Batman: Arkham City Review

This is a game that there was obviously a large amount of anticipation for. Batman: Arkham City follows Batman: Arkham Asylum, a game that despite its flaws was still easily the best super hero game ever made. What made the buildup to Arkham City even more exciting was all the talk that came from Rocksteady Studios seemed to indicate that they had actually listened to a lot of the feedback they had gotten and were out to make an even better game. So, did their efforts materialize?

Absolutely. Arkham City is exactly what a super hero game should be like and Rocksteady should be commended for make huge improvements where they were needed while leaving what was good alone. The biggest strengths of Arkham Asylum were the combat mechanics, use of gadgets, and artistic design. All of these elements are back and better than ever.

The combat system has been further refined to make it so smooth and enjoyable. Taking out a large group of bad guys is just inherently satisfying. There are so many different tools you have at your disposal and so many approaches you can use to take enemies out. Do you swoop down from the sky for a surprise couple of hits? Choose one of your gadgets to start things out with a bang? Run in and start punching? The great thing is that most of the time there is not one right answer. There are lots of possibilities and they all work with varying levels of success in varying situations.

That’s part of what makes it so fun is that you have the ability to pick radically different approaches depending on the situation. Some games make attempts at this sort of strategy and tactics but most games leave you with many options that just don’t work well forcing you to take the same approach over and over. What helps Arkham City even more is that there are some select situations where you need to approach them a certain way. I found that this merely forced me to get comfortable using all the options at my disposal which I would then use happily in future optional situations. To mix things up even more there are also additional characters that you can play as, each with their own abilities. Again, I think the perfect balance was struck between enabling players have fun doing something very different while at the same time not taking away from Batman being the main protagonist.

Arkham City looks fantastic. You really get the feeling that this actually is an old slum of the city that has been turned into a prison. All the rot and decay gives you a sense of how things used to be and how much things have gone downhill. In Arkham Asylum most buildings you entered looked pretty similar. You were on this island and there were a handful of buildings which weren’t terribly distinguishable or memorable. Arkham City provides such a diversity of structures that appropriately are very different inside and out. When in the museum, it looks like a museum. When in the theater, it looks like a theater. When in a factory, it looks like a factory. This really heightens the feeling that this once used to be part of the city.

By far, the biggest improvement was in the overall narrative and plot. Arkham Asylum’s plot was definitely not very enthralling. You pretty much just jumped around to various one dimensional villains who for some reason all are randomly standing in your way. In Akrham City, everything is much more character driven. There are huge numbers of villains in the city, but they don’t all just fall in line behind Joker for no apparent reason. Some of them have been given plausible reasons to help Joker, while most are content to do their own thing in the city. This sets up numerous possible side missions which are pretty fun. It’s just impressive how all the villains seem very true to themselves.

The main storyline actually has some twists and turns this time as well. Before the game launched Rocksteady was promoting Hugo Strange as the main villain. I always thought this was a strange choice because he’s not really an A-lister type of villain. Looking back this was a brilliant move by Rocksteady as it served to heighten the surprise when things shifted. All too often when making games or movies studios give way too much away in the previews and information they put out beforehand. While it might help more people get excited about the release, it definitely doesn’t do anything to heighten how much people like it after release because too much was known beforehand. So I always had a hard time trying to figure out the ‘why’ behind Strange. Villains don’t just do bad things (most of the time). There had to be something going on and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Why would he want to create Arkham City? When that was answered by him attacking everyone the question became why does he want all the other villains dead? It just didn’t make sense. Then when Ra’s al Ghul was shown to be behind everything it made perfect sense.

The whole Joker storyline was fantastic as well partly because it was so seperate and distinct from everything else that was going on. There wasn’t a mass conspiracy involving all the villains, but they all were out for their own good. The Joker had his own twists and turns as well. I remember when I saw the cutscene where one second Joker was looking all ragged and sickly then a second later he looked fine. I was perplexed and honestly thought it was a mistake by the developers but things moved on and I thought nothing of it. Obviously later on it all made sense.

Another element that proved to enhance the overall narrative was the back and forth between Batman and Talia al Ghul. Now obviously this isn’t at all a major point, but it is one of those things that just helps make the overall story more powerful. Super heroes have romantic interests. It’s just the way it goes. They exist in comics, in cartoons, and in movies. So of course it made sense to add this element to the game. The problem I had with how this was handled has to do with the end of the game.

At the end of the game Talia al Ghul and Joker end up dead. For some bizarre reason, Batman decides to just abandon Talia’s dead body (the woman he was/is in love with) in the theater that’s crawling with hoodlums so he can carry out Joker’s dead body. The cinematic shows this long and super dramatic march where Batman slowly carries Joker’s body until he is out of Arkham City where he drops the body down with the police and walks off. It was just such an unfortunate scene because the game had been so good and to have such a bizarre ending was just such a let down.

Now there has been a lot of talk about how the Joker is done. Mark Hamill has talked about how he is finished with voice acting Joker unless an adaption of Batman: The Killing Joke were to be made. Now I can’t imagine that Rocksteady would base the whole direction of their next game based on that plea. I’m also not sure how they would work that considering Oracle is already around in Arkham City. It would definitely be disappointing if the next Batman game did not include the Joker because so far he has been the such a strong recurring anchor and arch-enemy to batman. Hopefully Rocksteady will include enough elements from The Killing Joke to entice Hamill to come back to at least cap off the trilogy.

So with all this hype and drama about possibly being the end of the Joker in the series I’m assuming that’s why they thought it was so important to have all this drama with Batman carrying out the Joker’s body. It just made no sense though because Batman said himself that he wished that Joker would die, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Meanwhile Talia has been/is very important in his life and he just leaves her dead body there. Doesn’t make any sense.

Another aspect that continued, albeit to a lesser extent than the first game, was some of the useless upgrades you can make when you gain a level. A great job was done at creating lots of meaningful ways to take down bad guys, but there still exists a lot of options that I really can’t believe anyone would use. This doesn’t necessarily take anything away from the game as you can simply choose to not use certain things, but it just makes the game feel like it could use a bit more polish.

The game was extremely good overall. After Arkham Asylum there were very obvious changes that could be made for the sequel and Rocksteady knocked Arkham City out of the park. It’s hard now to think of where they could go for the third game. There were those hints at the VGA’s on Spike about Arkham World? Who knows if that’s a legitimate hint or if they just wanted to toy with us. Either way, Batman: Arkham city is definitely a solid game worth playing.

Gameplay: 9.75

Story: 9.5

Visuals: 4.5

Audio: 4.5

Overall: 9.4

Batman: Arkham City – Review

07 January 2012

Developer: Rocksteady Studios

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Release: October 18, 2011