This review will contain minor gameplay spoilers.
Two years ago, Rocksteady delivered us Batman: Arkham Asylum, a game that surprised many gamers with it's quality. It managed to win many GOTY awards in a year that it faced some stiff competition from games such as Uncharted 2, Modern Warfare 2, Demon's Souls, Borderlands, Assassin's Creed 2, and Dragon Age: Origins. Now, Rocksteady have returned with Batman: Arkham City. They've added more gadgets, more riddles, more places to explore, more villains, more challenge rooms, and more pre-order bonuses than you can shake a stick at.
Arkham City's plot revolves around, well, Arkham City. Hugo Strange has sectioned off an area of Gotham to act as a prison. There are lots of classic Batman villains in here basically having a big old fashioned gang war. I don't want to say anymore, as the intro segment is one of the best in years. There are many characters to run across, including Nolan North's shockingly awesome take on Penguin, and most of the cast of Arkham Asylum returning in some fashion. Of course, the Joker is back, and plays a major role in the events of Arkham City. This time around, Batman will have a few new allies, such as Catwoman.
You can totally hang from Line Launcher wires now. That's still a stupid gadget name.
Most of Arkham City's gameplay is the same as Asylum. The brawling is still heavily focused on countering and fighting multiple opponents. It flows just as nicely as before. You mash the attack button until an enemy approaches, and then a simple press of Y or Triangle will result in Batman cancelling his current animation to counter an incoming blow. Gadgets are MUCH easier to use in combat, due to a quick-use command when you combine a shoulder button with a face button. The only major issue is the seemingly randomly ending combo meter. For anyone planning to take on the challenge rooms, this can be frustrating as longer combos are the main way of getting a high score. The stealth is pretty much the same, focusing on taking alternate routes and flanking enemies. Stealth allows more of a feeling of empowerment than vulnerability. Detective mode (which lets you see through walls and highlights gun-toting enemies in orange) is still really the best way to go about this, with any of the game's attempts to make using it difficult falling flat. For example, signal jammer carrying enemies appear who can block detective mode. But there are fucking two in the entire campaign, and I've seen none among the randomly spawning thugs around the city. But you won't be doing too much stealth, anyway...
Arkham City's open world design sadly leads to excessive amounts of brawling. The brawling is still fun, and this is a minor quibble, but it bears mentioning if you play mostly for the stealth, like me. The open world maximizes enemy line-of-sight while filling yours with clutter and keeping you out in the open. This means that most street level encounters are brawls. Sadly, even the rooftops are similar in design, with enemies frequently hanging out in a circle, leaving you no option but to walk up to them and punch them in the face.
Whereas Arkham Asylum had rather cheap bossfights, Arkham City goes the complete opposite route, with most of the boss fights frequently presenting you with less of a challenge than an extended inmate brawl. Every boss fight boils down to just spamming Evade and Quickfire Gadget. Even the final boss fight was not exempt from this "tactic". There was only one truly inventive boss fight that focused on stealth tactics against an enemy who can never be ambushed the same way twice, and that stands as the highest point of the entire game.
Fighting like this is not advised unless you like missing counter prompts.
Riddler Challenges are back and more numerous then ever, which can be good or bad, depending on how much of a completionist you are. There is now some narrative motivation to do them, for those wondering. Many of the Riddler trophies are plainly visible, but now have little puzzles of their own that require skill rather then just the required gadget to get to. You will get a lot more use out of the Remote Batarang for one, and it thankfully features the improved function of being able to be slowed, sped up, or making an instant U-Turn. Instead of Riddler maps, the game now features informants. During a brawl, some enemies will be highlighted with a green aura. If you take out all of the enemies in the area except the informant, you can interrogate him to have a few of the area's collectibles, or even riddle answers, added to the map. The problem with this system is the more imprecise nature of the freeflow combat system. I have, on more than one occasion, triggered an instant takedown that chose to target the informant over who I was aiming at. Still, they respawn, so this can be rectified, but this a source of frustration.
On top of the Riddler stuff, there are a number of other sidequests that add to the content. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Augmented Reality training missions, which start off with four relatively easy challenges, but quickly evolve into out-and-out frustration. You know what you need to do, but Batman just won't do it. For example, at one point you have to glide under a ceiling and over a fence. The gap is so small that Batman will frequently automatically perch on the fence instead of gliding over it, which ends the challenge and forces you to grapple up to the challenge start point again. Fortunately, city navigation is easy due to the surprisingly small size of the outdoor area, which can be circumnavigated in one to two minutes due to frequent high points to glide from.
I dunno, Bats. I can't solve these riddles.
My review may sound very negative at times, but Batman: Arkham City is still a fantastic game. It tries to do a lot more than Asylum, and manages to succeed at most of it. But the parts that don't succeed only tarnish the game as whole, tearing it away from the heights it could have reached. The game clocks in at a solid 15 hours for the main campaign if you do a bit of the side-stuff that comes your way and include the Catwoman bits, which are fun in their own way due to her unique platforming style. In conclusion, I feel that this game is inferior to Arkham Asylum due to spreading itself too thin and focusing on open combat, but any fan of the previous game should still check it out regardless.
/review
*****. SEXISM.
