Batman: Arkham City
The best superhero game. Ever.
Review Hung upside down over a vat of acid or strapped to a conveyor belt inching towards a blast furnace, Batman could always rely on technology to help him pull off an unlikely escape. That is if he... could... just... reach... his... utility belt, of course.
'If this is a consular ship, then where is the ambassador'
It's a trick developer Rocksteady has obviously learned from The Dark Knight. By dipping deep into its own technological armoury for Arkham City, it has pulled of the unlikely feat of improving upon Arkham Asylum, a title universally acclaimed as one of the best superhero games of all time.
Swapping Arkham Asylum's tight confines and scripting for the sandbox sprawl of Arkham City could have been disastrous, but just as Bruce Wayne cleverly re-engineers military technology into his crime-fighting arsenal, Rocksteady masterfully reworks the open-world mechanics of Prototype, Crackdown and others to expand the Arkhamverse in spectacular fashion.
City flickers
It helps in no small part that Arkham Asylum's gameplay is carried over largely untouched. Despite introducing crime scene investigations and radio hacking, detective work remains a simple, unfussy side-dish to the main course of stealthy exploration and combat.
The inimitable close-quarter combat plays much the same, save for some new animations, enemy types and gadget combos. The exquisite balance of accessibility and depth is as impeccable now as it was two years ago. The increased verticality of Arkham City's skyline is augmented with destructible gargoyles and enemies wearing thermal-imaging goggles.
Punches flying
Arkham City's difference, then, is scale. Thanks to the sheer size of Arkham City itself – a super-prison walled off from the rest of Gotham to house its most notorious criminals – it's exploration that most distinguishes the sequel. By combining an early upgrade to your grapnel gun with Batman's dive-bomb and gliding manoeuvres, you can soar gracefully over the city, never having to set foot on the ground by design.
Next page: Escape from New... Gotham
COMMENTS
I for one....
...will definitely be checking this. Made me think if a joke.
Bloke goes for a job interview and it's going really well - then the interviewer asks him what he thinks his biggest weakness is. Bloke says "well I often have trouble with reality you know? Being able to tell whats real and what is just idle daydreams or delusional fantasy". "Hmmm, very interesting" replied the interviewer "and what about your strengths?"
"I'm Batman"
He he
Better than Infamous/Infamous 2
Better storyline, better gadgets/powers, better scripting/voice acting.
Doesn't quite match Infamous 2 graphically, but still close.
Even better than Prototype, but I can't wait to see what Radical Entertainment does with Prototype 2 next year.
bestr superhero game ever?
I have to concur.
But then, having spent every waking hour over the weekend playing the game, that's not surprising. And I'm not finished either. There's so much gameplay in there. Endless replayability too. Graphics look good. Storyline is okay. Appearances by tons of the major villains. And just difficult enough to stop it being boring, but at no point impossible and off-putting.
Thoroughly entertaining. What more can you want from a game? These days it seems many games focus too hard on the graphics or the gimmicks, and forget to make the game fun and enjoyable too. That's not a failing of Arkham City.
