Catwoman (video game)

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Catwoman (video game)
Everything about this game just screams of a cat-astrophe.
Genre(s): Action-adventure
Platform(s): Microsoft Windows
Nintendo GameCube
PlayStation 2
Xbox
Game Boy Advance
Release Date: NA: 20 July 2004
EU: 6 August 2004
Developer(s): Argonaut Games
Electronic Arts UK
Magic Pockets (GBA)
Publisher(s): Electronic Arts

Catwoman is a 2004 action-adventure video game developed by Argonaut Games in association with EA UK and published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft Windows and Xbox. The Game Boy Advance version was developed by Magic Pockets. It was based on the 2004 movie of the same name.

Plot

Catwoman follows the tale of Patience Phillips, a shy office peon in the Hedare corporate empire. She accidentally discovers her employers' dark secret and is subsequently murdered. However, death won't stop Patience from seeking vengeance. Our heroine is brought back to life by a magical Egyptian cat named Midnight. Patience soon discovers that along with her restored life, she has received several "cat powers" that will enable her revenge. Thus, Catwoman is born.

Why It Should Also Be Thrown Into The Litterbox

  1. Catwoman can't take down enemies unless you shove them into stage hazards. A heroine that can't take down enemies herself. That's stupid!
    • It's worth noting that the game could be meant to be family-friendly since you cannot defeat enemies with all of the seemingly violent attacks... however, considering how risqué/sexualized Catwoman's character herself is, it sounds and feels rather contradictory and hypocritical.
  2. The game plays like a poor man's version of Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time.
  3. The camera is awful. You can't properly platform in the game because the camera constantly gets stuck on objects in front of it and the camera is often angled so that you can't gauge the jump.
  4. The platforming is completely broken! Catwoman constantly fails to successfully land jumps that she should have managed unless you do it some very obscurely specific way.
  5. Missing certain jumps force you to redo a significant chunk of the level as there is no recovery shortcut and you have to slowly trudge through the previous section of the level you already did.
  6. The story is bad. It's also altered a little bit.
  7. Unresponsive and bad controls, for example, in the PS2 version, you have to press the R1 button to jump instead of X! Who the hell plays a platform game where they can't use the X button (you know, the main button used for jumping?!) to jump, but instead the R1 button, which is above the main face buttons and very awkward to press when attempting to platform?!?! To make things worse, there's no option to change the control scheme, forcing players to get used to the crippled platforming controls!
  8. The level design is rather poor.
  9. Using the game's cat vision at some stages causes the vision to go red and you take damage.
  10. Horrendous visuals, especially on the PC even if it is at a higher resolution.
  11. Poor voice acting. On top of that, they didn't bother to bring Halle Berry (despite the fact that she admitted that she was put in a terrible film while accepting her Razzie for Worst Actress and she only voiced in the first level) to voice the titular character in the game, instead replacing her with Jennifer Hale, who tries her best but can't overcome the fact that she sounds absolutely nothing like Berry.
  12. Many of Catwoman's upgrades are trivial. All upgrades are exclusively for combat. The only ones of use are the ability to whip guns out of enemies' hands, and a powerup called Domination which builds up a bar to supercharge your attacks.
  13. Poor and unappealing soundtrack.
  14. Poor fighting mechanics, which are mainly caused by reason number #1. Even if one spams or rapidly presses the attack button on an enemy, he will not stay down and he gets back up.
  15. Frame rate problems.
  16. You attack enemies by moving the C/Right stick, RMB then move the mouse in the PC version. similar to Too Human.
  17. No 2-player co-op game mode.
  18. No replay value.
  19. Several inconsistencies with the movie.
    • Detective Lone's haircut is white rather than black in the movie. Also, in the movie, Laurel Hedare killed her husband, George. In the game, however, he is still alive.
  20. Style over Substance: The game's platforming and the camera aim to be stylish instead of what you could do with the game mechanics itself.
  21. The platforming sections in the game boil down to trial and error instead of skill; each platforming section has a predictable pattern until memorized, there is no sense of a satisfying reward when you complete them.
  22. False advertising: The back of the game's box claims "Whip into action to conquer your enemies and dominate your surroundings" and "Combine fluid kicks and flips to unleash Catwoman's explosive style." neither of which the game has. Many of the mentioned "attacks" are just to satisfy gamers that like beat'em ups, platforming, and guess what? You can't kill enemies with your whip or kick. They can't die. The attacks will always keep enemies alive, but they are stunned for a brief moment.
    • The cover art shows Catwoman with her whip, but she can't kill people with the whip in the game.

Redeeming Qualities

  1. Frances Conroy and Halle Berry (first level only) are the only actors returning from the film.
  2. The GBA version is decent.

Reception

The game, just like the movie, received negative reviews. It holds a score of a 46 on Metacritic. The GBA version recieved mixed to positive reviews.

Videos

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