Before 3D
Batman appeared in a lot of movie tie-in games. Most of them were terrible.
He made up for this by also appearing up in a series of Lego games, which were surprisingly good.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Batman cruises into Arkham Asylum in his nice shiny Batmobile. He is there to return his arch-enemy, The Joker to the least secure place in Gotham City. Sensing that he is in a computer game, Batman decides to personally escort him to his cell in case there are shenanigans afoot. Along the way the player is introduced to a variety of villains as just about everybody is being moved to a different cell when Batman shows up.
Things start to go wrong almost immediately as it turns out that the Joker’s sidekick, Harley Quinn takes over the security and locks the doors leading outside and unlocks the cell doors. Unleashing a horde of angry inmates on Batman. Not wanting to make him feel left out, Commissioner Gordon is kidnapped during the attack.
Batman manages to survive and his first priority is to rescue the commissioner. However while tracking him down he starts to hallucinate, he sees his parent’s corpses and they begin talking to him, calling him a failure. Batman does not take this well and his state of mind is not improved when he finds the commissioner murdered. However, it turns out that it was all a dream thanks to the Scarecrow. He had earlier attacked Batman with his fear toxin. Batman manages to shrug off the effects of the toxin and runs off to his backup batcave (first rule of batman: have a backup for everything).
While there he learns that Gordon is alive and being held hostage by Harley Quinn. Batman is not having any of this and wastes no time running over there to knock her on her arse, rescuing the commissioner. With that side mission done, Batman can now start the main quest. The Joker wanted to get into Arkham because a scientist there was developing a new drug which gives people superhuman strength. He wants to give it to all of his henchmen to create an powerful army. The scientist in question had no idea a drug that turns people into inhuman monsters could be used for evil and tries to stop the Joker from getting the drug, called Titan. This goes about as well as you would expect.
With half of Joker’s army now looking like the Michelin man, Batman must find a way to revert them back to normal. He goes to see Poison Ivy, who tells him that there is an antidote but it can only be made from a plant located in the sewers. The journey to get this plant is perilous. With Batman having to deal with another drug attack by The Scarecrow and an enraged half crocodile/human known as Killer Croc. To top it all off, Poison Ivy herself was injected with titan while Batman was away. Causing just about every plant in the vicinity to go berserk.
After defeating her, Batman has finally had enough and decides to deal with The Joker. Luckily, The Joker wants to be found and challenges Batman to a fight. Aware that he has no chance of beating Batman in a fair fight. The Jokers gives himself a massive overdose of Titan to beef himself up. Batman beats him anyway and the day is saved.
Batman: Arkham City
Set one year after the events in the asylum. Things have become a bit darker in Gotham City after one Hugo Strange somehow managed to persuade the citizens to allow for a third of the city to be walled off to create a massive jail. Batman is against this and uses his alter ego, Bruce Wayne to speak out against it. His efforts lead to him getting kidnapped and placed into the jail by strange, who knew about the identity of Batman all along.
It appears that Batman has been slacking in the past year as there is no Batcave for him to use inside the city. Instead, Batman must have his suit and gadgets parachuted in. Once tooled up he gets down to business. His first port of call is a hideout used by two-face. He is about to execute Catwoman to gain some respect until Batman intervenes. The Joker then makes his presence felt by trying the same thing. Batman saves Catwoman again and tracks down The Joker to a steel mill. Batman believes that The Joker is responsible for his capture and that he is behind something called “protocol 10”. A mysterious plan that Strange constantly talks about over the radio.
Once there however, Batman discovers that The Joker is ill, suffering the side effects of the Titan drug he took in the last game. Batman quickly surmises that without a cure he will die. Not only that, The Joker has no idea what protocol 10 is. In an attempt to force the issue, The Joker captures Batman and injects him with some of his blood meaning that he will die too if a cure is not found.
Now desperate to find a cure, Batman heads over to the lair of Mr Freeze in the belief that he can find one. As luck would have it, It was exactly what Freeze was wqorking on but could not complete it before being captured by the Penguin. After going through a massive amount of palarva to free Freeze, he sadly tells Batman that he has already made the cure but it is too unstable to use. Batman realises that he can use Ra’s al Ghul’s blood to provide the stabilising element he needs. It is at this point that even Batman can’t keep up with of all this and has to use a flow chart.
After a brief fight with Ra’s al Ghul, Batman gets the blood and Mr Freeze is able to use it to perfect the cure. However, the almost forgotten about protocol 10 now kicks off. It turns out that strange’s grand plan was to level jail and remove all criminals from the city. Batman puts a stop to this by climbing up a huge tower and punching Strange in the face.
Now free to go after The Joker, Batman is told to go to a theatre where The Joker proposes a trade, the cure for the life of Batman’s love interest, Talia al Ghul (it’s complicated). Talia manages to break free and kill a body double of the Joker and gives Batman the cure, which he uses. After a massive fight, Batman and The Joker face off. Batman is in two minds about curing The Joker but is attacked by him before he can decide. With the vial containing the cure smashed there is now no hope for The Joker. Batman decides to rub salt into the wound by telling The joker that he would have given him the cure before The Joker expires. This saddens batman and he carries out the corpse to an astonished commissioner Gordon before leaving without saying a word.
Batman: Arkham Orgins
A prequel, a villain known as the Black Mask puts out a bounty on Batman’s head. Seeing as this is set before the previous two games, you just know that The Joker is gonna show up at some point.
Ghosts Can't Eat 