Kemco surprised us at E3 2001 with a very impressive video of their upcoming Batman title for GameCube...which we'd never even heard of before. Their booth's company representative, (who didn't speak great English, it should be noted) told us that the game will be based on the new Batman live-action movie, but that its story would be totally new. She also stood firm on the claim that Batman: Dark Tomorrow would be out sometime in November for the GameCube.

Since then there has been some argument about the movie part, because the next Batman flick isn't due until at least 2002. Still, that IS what Kemco told us, and the FMV footage they showed off definitely has the feel of Tim Burton's original Batman movie, though Bats himself was wearing the blue suit instead of Michael Keaton's black one.

Here is a step-by-step account of the E3 video footage for Dark Tomorrow:

The clip has no introduction; it fades directly into a sharply pre-rendered scene with two police cars chasing an armored truck. Masked criminals are hanging out the back of the armored truck and firing machine guns at the cops. Cut to the Batmobile, which looks exactly like a black Pontiac Trans Aim w/ Ram Air, plus rear fins and that famous rocket engine. That engine fires up (literally), and the Batmobile is suddenly in a very dramatic game of "Chicken" with the armored truck we saw before. The truck swerves at the last second, and the whole thing flips onto its side as a result. The Batmobile screeches to a halt, and the Batman steps out of the car. He actually looks very much like the comic book version of the character, which is odd when everything else is reminiscent of the Hollywood iterations. The video cuts to an aerial shot of Batman, standing atop a giant eagle statue somewhere way up on the side of a building. He's looking over Gotham city, which is entirely visible from this height and rendered in exquisite detail. Cut to a close-up shot of the Joker, looking much like he does in the comics, and laughing like crazy. Then cut to a moving shot of a Batarang, which proceeds to whack a goon (presumably one from the crashed armored truck) in the back of the head. Cut to Batman fighting another good hand-to-hand, using all the cool karate-style chops and kicks he's known for. Cut again to Batman fighting yet another goon, this time one armed with nunchaku. Batman makes short work of him, of course. The next sequence is possibly the best-looking one in the whole video clip. The Batplane in all its environment-mapped glory is soaring through a snowy mountain valley at insane speeds, reflections all over its surface. Then a group of helicopters fly by the camera over some unidentifiable area, firing machine guns. It's unclear whether the Batplane is chasing the 'copters, vice-versa, or if they're unrelated events that happened to be spliced together in the footage reel. The final sequence shows Batman jump-kicking a thug right in the face, and it's all in slow-motion. The animation here is really excellent, although the goon looks oblivious as Batsy's feet fly towards his face. Fade out to the game's title and logo, and then a screen that says "Coming in November for Nintendo GameCube."

Even though the whole movie is pre-rendered footage, it might still give some really good hints towards what the actual game will contain. Batman's blue suit and the Joker's presence seem to indicate that Dark Tomorrow will be based on the comic books, or at least will follow that style. At the same time, the Batmobile and Batplane are straight up movie-like, while the armored truck and baddies look ripped out of the animated series. We're quite confused, but at least the whole thing looks fantastic and the styles seem to mesh together with no visible problems.

At this point, it's hard to theorize on possible gameplay elements beyond what the video hints at. We also can only guess at the graphical quality, because we're pretty sure that the E3 footage contains no real-time material. That also points to another very obvious possibility: the November release date isn't looking too realistic right now. Regardless, the potential for a truly great Batman game for GameCube has us comic freaks foaming at the mouth, and we can only hope and pray that Kemco pulls through and delivers a game as impressive and stylish as their initial video presentation.