Batman: Arkham City

Dear bloggie,



The ending credits for Batman Arkham City, Joker singing "Only You" to Batman. Needless to say, this sick demented creepy version of this song sums up the game entirely... "EPIC"

"Arkham City" is a hybrid action + some RPG elements game. Overall, probably the best game I played in a very very long time. Arkham City takes place after the events of Arkham Asylum. Arkham Asylum having been reduced to a chaotic mess by the Joker leads to the creation of Arkham City, a small confined city within Gotham which serves as a prison for criminals. The story starts with Bruce Wayne holding a press conference to rally his cause to shut down Arkham City. Thing quickly turn into chaos when a Tyger (Sorta like guns for hire that guard Arkham City) squad crash the party and kidnaps Bruce. We then are introduce to the guy in charge of this prison, Dr Hugo Strange. A bit of blackmail, pickpocket and Bruce ends up thrown into Arkham City. We then have this c00l scene where Bruce kick's Penguin + Grunts @$$ before donning the cowl and cape...

Battle system is cool. Batman really have some slick fighting moves, combined that with the array of gadgets that he can utilizes during a fight (Batarang, Batclaw, Freeze bomb, etc...), one has to marvel at the fight scenes. However a problem I feel on the battle system is can feel quite repetitive after some time. Typically, a normal grunts hardly can pose a threat even when they outnumber you 20 to 1. But later in the game, these thugs are powered up by knifes, sub machine guns and sniper guns which can be lethal if you don't take out these weaponized thugs as fast as possible. As for boss fights, most of them can be beaten only by a specific way (take out generator, shoot em using electric gun, etc). The game also has some RPG elements, where when you level up, u can unlock some upgrades for Batman and Catwoman. Things like armour, special gadget moves, special combat moves...

As for playable characters, you actually get to play 2 characters... Batman and Catwoman. U get to play Catwoman in 3-4 stages, which is nice since it provides a short time out from the cliff hanger stage endings. Catwoman playing style is also different from Batman, as she is more agile but has less HP + armour and have a different set of gadgets + skills. To add dimension to the game, Batman has this detective mode that grants you x ray vision to see enemies in the dark and behind walls. This mode is essential especially after the thugs gains powerful weapons upgrades which can be suicidal to try to take em out by brute force. Instead, u have a better chance by doing backstab special moves which take these enemies down with 1 blow and without alerting other enemies of ur presence. This vision also allows you to identify the weopon you enemy is carrying and heart rate (alert level).

The whole city is actually you play area with is quite huge. The feeling of gliding down a building as Batman is awesomely portray in this game. Most of the game's main quest stages take place in specific building but there are some sub quest splatter across the city. Most notable subquest is the Riddler's subquest where this nutcase put "?" trophy across the city and you need to collect enuff of them to receive a riddle which would lead you to some twisted game against the Riddler with the lives of some hostages at stake.

Besides Batman and Catwoman, we also have tons of famous villains like 2 Face, Penguin, Joker, Dr Freeze, Bane, Ivy, Ras Alghul, Deadshot... The dynamics of the characters are also awesome as a struggle of power is going on between 2 Face, Penguin and Joker for turf control in Arkham City. Each fraction is trying to screw the other. The best part of the game is without a doubt the dynamics between Batman and Joker. Unstoppable object collides with unmovable object.

While the Dark Knight movie, Joker is portray as a agent of chaos, the Joker here is portray on a another angle. A criminal maniac that intelligence is between the thin line of genius and insane nutcase. The Joker outsmart and outwit the World's Greatest Detective for most of the game. At a part of the game, Batman gains access of The Joker's contact. From here on, the Joker would send miscalls with some really hilarious + sickening messages like the one on the video above. Batman meanwhile is portray as a character with unbreakable willpower. Serving and taking beating against an array of powerful villains. His costume that at the start of the game was brand new but was in patches really gives u a rough idea of the amount of beating he endured through the game.

The shortcoming of this game is perhaps the relatively short main quest. Also some game stopper bugs which IS REALLY FRUSTRATING. Some fix requires shoving down the game graphic setting to need manually delete from movie files so the game to proceed. I ponder how these bugs got pass their QAs.

Anyway, I'll end this rant with a short and simple ending rant: Great game, get up ur arse n go play it!