Batman Arkham City Review

Arkham Asylum was a superb comeback for Batman in gaming. After many soulless and lazy iterations since Batman the Caped Crusader on C64 decades back. Developer Rocksteady returns with the brilliant if not even better sequel Batman Arkham City, a game that will surely be remembered as one of the best if not the greatest superhero game ever created.

One year has passed since the Joker's crew wreaked Arkham Asylum. The inmates have now been transferred to Arkham City, an abandoned district of Gotham North bordered off from the rest of the city by the original warden Quincy Sharp. The sinister Hugo Strange has been placed in charge of the new super prison and through his doing, Batman ends up stuck in the city with the Joker, Two Face and the Penguin fighting for control of the streets. On top of this, the Joker is dying from TITAN poisoning from the end of the first game and forces Batman to help him find a cure. The story is told through great looking cut scenes as well as conversations between characters. Great plot twists fall like the rain with over twice as many characters throughout Batman's long history making appearances with Mr Freeze and Ra's Al Ghul being only the tip of new characters joining the game. Sometimes it can feel too much but each character is so well developed, even if they only appear briefly and the story builds up to a shocker of an ending that shakes the Batman universe more so than any Batman movie could.

After a brief training sequence as Bruce Wayne, you'll be given complete freedom of an open world Rocksteady calls four times as large as Arkham Asylum. Getting around the city is a breeze, using Batman's glide, grapnel gun and new dive bomb moves to easily traverse the many buildings and locations; adding the grapnel boost after completing training missions means you'll never have to touch the ground again in your travels. The size of the open world gives room for a large amount of side quests from simple political prisoner rescues to full on missions featuring villains like Zsasz or Bane where you must race across the city to save hostages, or destroy TITAN containers.The Riddler also returns with double the riddles and challenges to solve, which in turn lead to hostage rescue missions as more challenges are completed. On top of all this, new copies of Arkham City come with a free Catwoman pack, which includes four main missions taking place parallel to Batman's. After these missions are done, you can then access her whenever to complete her own set of Riddler challenges. Catwoman features a similar combat set to Batman but can also climb on walls and scale buildings with the right timing. The Riddler's revenge mode also opens up outside of the main game testing your skills in combat and stealth scenarios. Apply some modifiers and challenges to complete and every player will be pushed to their limits to reach the top of the leader boards. A enormous quest, combined with the many, many hours of beating the Riddler's challenges in both the story and main game, there's certainly plenty to keep players interested for a long time.

The gameplay in Arkham City is divided into combat, stealth and platforming. Combat has been made even more complex. Batman's new moves include new special moves like the bat swarm, weapon disarm and destroy, more gadget uses like the quick explosive gel spray and the ability to counter thrown objects, knives and even three enemies at once. This versatility, combined with the many new types of enemies like the armoured thugs who must be stunned, the riot shield users who must be taken out with an aerial attack among many more, make combat a significantly more complex and challenging affair. But this challenge is outweighed by the sheer satisfaction from stringing a huge attack combo together and taking out a whole room of thugs. Gadgets have also been greatly expanded too, aiding in both combat and travel. Levelling up through taking down enemies, completing Riddler challenges and missions unlocks many new items to Batman's arsenal opens up many possibilities through the game. The freeze bombs can freeze enemies in place or create platforms for Batman to walk on, the remote electrical charge can power up and open doors or zap foes, while the jammer can deactivate mines and disable enemy firearms. Each gadget has it's own use and all feel great to use. Stealth combat has been enhanced with smarter enemies wearing night visions goggles to spot you up above and enemies wielding mines to destroy vertical perches entirely. Indeed the stealth element certainly forces you to adapt this time and use gadgets to your advantage, given how its more difficult to slip away from enemies this time. Despite the few changes from the original, being Batman feels as powerful and badass as ever.

Just like it's predecessor, Arkham City's visuals are stunning, completely nailing the dark nature set by the comics and movies. The voice acting is just as good with Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprising their roles as Batman and the Joker. Epic music populates the world at the right moments and Batman even listens in to enemy communications now, which goes a long way towards directing your attention and cluing you in to little details and nods to Batman lore. Animations are solid though clipping can still occur in a finishing move. Facial animation can look a bit stiff at times but these are small complaints in an awesome looking game.

Batman Arkham City is a strong contender for action/adventure game of the year. Regardless of whether or not you're interested in Batman there's no reason not to miss out on what is and always will be a brilliant superhero experience.

Rating: 9/10