Vaporware Chronicles: Gotham By Gaslight

<p>In 1989 I was witness to something amazing in the comic book world&comma; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;dccomics&period;com&sol;">DC Comics<&sol;a> decided to create their own version of &&num;8220&semi;What if&comma;&&num;8221&semi; it was aptly titled &&num;8220&semi;Elseworlds&period;&&num;8221&semi; These stories put famed DC characters into much different settings than they were use to&period; Some of the early ones involved the Wayne&&num;8217&semi;s finding Clark Kent instead of the Kent&&num;8217&semi;s&comma; but the first one was Batman taking on Jack the Ripper&period; The graphic novel was named <em>Gotham by Gaslight<&sol;em>&comma; and saw Batman in an 1889 Gotham instead of the modern Gotham we know today&period; Written by Brian Augustyn with art by Mike Mignola of <em>Hellboy<&sol;em> fame I was mesmerized by this tale and have loved the &&num;8220&semi;Elseworlds&&num;8221&semi; series ever since&period; It turns out in the early 2000&&num;8217&semi;s a game developer by the name of  <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;day1studios&period;com&sol;">Day 1 Studios<&sol;a> had an idea to turn this tale into a game for the Xbox 360 and PS3&period; However <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;warnerbros&period;com&sol;">Warner Brothers<&sol;a> never gave the studio the rights to Batman and THQ had to shudder the project&period; Unfortunately all that is left are some screenshots and a tech demo that the developer was trying to use to see Warner Brothers on the project&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><iframe src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;youtube&period;com&sol;embed&sol;65IsSRMi4i0" width&equals;"560" height&equals;"315" frameborder&equals;"0" allowfullscreen&equals;"allowfullscreen"><&sol;iframe><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>From what you can see of this short footage&comma; Day 1 had nailed the steampunk look of Batman and Gotham&period; Batman&&num;8217&semi;s costume is spot on from the comic book and makes me wish Warner Brothers had green lighted this title&period; We could have had this AND <em>Arkham Asylum<&sol;em>&comma; but instead these so called &&num;8220&semi;business people&&num;8221&semi; made yet another bad decision&comma; just like how they killed the<a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;vaporware-chronicles-dirty-harry&sol;"><em> Dirty Harry<&sol;em><&sol;a> game&period; I digress&comma; we honestly don&&num;8217&semi;t know TOO much about what this game was to be because it was scrapped so early in production&comma; but from what we can see from the screen shots as well it looked to be amazing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Since Batman is the World&&num;8217&semi;s Greatest Detective&comma; I did some of that detective work on the screen shots I&&num;8217&semi;ve been privy too and it looks like Day 1 had a lot in store for the Caped Crusader&period; Judging from some of the menus and button icons it looks like Batman was to have an advanced arsenal to disable his foes&comma; albeit it would be advanced for 1889&period; A &&num;8220&semi;Slowmo&&num;8221&semi; button was included&comma; and I can&&num;8217&semi;t imagine how much fun it would have been to tap that button and wail on some guys with the &&num;8220&semi;Bullet Time&&num;8221&semi; option&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m curious as to what type of grenades I would have been able to fashion and just how cumbersome the flashlight may have been&period; There were no Duracell Batteries in 1889&comma; how would Batman use this flashlight to his advantage and how would he keep in powered in during the infancy of electricity&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;143415" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-143415" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-143415" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2019&sol;03&sol;05022238&sol;0022779&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"342" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-143415" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Gotham by Gaslight<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Day 1&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Day 1 was going to pull heavily from the graphic novel&comma; almost making it a perfect adaptation of the source material&period; Obviously set in 1880&&num;8217&semi;s Gotham&comma; Batman was going to have to tackle his toughest case yet&comma; a pond jumping Jack the Ripper&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m sure some of the levels would involve the detective work that the <em>Arkham<&sol;em> games mastered&period; Plus&comma; there were plenty of twists and turns in the story alone&comma; where Jim Gordon believes that Batman is Jack the Ripper and sicks the police force on him&period; That could have been a challenging level&comma; where you have to defeat the police&comma; but keep them from any major damage&comma; so lots of tying up and knockouts&period; Seeing the cave and Alfred&&num;8217&semi;s usual droll sense of humor would have made this game insanely addicting and fun&period; It is a shame&comma; once again we lose a game that we all most likely would have bought and been talking about&period; Let&&num;8217&semi;s hope<a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;rocksteadyltd&period;com&sol;"> Rocksteady<&sol;a> starts sharing some information on the possible <em>Court of the Owls<&sol;em> game they may or may not have been working on&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;