"Batman: Arkham City" Review

This is a very special review. Why? Because I played Arkham City on my computer, and I realized, "hey! I can take my own pictures for the review!" In this particular review, every last picture I use will be one that I took myself in my play through. Now, it is pretty much the consensus that Arkham City is better than Arkham Asylum, but I disagree. Arkham City is a wonderful game, to be sure, but there are a number of flaws that absolutely prevent it from getting a perfect score. Now, let me be clear: I am NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, a computer gamer. When I buy a game on steam, it is because it is cheap and I can play it on campus. Maybe I'm just a bitter Mac owner, but in my opinion, if a game if played on a computer, it is automatically inferior. Things such as the smaller display, awkward controls, and need for installation take away from the experience. But even with the hindrances of being played on a computer (which, unlike Consoles, does not exist for the purpose of gaming), Batman: Arkham City is a good time to be had.
---------------------                                                           ---------------------

Gadgets help Batman to reach hundreds of secrets scattered throughout the city. 

But first, a little bit of the positives. Because gameplay is pretty much unchanged from Arkham Asylum, lets start with that. I'm not one of those people who thinks that a sequel has to be a totally different game (like the guy who commented "oh, great, more climbing. When are they going to change things?" On an Assassin's Creed III video), so the fact that combat is unchanged is not a negative. Basically, Batman still glides around the battlefield knocking hundreds of enemies to the ground and takes armed enemies out from stealth. It is all good fun, and with a tad bit more variety in the enemy types. In Asylum, there were regular enemies, armed enemies, knife-wielding enemies, and stun baton enemies. In Arkham City, all those enemies are there, but there are also shield-holding enemies that I hate. If there is one negative to the combat, it is those darned shield enemies. To beat them, you need to stun them and perform an aerial attack, because evidently jumping over them and attacking from behind won't work. But I digress. Even with those doggoned shield enemies, combat is a blast, as we can expect from the Rocksteady Batman combat formula. Like in Asylum, Batman has a handful of gadgets to use (and I will admit, switching between gadgets is much easier on a computer) to help him reach places and open up secret areas. The problem is that some of the gadgets in Arkham City are...useless. For instance, the freeze cluster grenade. There is not a single situation that can be made more bearable using that gadget. And the sonic batarang might have been useful, but I never used it. I will talk more about gadgets when I get to the Riddler challenge section of this review. One area in which Arkham City undoubtably beats Arkham Asylum is in its boss fights. Boss fights in Arkham City are more numerous, and they are all fast paced and challenging. There isn't a lot I can say without spoiling anything, but take my word for it: Boss fights in Arkham City keep you on your toes and test what you've learned.
---------------------                                                           ---------------------

Exploration is...ok.

That brings us to another aspect of gameplay: Exploration, which is, unfortunately, lackluster. People have claimed that the map is bigger than in Asylum...and while that may be the case, it isn't the good kind of bigger. Rather than feeling larger, it just feels stretched. There are a few sections in Arkham City, but they are so completely indistinguishable that at any point in the game, you won't know (and you might not even care) where you are. And in the spaces where you absolutely know where you are (places you have to physically enter), I never wanted to stay. There is an entire section in the middle of the game where you run through the subway and the sewers and the ruins of Wonder City. I can't put my finger on why, but it was unbelievably annoying, and I just wanted to get out, but you have to go through there. And if you want to get all the riddler secrets, you have to explore annoying areas like the subway in-depth over and over again. Also, Rocksteady made the decision to block the center of the map, making the map into a nascar track type thing. You go around the wall to reach the section directly in front of you on the opposite side of Wonder Tower, and it gives the illusion of a bigger space. Now, one positive of exploration is the fact that there are thousands upon thousands of things to grapple on. After receiving a certain upgrade, you can literally traverse the entire map just by gliding and never have to touch the ground. This was a boat load of fun to do, and it made me feel like Batman, like I was the caped crusader protecting the city from above. An entirely new thing in Arkham City that was not in Arkham Asylum is the addition of side quests. These side quests dealt with smaller Batman villains, and they were always interesting. But the downside is that they were all exactly the same. 1) Go here. 2) Investigate. 3) Rinse and Repeat at least three times. I enjoyed all the side quests, don't get me wrong, but there was absolutely zero variety in them. The best side quest, in my opinion, was undoubtably the Zsasz (my favorite smaller Batman villain) side quest. In this side quest, you hear a phone ring, and Zsasz tells you to find the other ringing phone in Arkham City within a set amount of time, or else he will kill his hostages. It forced you to travel as fast as you possibly could, and it had an air of tension about it. Side quests made Arkham City feel more alive, but they also felt...like they were made to be side quests. Does that make sense? Another downside? Remember how I was talking about traversing the entire city without touching the ground? Well, a lot of the side quests exist on the ground. So, in a way, the game discourages only gliding.
---------------------                                                           ---------------------

The Riddler, one of the really well-done villains, is constantly challenging Batman's intellect. 

But hey, in Arkham City, exploration does lead to Riddler Challenges. There are around 400, I think, Riddler Challenges to be taken in Arkham City. There are trophies to collect, riddles to solve, and specific objects to break, and a lot of them require a great deal of thought and experimentation. When you solve enough challenges, the Riddler will give you the location of a hostage, and you will go and try to rescue that hostage. But between you and the hostage is a challenge room that forces you to think critically. Some challenges absolutely make you want to shoot somebody, but the answer is always in your grasp (assuming you have the gadgets to handle it). All you have to do is really, really think. There were some challenges that I had to take a few days of working at (on and off, of course) to figure out. The Riddler Challenges are one of the high points of the game, which is a good thing, considering that they will take the most time to do. At this point, I have clocked in 40 hours in Arkham City. At least 20 of those 40 hours have been used completing Riddler Challenges, and I am still not finished yet. Seriously, I beat the game somewhere around 10-15 hours, and the rest of the time has just been traversing the city looking for trophies and riddles. Exploration might not be expansive, but you will never want for things to do in Arkham City.
---------------------                                                           ---------------------

For once, Mr. Freeze is handled in a non-corny way.

One thing that Arkham City does incredibly well is its character development. Like Arkham Asylum, characters are fleshed out and are really more than just their comic book selves. My favorite villain in Arkham City was Mr. Freeze, who was much more than the corny Arnold Schwarze...you get the drift, version. Mr. Freeze was a fantastic villain, though not the main one. He was only in the story for a little while, but in that time, I really got a sense of his motivations and human side. We also get a much better sense of character development for Batman and the Joker as well. In this game, the Joker is on the verge of death, and we see this madman begin to see life fading from him, and we see what that drives a person like the Joker to do. But even more impressive is the game's humanization of Batman. One of the major focuses of this game is Batman's one rule: to never kill. We see him truly struggling with his rule of not killing throughout the game. We hear him say things like, "Every time, you kill people, I lock you up, then you get out and kill again." We see Batman begin to wonder if killing is sometimes necessary, and it is a truly brilliant way of fleshing him out.
---------------------                                                           ---------------------

The Joker is even better handled than in Arkham Asylum. 

However, the other side of that coin (hehehehehehe) is the fact that there are soooooo many characters that not all of them are even remotely fleshed out. A major complaint that a lot of reviewers had was that there were too many villains, and that is true. There are so many villains that some of them are only on screen for a second, and they don't get any attention. Villains such as Poison Ivy and Two Face are major Batman Villains, but they are only there for a little while, and they don't really do anything. The positive side of this is that, while characters such as these aren't exactly fleshed out, they do make the Batman world more believable. The presence of these characters entrenches us in the Batman universe. So, while they don't add anything, they do serve to make Arkham City into a Batman City. Now, while we are on the subject of characters shoehorned into the game, I must take a second to talk about the absolute worst aspect of the game: the parts of the game that made me want to take more points off.
---------------------                                                           ---------------------

*sigh* 4 or 5 guards for the big vault? Seriously?

The Catwoman sections. Don't kill me, please, let me explain. There are times when playing as two different characters works. It worked in Gears of War 3, it worked in Mass Effect 2, but it doesn't usually work. Arkham City is no exception. The Catwoman sections are essentially sections where you play as Catwoman...duh...but they are completely unnecessary. I don't see why we need to play as Catwoman just so we can get captured by Poison Ivy and then raid the least well-guarded vault in history 2/3rds of the plot later. The Catwoman sections serve no purpose at all, and they are vastly inferior to the Batman sections. In the Catwoman sections, you have three gadgets that are some of the most useless gadgets I have ever seen, and you get around the city by leaping up buildings at an annoying pace. I would have been fine with having a section where Batman meets up with Catwoman, but playing as her is just useless. Now, Rocksteady must have seen this coming, so they made it so that there are riddler trophies that only Catwoman can pick up...but the thing is, none of them require any thought whatsoever. The trophies will ultimately just require you to switch to Catwoman after you beat the game and backtrack through everywhere Batman went through. And the trophies that she can't get to ultimately just require Batman to clear the way first. So, what we have here is a collectable system entirely based on backtracking. No thought, just backtracking as an inferior character. Now, the character of Catwoman is well done, but her sections and any time that you play as her, these times are horrible. Absolutely horrible.
---------------------                                                           ---------------------

There are parts of the story that are breathtaking and intense. 

But with that aside, lets talk about where Arkham City excels the most: Its storytelling. Essentially, Dr. Hugo Strange and Warden Quincy Sharpe convinced Gotham City to allow part of it to be walled off as a large asylum. Once you forget about how that doesn't make any sense, the story falls into place. Bruce Wayne is locked inside Arkham City, and he takes up his Batman gear to find out what Hugo Strange's true motive is. At the side, the Joker is dying after the events of Arkham Asylum, and he forces Batman to help him find a cure through means that I won't spoil for you. From there, Batman goes off on a journey of self-discovery and truth-finding. The resolution to the Hugo Strange plot is pretty darn disappointing, but that doesn't matter. Do you know why? Because the ending is. ab. so. lu. tely. Jaw Dropping. Let me put it to you this way: the best kind of game ending is the kind that bothers me for days after the fact: It happened with Mass Effect 3 (both with and without director's cut), and it happened with Burial at Sea: Episode 2. Well, it happened with Arkham City as well. The ending is absolutely fantastic, and it was bothering me for days after I beat the game. Arkham City's storytelling is stellar, cinematic, and delivers a satisfying conclusion.
---------------------                                                           ---------------------

After you beat the game, you can play in various Batsuits from throughout Batman's existence, such as the 1970's Batsuit or the Batman Beyond Batsuit (pictured above).

Batman is my favorite superhero, and Rocksteady made a fantastic game for him with Arkham Asylum, and they continue to do so in Arkham City, but with a few crucial flaws that prevent it from being a perfect game such as Asylum. Combat is stellar as always, as is character development, and the Riddler Challenges give you something to do at all times. But the singular blob that is the map, the "too many villains" syndrome, and the absolutely God-awful Catwoman sections all prevent it from being perfect. Do not let that stop you from purchasing it, however. Batman: Arkham City is an absolute triumph of a game, despite what my constant rambling about its flaws might lead you to believe. Where there are flaws, there is always more to say, as you are no doubt aware. So, let me tell you directly: Batman: Arkham City is a flawed game in several crucial ways, ways that really keep it from its full potential. But it is a game that I have invested 40 hours in, so that says something. After beating the game, I didn't put it down. Rather, I kept on playing (trying on the various different Batsuits offered to you after you beat the game, such as the Batman Beyond Batsuit) for hours upon hours upon hours, never losing the feeling of being Batman. And that is really what a Batman game is all about.
9/10
Excellent work, Rocksteady, Excellent work.