Batman Arkham City Review - The Dark Crusader Delivers A Second Roundhouse Kick Of Awesome To Your Head

(Edit: To be fair, I started writing this review several months ago; long before Arkham Origins was released.)

Disclaimer: To be completely honest, as is the case with a lot of games I play anymore, I got sidetracked after I had spent several wonderful hours in the game. I returned to it after quite some time, and had to get reacquainted. So, feel free to temper any of my comments on the game with that in mind.



I remember not caring much about Batman: Arkham Asylum when it was development. Then, I played the game, and realized that my interests were grossly misplaced. So, when Arkham City was announced, I was immediately hooked in.

I didn't get around to playing it immediately after I got it, because I'm still overloaded with a massive backlog of games. When I did get around to playing it, my expectations were well set. In a large sense, Arkham Asylum felt like a Batman starring in Metroid Prime, whereas Arkham City felt much more like Batman starring in Assassin's Creed. That is in no way a bad thing, but the two games feel like different flavors of the same awesome brand of [insert favorite candy here].

In case it wasn't already so, I want to make it painfully clear just how great this game really is. Arkham Asylum was thought of as the greatest Batman game to date, and I'd agree with that. Arkham City takes that already wonderful formula, removes it from the relatively confined spaces of the Asylum and lets Batman free into the night of the city. He iss more in his element, and it shows. From dive-bombing thugs to traversing the whole map without touching the ground, you really do feel like a badass crime-fighter.



Combat is super-smooth and the variety of animations Batman (and Catwoman) have are fantastic. There is also plenty of depth for the folks who want to maximize combos and come up with creative ways to dispatch foes. You can get by pretty easily without the extra flourishes available to unlock with a little skill, but some of them can be pretty handy in a pinch. Personally, I love the awkward ways that thugs will fall when they get knocked out sometimes (e.g. falling to the left when hit from the left, or ragdoll physics fun). It all adds to the charm, really. This is a game that is almost just as fun to watch as it is to play.

Arkham City itself is a wonder to navigate. The amount of content crammed into each square meter of the place is nothing short of amazing (sure, you can say GTA V still has more...but that's a huge area compared to a relatively small one). Riddler Challenges and side missions abound. If you have the Catwoman "DLC" there is an epilogue you can play through after the main story concludes.

Yeah, her combat kinda feels like that.

This brings me to my least favorite aspect of this game: the story. As epic as the gameplay feels, the story falls flat. There are twists and turns, sure, but they just don't measure up to the environment. Then, there is the fact that it's a slow burn. I took a hiatus from the game around the time I met up with Talia for the first time. I felt like I was about 50% in the story. When I came back after some time and reacquainted myself with the controls, the rest of the story just flew by and left me in shock. Where did the time go? There were even one or two twists that came up and resolved themselves just as quickly, though I was begging for them to get stretched out. Also...

***SPOILER ALERT***




Enough with the Venom already, okay?






 ***END SPOILER ALERT***

All told, Batman: Arkham City is a solid game that gives a lot of love to Batman fans. Sure, some characters got some minor tweaks, but there were others that were oddly absent from Arkham Asylum that show up here and almost steal the show. There may be some ground retread, but that's not such a bad thing. With a great combat system that seems to be getting adapted into other games pretty readily today, you really do feel like Batman. The Catwoman sequences are great and make me wish for a Catwoman spin-off (hold the Halle Barry). The voice acting is top-notch (complete with a supposedly retired Mark Hamill and a Nolan North that doesn't sound like Nathan Drake); let's hope this marks the beginning of more game work from Stana Katic, too.

If you like Batman, play this game.
If you like being a badass one-man army, play this game.
If you like puzzles, play this game.
If you're human, play this game.

It's a great game, and one of the best of the PS3/360 generation. (It's still hard to consider it "last-gen" at this point...)

Check back here at roughly the same Gnome time on the same Gnome site for the next amazing adventure from The Atomic Gnome! Stay classy, Internet.