Crossover #5: Aquaman- Battle For Atlantis

Let's be up front about something: Aquaman was never one of the most amazing characters to grace comic books. Seriously, how much of a superpower can the ability to communicate with fish be? Unless... y'know... you run a catch-of-the-day restaurant and want to outdo everyone else by offering up whale calf fillets. Maybe there's a reason his series have been canceled five times and his sixth published incarnation is limping along.

But I digress: aside from a TV pilot that never developed into a series of its own, our favorite Aquatic resident of the DC Universe also had a game that was published for the Xbox and GameCube back in 2003. Unfortunately, Aquaman: Battle For Atlantis's only distinguishing feature was to feature gameplay and graphics so horrendous that it's been labeled by many as being "the worst game ever".

The game's story involves something about the people of Atlantis rioting... or something... I may not have been paying attention because I was probably in the other room mixing up a Long Island Ice Tea (I refuse to play a game that awful sober). Let's just leave it at this: for some reason Aquaman has to awkardly fly swim through his eerily vacant city and sluggishly beat the stuffing out random gangs of disposable goons until he takes on bosses like Black Manta and Lava Lord. Oh, and he also occasionally gets to pilot a submarine (which makes total sense since Aquaman can breathe underwater) and engage in underwater dogfights against other subs.

Aside from a problematic camera and some very basic combat maneuvers, not to mention the fact that advanced combat moves are impossible to pull off because the controls simply don't work half the time, the game's story is told through a series of lackluster comic book panels featuring in-game models instead of either fully-rendered character models or actual artwork by some legitimate artists. Nothing about the game works, other than the physics behind Aquaman's hair which allows it flow beautifully in the underwater levels. The only possible appeal the game had for me was the fact that it was short and Black Manta is a playable character after you beat the game once. Sadly, playing the game was so painful that I ended up walking away from it after about two hours.

Overall, Aquaman: Battle For Atlantis is a perfect example of what not to do when you're putting together a video game. Between the broken controls, drab levels, weak graphics, and dull story, it also works as a great game to play drinking games to... just make sure you have double shots ready for whomever you have playing the game while you laugh on the sidelines.