Batman Arkham City
2 years after Rocksteady did the unthinkable, create a comic book inspired video game that was not only worth playing, it was an outright game of the year contender in the eyes of many, myself included.
On the surface Arkham City may look like a sandbox style game, and in a way it is, you are free to explore the city turned prison called Arkham City, though plot areas are blocked off until you obtain the required gadgets to get by the obstructions. There are villains scattered through the City, each with their own agenda, which actually creates some scenarios where they are going after each other. It leads to a very compelling story, and I don’t mean in a ‘this is a comic book game’ compelling, I mean compelling by any standards. Honestly, the story here is great.
Perhaps the strongest element of Batman Arkham Asylum was the Free Flow combat system, which really brought the brawler type game play to a whole new level, gone are the button mashing days replaced by a timing/reaction system that is EASILY, by FAR, the most satisfying hand-to-hand combat I’ve seen. It basically amounts building up a combo, until you get a large enough combo to unlock the ability to unleash a special move. The move set in Arkham City has increased substantially, including quick access to various gadgets and new takedowns and other combo moves, so much so that it is hard to remember the buttons to do what you want to do sometimes. At least that was my experience in my first play through. I’m sure the more time you spend with it and the combat challenge modes this would become more natural. There are different enemies and weapons that change the way that you have to fight them, for example you can’t punch a guy with a shield, you have to vault over him and attack from the air, this helps strengthen the fact that you’re not button mashing here, it almost feels like a fast paced puzzle a lot of the time. The most important thing to note here, is that it makes you feel like a bad ass. You are the Batman.
The stealth rooms are back though not a lot has changed, though I did find them quite a bit harder, and the henchmen don’t always naturally path through ambush areas which makes it a little bit more difficult. They’re fun enough for variety, and as a change of pace from time to time.
There are a ton of Riddler collectibles and side missions, most of them are pretty fun, and they all have their own short side story, I loved the mad hatter one, I wish there was more of that. And I surprisingly had a lot of fun with the ‘AR Challenges’, which basically amounts to ring races through Arkham City using Batman’s traversal abilities, they were fun and challenging, just another way to make sure you know that you are batman. This also unlocks an ability that makes traversal much easier, don’t make the same mistake I did and do the first set of these as soon as possible.
I’ve finished the game but I don’t feel like I’m done with Arkham City, I’m hoping there is more DLC then the skins and challenge rooms coming, though the story does wrap up quite neatly, there appears to be lots of arcs that could be developed further. This is the best game I’ve played so far this year (at the time of this writing I have also finished uncharted 3), and a big congratulations and thank you to Rocksteady Games for their efforts on this title. If you like action games do not miss this.
