or the animated series. It is evident that some serious work was put into this disk and I appreciate that. Good game, Bats.

· · · Nick