This game soils and dishonors the great animated series it is based upon.
I've been a long time Batman fan and that is why this game is such a slap in the face and a poor stand in for the series it is based upon. While the game features a new story and the original voice cast of the series, there is nothing else going for it.
The gameplay is just broken, incoherent and unnecessarily frustrating. To begin with we control a character that while looking like Batman, feels more like a cheap imitator. You'll be frustrated as to how weak it is in every action it does. In the series Batman was an agile athlete capable of beating any henchmen easily, jump precisely, and reach ledges and jump obstacles with ease. In this game, this poor imitation can barely jump or grab onto a box that is chest high, fights clumsily and with great effort even the lowest grunt (even the frail, mini skirt wearing Snow Bunnies of Mr. Freeze will make you bite the dust if you are not careful) and it moves with utter clumsiness. The equipment he carries is a joke, and the grappling hook is context sensitive, meaning it cannot be used anywhere but in the indicated spots, taking away any sense of experimentation or freedom. This game is just a obstacle course of poorly designed platforms that are only there to hinder your progress, the levels don't feel like part of a coherent, rational world. And talking about the world, the graphics while made to represent the visuals of the animated series, it comes off rather dull and bland, lacking textures and details. This is a game that would have benefited from the use of Cell Shaded graphics. Instead it looks like a late generation 32bit game.
The camera work is an afterthought, the only camera control available is to center the camera behind Batman, but it doesn't work always, having to resort most of the time to the first person view. Aiming batarangs or any throwing item at the enemies is incredibly innaccurate due to an oversensitive control scheme, low tolerance aiming reticle and not aided at all by the Gamecube Controller's feeble C Stick.
The game is not impossible, but it is barely any fun either, it is just a broken, frustrating, half hearted attempt at capturing the magic of the animated series, and for that it fails as a technical and artistic stand point. If you want to keep your memories of the great animated series intact, stay as far away a possible from this lacking byproduct. This game would only serve as one of those countless merchandise items that the most hardcores of Batman fans collect but end up on a shelf untouched collecting dust.
Go and watch the series if you want to relive it, as for this game;
leave it in the dark and move on.