Mad Squabble: The Bat versus the Bat Pod

The battle here is which of the bat-vehicles prominently featured in The Dark Knight Rises would inspire the better video game experience on the consoles. There's no official Dark Knight Rises video game coming to either PS3 or Xbox 360 of the kind that one might expect of a major motion picture release. There still isn't one for the Avengers yet either and that might be a good thing. The Dark Knight Rises is too important a property to risk putting a substandard video game out there since and, seriously, it's a risk. Name a good video game inspired by a movie version of a comic book superhero. Exactly.

So with that in mind let's take a look at DKR's crazy underbelly "hovercopter" with the ridiculous name, The Bat and put it up against the Bat Pod, or Bat Cycle, for those who don't care about accuracy. One of these would inspire the better video game and you get to pick the winner.

The Bat

If you took the rotor blades of a helicopter and put them under the main body of the craft, shortened the blades and ignored the need for a tail rotor, you'd have The Bat. It's very cool looking and Batman flew the hell out of it in the movie. However the clear challenge with The Bat would be in controlling and maneuvering this thing at full speed. Even in the movie, The Bat drifts and rolls way more than you'd expect of a precise crime fighting machine even though it gets the job done.

A video game inspired by this ride would be the most challenging flight-hover simulator of all time. It's a fictional craft so there are no real world concepts and rules to worry about because your average engineering student will tell you there's no way that thing would function as designed. Not without invisible anti-gravity units anyway. And I swear if science has been holding out on us about invisible anti-grav units, there are some eggheads who are going to pay. Anyway, a control system using the dual analog sticks to control movement in three dimensions would have to be super sophisticated. Using the helicopter controls in Battlefield 3 would be a good start but twist things up with unique physics for The Bat since it's such small vehicle.

Rather than just making it a kind of rail shooter where you're always automatically moving forward blasting targets above and below, you'd get a much better experience putting an emphasis on maneuvering and precise controls. Flying that thing into a mall and blowing up a specific pretzel stand would be way more satisfying that blowing up a bunch of police cars and tanks on the ground. Precise flying that leads to exciting target shooting of various kinds is the way to go with The Bat

The Bat Pod

That Bat Pod was born out of the nether regions of the Batman Begins Batmobile (a vehicle that we will discuss at another time when we need something to be angry about) and the version in Dark Knight Rises is an improbably upgrade of the original. I say upgrade because Batman has added more things to it beside a pair of heavy big-ass wheels connected by struts. Like The Bat, the Bat Pod looks completely implausible because we can't see a motor, its weight distribution is lame and somehow its wheels can turn sideways and roll perpendicular to the main body.  Through two Batman movies, the Bat Pod still makes no sense, especially when it does that side rolling thing because that move is required if Batman wants to make any kind of tight turn.

And so how about a vehicle combat game where you have to constantly tinker and upgrade your Bat Pod to make the damn thing functional. If that rolling maneuver somehow damaged or cost your Bat Pod healthy points (because it would) then keeping your ride healthy and functional would be a constant demand from round to round or level to level. Crappy physics where the thing barely turns because the front wheel is gigantic and leaning hard one way or another simply has you riding at an angle to the road would be a must. Mega firepower would be required too, just as it would with The Bat. So blowing up parts of the environment or course for strategic effect would be included. Blowing up obstacles to make shortcuts or creating debris for other riders to crash into would be a huge step forward.

So that's that. Our first Mad Squabble, pitting any one thing against any other one thing, is in the books. Sound off on Facebook and let us know what you'd prefer between a game inspired by The Bat or a game inspired by the Bat Pod. Oh and go see the movie. Hines Ward is great in it.