Batman: Arkham Asylum was one of the favorite games of 2009. As I mentioned then, it was the first superhero game that made you feel truly like a superhero. This made the sequel a no-brainer to buy. I actually bought this one not long after release, which explains why the version I have isn’t the Game of the Year edition, but have only just recently gotten around to playing it.
Arkham City switches the action from the confines of Arkham Island to the newly opened Arkham City. The crime in Gotham has gotten so bad that the authorities have been persuaded to cordon off a section of the city and use it as a large prison. Think Escape from New York. What this means for the game is that this time you get to do all the things that only Batman can do in an open-world environment and it is glorious.
Admittedly Arkham City is small compared to the worlds of other games, so you can’t gallivant around in the Batmobile or the Batplane. But it makes up for it by being jam-packed with content. Alongside the main storyline is a substantial set of side missions, including so many Riddler trophies you’ll wonder why with the whole place being blanketed by question marks why this shouldn’t be called Riddler City instead. Naturally Batman now has better ways to get around the city, including an improved grapple that can boost you into a fast glide. The whole gliding system has been vastly overhauled, allowing Batman to dive steeply to gain kinetic energy and spend that to climb. If you think Batman can’t fly, this game will convince you otherwise.
The combat system, which is the first and primary reason why the first game was such a big deal, has been greatly improved too. The first game achieved its incredible smoothness and sense of control by creating animations for almost any type of movement you can imagine. One problem is that the counter system only allowed you to counter one enemy at a time, so when the counter animation was running no other enemy would attack you. This has now been rectified so that up to three enemies can attack Batman at a time and you can tap the counter button for each attack to result in new multi-target counter moves. It’s beautiful to behold.
There are also new enemy types of course which is to be expected such as the thug with the riot shield who can be successfully attacked only from the air, but my favorite new addition is that some enemies are Riddler informants. Each one of them is just an ordinary thug but if you avoid taking him out until he is the last men standing, Batman can interrogate him to learn of the locations of Riddler trophies and riddle solutions. The trick therefore is to avoid their attacks but keeping them alive until the end of the fight.
Naturally Batman has a bunch of new toys to play with but I’m lukewarm about those. The intent seems to be to allow for a greater variety of puzzles in the open-world rather than for combat. The remote electric charge allows Batman to operate electrical equipment at a distance and can be used in combat to stun enemies. But the batarang stuns enemies as well so why use this? Similarly the freeze grenade allows you to freeze water to use as a floating platform and incapacitate enemies via freezing. It’s a cool alternative but adds to the feeling that Batman has too many gadgets to keep track of. Alfred even comments about Batman needing a bigger belt to carry everything around!
One of my least favorite aspects of the first game were the boss battles that completely changed the control scheme and rules. Boss battles are still in, but they’re much better now. Batman has plenty of space to move around during the battles and the control scheme remains the same as normal combat except that specific gadgets must be used at different times. I must admit that some of the battles are really cool and look amazing. I especially enjoyed the epic Ra’s al Ghul fight with tons of ninjas and how the Mr. Freeze fight is based on predator mode rather than melee mode.
There’s plenty of fighting out in the world too, especially since unlike the first game, thugs do respawn. I liked how Batman feels pretty powerful at the beginning of the game. But later in the game, thugs with sniper rifles show up and it feels like almost every rooftop is manned by gunmen while the attack helicopters relentlessly chase Batman with machineguns if they catch sight of him. Even the mighty Batman is pushed to his limit to survive.
As for the story, I liked the premise, but I didn’t care for the twists and turns it takes. It just doesn’t make much sense. Just be content that it goes in many different unexpected directions and a broad selection of Batman’s traditional rogues’ gallery shows up. It does take some shocking liberties with the characters that would never have happened in canon so it’s interesting how the writers are going to follow up on the events of this game. I have the feeling that the writers are having fun with stories that they know they could never do in the comics.
While at times the game feels less tight than the first one it does make up for it with its wealth of content. I do think that there are way too many Riddler stuff but the game systems they devised to make collection an enjoyable experience work very well. My biggest complaint about the game is that it requires Games for Windows Live and its save files are encrypted with your GFWL login info. This may potentially make your game saves unavailable and I did have a nasty scare at one point when the game refused to acknowledge that I was signed in to the network. My guess is that Microsoft must have paid a lot of money to Rocksteady to make them do this because GWFL is a terrible piece of software.
Anyway this game has so much good stuff going for it that I can’t even describe it all. I even neglected how playing as Catwoman feels like a completely different experience, very much like what a good Spiderman game should feel like. If you’re any kind of action gamer at all, you need to play this game.
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