BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY SENDS PLAYERS SOARING INTO ARKHAM CITY - A HEAVILY FORTIFIED SPRAWLING DISTRICT IN THE HEART OF GOTHAM CITY.
Developed by Rocksteady Studios, Batman: Arkham City builds upon the intense, atmospheric foundation of Batman: Arkham Asylum, sending players soaring into Arkham City, the new maximum security "home" for all of Gotham City's thugs, gangsters, and insane criminal masterminds. The game features a unique combination of melee combat, stealth, investigative, and speed-based challenge gameplay. Set inside the heavily fortified walls of a sprawling district in the heart of Gotham City, this highly anticipated sequel introduces a brand-new story that draws together a new all-star cast of classic characters and murderous villains from the Batman universe, as well as a vast range of new and enhanced gameplay features to deliver the ultimate experience as the Dark Knight.
Sometimes reviewers can't see the forest for the trees. When I finished Batman: Arkham City, I immediately cataloged what I thought it did wrong. It tossed in too many villains and didn't flesh them out, it clearly tried to replicate the Scarecrow stuff from the first game and didn't do it as well, and Batman still moves a bit stiffly when simply walking around. When I formed the list, I found myself disappointed with the game. But the days rolled on and I couldn't stop playing -- in fact, I only wanted to play more. The hundreds of things Batman: Arkham City nails outweighed my nitpicky problems. I realized Batman: Arkham City is a brilliant game.
Feeling like Batman made Arkham Asylum a must-play, and Arkham City continues that tradition. I felt like I had the upper hand when I walked into a room where the enemies outnumbered me 20 to 1 because I could drop a smoke pellet, use freeze grenades to take enemies out of the game, and basically kick ass. Five gunmen with hostages didn't scare me because I knew I could disappear into the shadows to string them up from gargoyles, punch through walls to take them down, and glide kick them over railings.
This feeling of empowerment carries over to bosses, which is weird at first but makes sense. No boss in Arkham City really gave me a challenge. In fact, they're all a bit easy. Mr. Freeze had me stumped for a while as once you use an attack on him you can't use it again, but then the Bat-computer just sent me a cheat sheet. (Although, disabling hints would've eliminated this moment.) That specific instance was no fun, but overall, the joy of Batman bosses is the journey to them and not the fight themselves. The Penguin will never challenge the World's Greatest Detective.
Arkham City isn't an open world like Liberty City; it's more like a hub world with a bunch of dungeons like The Legend of Zelda or a bigger version of Batman: Arkham Asylum. You can't go into every building, but as you explore, you're going to find you're kept from discovering some of the 400-some Riddler Challenges until you double back with new gadgets. As you unlock the game's dozen side missions, you have to search nooks and crannies for murder victims and political prisoners in distress.
Don't+use+the+Batcomputer+during+this+fight.
If being Batman sounds good to you, expect to play this game twice and have the second time feel light years better than the first. New Game Plus unlocks after your first run-through of Arkham City, and it carries over all your gadgets and shares your Riddler Challenge data. It also doesn't erase your original game's progress – it lives in its own section of your save. Historically, I despise playing games more than once. I know what's around the next corner, so where's the fun in it? Well, I adored Batman: Arkham City's New Game Plus. The difficulty is amped up, the enemies are more diverse from the get-go, and the reversal indicators are turned off.
New Game Plus takes the training wheels off and forces you to be Batman. When Batman enters a fight, he knows how to win; he just needs to execute his plan. That's you in this mode. You already know what's coming, you just need to execute your 45-hit combo, dodge explosives, and save the day. This left me feeling more like Batman than ever before.
Challenges rooms return and have been given an update since the days of Arkham Asylum. There are a dozen combat challenge maps (take out the four waves of bad guys) and a dozen Invisible Predator challenges (sneak around and silently eliminate all the bad guys) and each comes with three medals to earn. All that is standard, but Arkham City offers up Riddler Campaigns. These link three challenges together and apply gameplay modifiers like low health, time limits, and so on. There's even an option to make your own Bat-exams. These challenges mainly serve to point out how slow my version of Batman is, but I'm glad they're here. They help hone my skills and provide leaderboards to chase and keep me playing.
Verdict
Batman: Arkham City isn't perfect, but listing the little things I didn't like gets in the way of all the stuff I adored. The voice acting, the challenges, the amazing opening, the unbelievable ending, and the feeling of being the Dark Knight -- these are the things that stand out looking back. I've beaten this thing twice and still want to call in sick and chase Riddler Trophies.
Batman: Arkham City isn't just better than Batman: Arkham Asylum, it's better than most games on the market.
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