Its official, the string of massive game releases has begun. Over the next month or so you will surely be buying at least one of the following: ‘Battlefield 3’, ‘Uncharted 3’, ‘Modern Warfare 3’, ‘Assassins Creed Revelations’, ‘Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword’, ‘Saints Row the Third’ or ‘Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ (angelic music for dramatic effect). It all kicked off on Friday with ‘Batman: Arkham City’, which I have devoted vast amounts of my fleeting free time to in the last week.
The successor to ‘Arkham Asylum’, itself an impressive game that unlike most superhero games actually made you feel like the character, certainly does not disappoint; in fact it surpasses the original in many ways but let's start at the beginning.
The story is as follows: Arkham City is a large super prison run by Hugo Strange and policed by TYGER security has been established in the heart of Gotham following te events of Arkham Asylum. The game opens at a protest rally where Bruce Wayne is kidnapped and thrown into said super prison, it appears Strange knows Wayne is Batman and wants him locked inside. I won’t go into any more detail to avoid potential spoilers but the plot is pretty good and there are plenty of villains to foil along the way to defeating Strange and of course Joker.
The gameplay is very similar to the predecessor which is not a criticism, if it aint broke and all that. The free flow combat system is a joy and a great example of easy to pick up hard to master fighting. Of course all out brawling isn't always the way forward and often you will have to take out goons systematically and silently using stealth and the plethora of gadgets available to you, and if I'm honest I find these sections far more interesting. Picking out priority targets, working a way to them without being seen and silently taking them down before grapneling up to the rafters to begin the next take down. The surprise joy of the game though is simply travelling around Arkham City itself. The playable area is huge for a game of this type and combining the grapnel, gliding and running on streets or rooftops brings a genuine smile to your face along with thoughts of 'Hell yeah I'm Batman!' It captures the movements perfectly and they have absolutely nailed the look and feel of Gotham.
As well as the main story there are a good number of side quests involving familiar faces all of which can be pursued almost any time before the last story mission or in free roam after you've completed the main game. A particular favourite of mine is one of the first you will encounter and has you answering a ringing payphone before forcing you to get to a different one to stop psychotic serial killer Zsasz from killing innocent hostages. Hunting him down by tracking signals from the resulting phone calls is satisfying and the mad rush to the phone before the timer hits zero is exhilarating. Riddler also makes a repeat appearance and has placed a staggering number of riddles and challenges all over the city for to solve. This time around though as you solve them you will get locations of hostages he has taken, head to these and you are presented with a challenge room which you must complete to save them. As you can see there is a lot of content to be had here should you wish it.
Unfortunately this leads me nicely onto my main gripe with the game, the length if the main story. Don't get me wrong it's by no means short but it does seem to end rather abruptly and I had been led to believe it would be longer. The ending IS poignant but feels almost (I'm sure it wasn't) like a rush job and that someone at Rocksteady wanted to keep going but were simply told that’s that and forced to end it then and there. My only other real criticism is the Catwoman sections of the game. These were incredibly enjoyable and as such were disappointingly short, her combat agility also made going back to Batman after her brief interludes a little disheartening as he feels positively sluggish afterwards. Granted this is accurate and she should feel this way, but she feels better rather than just different which perhaps shouldn't be the case given the star of the show.
‘Arkham City’ is a fantastic game, if you like ‘Asylum’ you will love it as it genuinely is a bigger, better game experience. It's not revolutionary like Asylum was, it plays almost identically for the most part but that was to be expected and like I said earlier, the game makes me feel like Batman and the mechanics work wonderfully so there's very little to complain at here. As a start to big game season it's set a very high bar for the others to clear.
90%
The successor to ‘Arkham Asylum’, itself an impressive game that unlike most superhero games actually made you feel like the character, certainly does not disappoint; in fact it surpasses the original in many ways but let's start at the beginning.
The story is as follows: Arkham City is a large super prison run by Hugo Strange and policed by TYGER security has been established in the heart of Gotham following te events of Arkham Asylum. The game opens at a protest rally where Bruce Wayne is kidnapped and thrown into said super prison, it appears Strange knows Wayne is Batman and wants him locked inside. I won’t go into any more detail to avoid potential spoilers but the plot is pretty good and there are plenty of villains to foil along the way to defeating Strange and of course Joker.
The gameplay is very similar to the predecessor which is not a criticism, if it aint broke and all that. The free flow combat system is a joy and a great example of easy to pick up hard to master fighting. Of course all out brawling isn't always the way forward and often you will have to take out goons systematically and silently using stealth and the plethora of gadgets available to you, and if I'm honest I find these sections far more interesting. Picking out priority targets, working a way to them without being seen and silently taking them down before grapneling up to the rafters to begin the next take down. The surprise joy of the game though is simply travelling around Arkham City itself. The playable area is huge for a game of this type and combining the grapnel, gliding and running on streets or rooftops brings a genuine smile to your face along with thoughts of 'Hell yeah I'm Batman!' It captures the movements perfectly and they have absolutely nailed the look and feel of Gotham.
As well as the main story there are a good number of side quests involving familiar faces all of which can be pursued almost any time before the last story mission or in free roam after you've completed the main game. A particular favourite of mine is one of the first you will encounter and has you answering a ringing payphone before forcing you to get to a different one to stop psychotic serial killer Zsasz from killing innocent hostages. Hunting him down by tracking signals from the resulting phone calls is satisfying and the mad rush to the phone before the timer hits zero is exhilarating. Riddler also makes a repeat appearance and has placed a staggering number of riddles and challenges all over the city for to solve. This time around though as you solve them you will get locations of hostages he has taken, head to these and you are presented with a challenge room which you must complete to save them. As you can see there is a lot of content to be had here should you wish it.
Unfortunately this leads me nicely onto my main gripe with the game, the length if the main story. Don't get me wrong it's by no means short but it does seem to end rather abruptly and I had been led to believe it would be longer. The ending IS poignant but feels almost (I'm sure it wasn't) like a rush job and that someone at Rocksteady wanted to keep going but were simply told that’s that and forced to end it then and there. My only other real criticism is the Catwoman sections of the game. These were incredibly enjoyable and as such were disappointingly short, her combat agility also made going back to Batman after her brief interludes a little disheartening as he feels positively sluggish afterwards. Granted this is accurate and she should feel this way, but she feels better rather than just different which perhaps shouldn't be the case given the star of the show.
‘Arkham City’ is a fantastic game, if you like ‘Asylum’ you will love it as it genuinely is a bigger, better game experience. It's not revolutionary like Asylum was, it plays almost identically for the most part but that was to be expected and like I said earlier, the game makes me feel like Batman and the mechanics work wonderfully so there's very little to complain at here. As a start to big game season it's set a very high bar for the others to clear.
90%
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