Darkman

Darkman was developed by Twilight and published by Ocean Software in 1991. It was released for the ZX Spectrum, NES, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64. It was also ported to the Game Boy and Atari ST. The game's plot is loosely based on the film of the same name.

In this side-scrolling platformer, the player controls the Darkman, a superhero who can jump, kick and punch, as well as swing from a rope during action sequences between levels. In each level, Darkman disguises himself as the boss of the level, whom he must defeat before the time limit elapses. Tying into the plot of the film, Darkman wears masks of various gangsters who are responsible for his disfigurement, but his disguise dissolves after being exposed to sunlight for too long. The character changes into a different member of the evil gang in each level, taking on their attack moves as well as their face.

In-between levels, Darkman must photograph his quarry before he can make a mask of them. These scenes involve moving the cursor to take a picture of the gangster. The better the photo accuracy, the more time Darkman is granted to complete the subsequent level. The final level is the most faithful to the film, and takes place on a skyscraper under construction. After the player defeats their mirror image five times and wipes out the mob cartel that scarred Darkman, the final boss is inexplicably a clone of Darkman himself.

The Spectrum version was well received critically, with CRASH magazine awarding 82%, Your Sinclair gave 85% and Sinclair User 78%.

Source: Wikipedia, "Darkman (video_game)," available under the CC-BY-SA License.