Okay Geek Farm
Xbox 360 - Batman: Arkham City review
Alex Tretrop
It’s interesting to think about how different the expectations for a Batman game have changed astronomically. When Rocksteady released Arkham Asylum in 2009, the game was almost cast away due to the absurd thought that there might be a good Batman game. But then, everyone played it. And man, was it brilliant. Here we are two years later and fans of the Dark Knight are waiting in anticipation which has been highly regarded already as a game of the year contender. Just like how Arkham City is a larger version of Arkham Asylum, this is also an accurate view from a gaming perspective as well, with the game featuring a more interesting and varied story, the same awesome melee combat, and offering some great looking environments that seem to change up extremely often. It not only sets the bar for superhero games, but also the action adventure genre as well.
Story
Six months after the events of the previous game, all the crazed inmates from Arkham Asylum have been transferred into a walled off part of Gotham City, called Arkham City, where anything goes as long as they don’t try to escape. While there is perhaps too little exposition given into the reasoning behind this, let’s be honest here, truly stupid decision — Batman is immediately forced into the sprawling Arkham City from the get-go and doesn’t really dwell on the, uh, “interesting” decision making process that Gotham’s government seems to have about safety regulations in its city. Not to mention they’ve got Hugo Strange as the prison warden and gang warfare all over the place. Great job guys!
Just as it was in Arkham Asylum, the overall story here is excellent. Being stuck in the City, Batman goes on his usual crusade of justice and what not but it’s clear that the city is divided into essentially warring enemy factions. On the eastern front, Joker and Harley run the scene at their steel mill turned sadistic funhouse, while the Penguin has an iron grip on the west-side. Even though Batman is allied with none of them, it’s fantastic to see the inmates, who are essentially allowed to roam free, pledging themselves to the worst of the worst in a mad bid to survive.
This aspect is specifically brought the forefront by an excellently implemented mechanic where Batman essentially listens in on the majority of their conversations as your flying high above the streets to your next objective. It’ll usually be your average group of thugs talking about something the Batman has recently done. Except, since the majority don’t see the major story events themselves, there’ll be some inconsistencies in one sentence or an outright lie in another. Along with that, they almost make small talk with each other too! I really love this idea because it fleshes out the otherwise mindless carbon copy henchmen you’ll be fighting throughout the game and it makes the city feel vibrant and alive. Er, well… maybe vibrant isn’t the right word for a place filled with lunatics, but I digress.
One of the main aspects that made the previous game so much fun to play were the characters of the Batman world that were really brought to life by their actions, voice acting and dialogue between one another. Batman’s use of gadgets and brutal hand to hand combat, as well as the way in which he presents himself as a walking nightmare, make him a joy to play. The Joker of course also makes his return, reprising his role as the neighborhood, psychotic clown. With the addition of a sickness plaguing him, it just makes him all the more sinister and man does it ever work. New additions to the Arkham series like Penguin, Mr. Freeze and Two-Face make the already stunning roster even better, even if you only see them for very short bursts during the campaign.
And that, dear readers, is perhaps the most noticeable stumbling point of Arkham City; it tries to do a little too much with all the characters from the Batman universe. Wheras Arkham Asylum was more focused, with the constant threat of taking down the Joker looming for the vast majority of the game, here characters are introduced and then suddnely forgotten about, sometimes within minutes of them coming onto the screen. And the huge overarching threat looming above your head for the majority of the game by the supposed super villain Hugo Strange feels a little uninteresting when it’s done by a character who literally only appears at the very beginning and the very end. You actually only hear him through your earpiece, and he’s never talking directly to you, losing that immense sense of danger you felt when the Joker constantly taunted you throughout his escape in Arkham Asylum.
After you beat the main game, in addition to a New Game Plus mode, you’ve also got a nice amount of side missions to play through. Having completed all of them at this point, almost all of them are worth experiencing in some way, be it the mind-numbing use of Batman’s detective skills to solve all of Riddler’s puzzles, or the small stories that quickly introduce characters from the Batman universe in surprisingly effective ways. If some of the Campaign’s characters had been moved over here, it would have probably formed a more structured and enjoyable package, improving the overall experience. There are some utter duds in the side missions like the boring AR training missions which last all but 5 minutes, and occasionally the quests themselves seem to end in what seems to be the middle of the villain’s storyline, putting the lid on the side mission but relegating it to “Further Investigation on the Batcomputer”. Otherwise, the missions add a nice amount of extra content to the game that really shouldn’t be missed.
Gameplay
It’s not easy to make you feel like a superhero but Rocksteady pulls it off with the expertise they showed off in the original game. Perhaps the largest change in gameplay happens because of the setting as Arkham City feels much bigger than its predecessor’s Arkham Island. While open world in the sense that you can go wherever you want, whenever you want, generally, you’ll be following a fairly linear path from one mission to the next. Perhaps the key here is that the city can be traversed with an upgraded version of one of Batman’s gadgets that will essentially negate your need to touch the ground at all, making you feel an awesome sense of speed and momentum while flying down on unsuspecting foes or getting to the next area.
Perhaps the best part of Arkham City is, like the previous game, the combat. For those that don’t know, Arkham City has a tendency of throwing piles and piles of thugs at you with all manner of weapons, cattle prods and shields for you to deal with. Batman can retaliate by stringing together ridiculous combos that have you quickly moving from enemy to enemy, trying to disarm them and get them on the ground as fast as you can. All this time, enemies are quickly trying to game up and overwhelm you with lots of different attacks which you can counter at the press of a button. The thing is, since the combat moves at such a fast pace, you almost need to prepare for who you’re trying to attack next. For example: armored thugs take longer to take down but, oh! Here comes a thug with a gun, that should be priortiy number 1. It’s pretty crazy just how fast your train yourself to react to these things as the game moves along, because almost every second counts in these fights and as a result, even if your fighting carbon copy baddies, the fights always feel different, interesting and varied, no matter how many times you repeat it.
The other aspect of Arkham Asylum that you’ll remember is the predator aspects, where the game switches to a slower, more methodical pace in favour of stealth and Batman’s ability of scaring his enemies. The most welcome change here is that the campaign doesn’t have as many “gargoyle rooms” as the first game, making your sneak attacks feel much more real and effective when it isn’t from the same place every single time. When there is one of these rooms however, Rocksteady introduces some neat ideas that mix things up in some effective ways. Maybe one room has a thug with goggles on, meaning he can scan gargoyles for those pesky bats that keep hiding up there. Others block detective vision and have heartbeat monitors, ensuring that things are kept nice and interesting throughout the whole experience.
Perhaps now would be the time to talk about Catwoman, who plays an important role in the story, and how different she feels than Batman. She’s fairly underused in the Campaign but when you do get the chance to step into her shoes, be it during missions or the challenge rooms, it’s a nice break from Batman. When she’s in combat with numerous enemies, she feels even quicker then Batman, a feat which I didn’t think possible in this game, providing you with a fun diversion with her few levels. Her traversal elements on the other hand, feel much more cumbersome that batman as you can’t just hook yourself to any wall, you physically need to press 4 buttons to climb up the wall you’ve essentially already swung to, which can feel really flow breaking at times. Her predator missions are also weaker as well because of this and her lack of useful gadgets will usually put you off playing her most of the time. Thankfully, the few missions you take control of her never outstay their welcome and just provide you with a bit of variety to break up the campaign missions.
Alongside the Campaign you’ve also got challenge rooms, where you compete for some pretty tough high scores in stealth or combat focused maps. While they’re very fun, they’re more of a diversion and don’t really serve much of a purpose other than if you want to just jump in for a quick dose of beat’em up action.
Visuals/Audio
Like many high budget titles out there, Arkham City is quite the looker. While the original definitely looked good, the fact that it was on Arkham Island hindered Rocksteady’s ability to add a large amount of variety in its environments. Not so in the sprawling City, with the mountains of buildings, underground passageways and story related areas you’ll visit truly make Arkham City look like a true hellhole. The colour palette definitely helps reinforce this as well, with darkened streets all glistening with gothic aesthetics lending themselves to exactly the way you’d expect a Batman game should look like.
The character models are also right up at the top, with characters like Batman, Hugo Strange and, in particular, the Joker have some brilliantly detailed character models that look just plain excellent up close and from afar.
Another aspect I’m happy to report on is the fact that the framerate is pretty rock solid throughout the entire experience. Sure, when there are piles of enemies on screen, there’s the occasional drop but it happens so infrequently that you’ll hardly notice.
And with the return of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, the original voices of Batman and Joker from the 1990’s Animated Series respectively, you can imagine that audio performances are just as special as they were in the first game. And while I think the vast number of villains hurts the overall structure, they all give some fantastic performances, from the great split personality of Two-Face to the effective robotic voice of Mr. Freeze. Even the nameless baddies you’ll be fighting throughout the game have a nice variety of lines and sound appropriately thuggish as you beat the crap out of them.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Rocksteady hasn’t just put together one of the best superhero games out there but they’ve also made a fantastic action, beat’em up title that stands up on its own. It’s got a solid story, graphics that pay homage to its comic and animated sources, and also may possibly feature some of the best melee combat in a game out on the market right now. And once you finish the story there’s more than enough side missions to keep you interested for a few more hours. Or if you’re crazy, you could collect all the Riddler trophies, in which case, see you next millennium buddy — there’s 400 of them!
However, with the story not really feeling as focused as it was in Arkham Asylum, it can occasionally lead to just too many characters being introduced and the loss of that true sense of danger we got from the original, where Joker was taunting you over your earpiece. But really though, that doesn’t take away too much from this guranteed game of the year nominee. Arkham City is the definitive Batman game that no fan should go without playing.
Pro’s
- Some of the best melee combat in any game ever made.
- Arkham City has a fantastic sense of scale that Arkham Asylum lacked.
- Excellent Voice Acting.
- Lots of excellent sidequests.
- Overall story is great…
Con’s
- … even if it does feel a little unfocused.
- Too many Riddler trophies and not enough riddles!
- Catwoman feels fairly useless compared to Batman.
After playing this game it’s great that Rocksteady is getting it so right with Batman. The feeling of playing as Batman is done so well here that it’s going to be really cool seeing what Rocksteady does next, be it more Batman or even something entirely new.. like let’s say, Superman… hmmm?Either way, we’re definitely interested to see where they go from here and what excellent world they construct next!
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