Review
Played on: Xbox 360
Released: 2011
Over two years has passed since the last Batman release, Batman: Arkham Asylum. A title which took me and many other by surprise. Probably ending up as one the best action adventuress this generation.
A tendency in the gaming industry is that licensed releases, ranging from super heroes, movies or cartoons, end up being low quality and bad. Luckily, Arkham Asylum changed that impression and delivered a game that, was not only good, but truly incredible. There are a lot of expectations for the developer, Rocksteady Studios, can City deliver what Asylum did so brilliantly?
The story depicts Batman’s imprisonment in Arkham City, a dilapidated and fenced part of Gotham City, which now serves as a prison for criminals. Or more correct, Bruce Wayne’s imprisonment. His dual identity is then revealed by Doctor Strange, one of the main protagonists and enemies. Batman must once again step up and stop the evil plans of the Joker and Dr. Strange.
From the get-go, you realise that the size of Arkham City far surpasses the original, apparently five times the size. So, it becomes much more of a free roaming title than Asylum. What I really appreciated about Asylum, was that you could explore areas at your own will from the main island, usually all the side-missions were contained in various buildings. City is somewhat the same, only much, much larger.
To make this coherent with the story, all your abilities from the Asylum are kept and new ones are obtained by experience points and must be purchased. Experience points are earned from solving riddles, completing missions and defeating enemies. Focusing again on the numbers game, there are a lot of side stuff here, intended to gain experience points through. There’s also a huge set of tasks to complete to earn even more points, like jumping off a building a set amount of times, gliding for so long etc.
Rocksteady have taken care that you move fast and use a lot of gliding to traverse the large outdoor area. There are new gadgets that can be purchased to aid this even further. They've even woven in a side-story, where you play as Catwoman. These missions actually are a great diversion from Batman’s story and feel different and entertaining. In fact, one of Catwoman’s later missions, based heavily around stealth, end up as being one of my favourite ones throughout the whole game!
The sheer variation in the gameplay and missions is superb throughout Arkham City. The characters you meet, both new and old, foes and friends, are well voice-acted and put a lot of diversity to the story. The main story is diverse and keeps your interest peaked. Arkham City can be well be played without going off on side-missions too, and holds a perfect balance between learning new tricks and building up your experience in controlling Batman.
Sometimes, you're simply baffled by new areas that are revealed, or the fact that not one single thing you do in the singleplayer feels like a repeat of anything prior to it.
Technically, Arkham City looks as beautiful as the original. All powered by the Unreal engine for delivering large, but detailed environments. The snowstorm outside adds a great effect and atmosphere and the old looking buildings look fantastic and with great architecture to them.
The colour palette is a little heavy on the grey and brown side to my taste, and it may be, that I’ve seen a little too many of the PC screenshots beforehand, making me notice that the console version is not as pretty looking.
There are some downsides. The sheer size of the city directly affects the quality of small detail and atmosphere in my opinion. There simply are too many buildings, some of which you simply go into once and never return, they feel bland and are easily forgotten.
In Arkham Asylum, I felt you really got familiar with the whole island and the buildings within it. Each building felt distinctly different and familiar, once you entered it. This chase after making games “bigger and better” is also reflected in the 400+ Riddler quests. A number, which I saw but gave up hope on completing or seeing the entertainment value in the long run.
The vast amount of side-missions, lacking meaningsful depth to the main story, is a design choice which I question. It does, however, motivate for playing the game further after the credits, continuing solving cases and riddles, I guess.
Gameplay feels right, but the boss battles don’t feel really tough enough and there are a ridiculous amount of enemies onscreen. More often than it should, it makes a lot of the fighting tedious button-bashing.
The ending is a a huge let-down and worse than Arkham Asylums disappointing ending too. After meeting so many characters it could have easily added a couple of more hours of gameplay and ended the game with a far more epic end-battle.
Make no mistake from my complaints, this is a really good game. The story, the voice-acting, the gameplay and the graphics. Everything is top-notch quality. Sadly, it doesn't hit those high-notes like Arkham Asylum did, remember the awesome Scarecrow scenes for example and goes too far in expanding its size in both gameplay, riddles and enemy amounts.
It's size can be interpreted in both a negative and positive sense but I felt it's a clear quantity over quality here.
For me, City doesn't quite do what Asylum did so cleverly. Less is more.
Played on: Xbox 360
Released: 2011
Released: 2011
Over two years has passed since the last Batman release, Batman: Arkham Asylum. A title which took me and many other by surprise. Probably ending up as one the best action adventuress this generation.
A tendency in the gaming industry is that licensed releases, ranging from super heroes, movies or cartoons, end up being low quality and bad. Luckily, Arkham Asylum changed that impression and delivered a game that, was not only good, but truly incredible. There are a lot of expectations for the developer, Rocksteady Studios, can City deliver what Asylum did so brilliantly?
The story depicts Batman’s imprisonment in Arkham City, a dilapidated and fenced part of Gotham City, which now serves as a prison for criminals. Or more correct, Bruce Wayne’s imprisonment. His dual identity is then revealed by Doctor Strange, one of the main protagonists and enemies. Batman must once again step up and stop the evil plans of the Joker and Dr. Strange.
From the get-go, you realise that the size of Arkham City far surpasses the original, apparently five times the size. So, it becomes much more of a free roaming title than Asylum. What I really appreciated about Asylum, was that you could explore areas at your own will from the main island, usually all the side-missions were contained in various buildings. City is somewhat the same, only much, much larger.
To make this coherent with the story, all your abilities from the Asylum are kept and new ones are obtained by experience points and must be purchased. Experience points are earned from solving riddles, completing missions and defeating enemies. Focusing again on the numbers game, there are a lot of side stuff here, intended to gain experience points through. There’s also a huge set of tasks to complete to earn even more points, like jumping off a building a set amount of times, gliding for so long etc.
Rocksteady have taken care that you move fast and use a lot of gliding to traverse the large outdoor area. There are new gadgets that can be purchased to aid this even further. They've even woven in a side-story, where you play as Catwoman. These missions actually are a great diversion from Batman’s story and feel different and entertaining. In fact, one of Catwoman’s later missions, based heavily around stealth, end up as being one of my favourite ones throughout the whole game!
The sheer variation in the gameplay and missions is superb throughout Arkham City. The characters you meet, both new and old, foes and friends, are well voice-acted and put a lot of diversity to the story. The main story is diverse and keeps your interest peaked. Arkham City can be well be played without going off on side-missions too, and holds a perfect balance between learning new tricks and building up your experience in controlling Batman.
Sometimes, you're simply baffled by new areas that are revealed, or the fact that not one single thing you do in the singleplayer feels like a repeat of anything prior to it.
Technically, Arkham City looks as beautiful as the original. All powered by the Unreal engine for delivering large, but detailed environments. The snowstorm outside adds a great effect and atmosphere and the old looking buildings look fantastic and with great architecture to them.
The colour palette is a little heavy on the grey and brown side to my taste, and it may be, that I’ve seen a little too many of the PC screenshots beforehand, making me notice that the console version is not as pretty looking.
There are some downsides. The sheer size of the city directly affects the quality of small detail and atmosphere in my opinion. There simply are too many buildings, some of which you simply go into once and never return, they feel bland and are easily forgotten.
In Arkham Asylum, I felt you really got familiar with the whole island and the buildings within it. Each building felt distinctly different and familiar, once you entered it. This chase after making games “bigger and better” is also reflected in the 400+ Riddler quests. A number, which I saw but gave up hope on completing or seeing the entertainment value in the long run.
The vast amount of side-missions, lacking meaningsful depth to the main story, is a design choice which I question. It does, however, motivate for playing the game further after the credits, continuing solving cases and riddles, I guess.
Gameplay feels right, but the boss battles don’t feel really tough enough and there are a ridiculous amount of enemies onscreen. More often than it should, it makes a lot of the fighting tedious button-bashing.
The ending is a a huge let-down and worse than Arkham Asylums disappointing ending too. After meeting so many characters it could have easily added a couple of more hours of gameplay and ended the game with a far more epic end-battle.
Make no mistake from my complaints, this is a really good game. The story, the voice-acting, the gameplay and the graphics. Everything is top-notch quality. Sadly, it doesn't hit those high-notes like Arkham Asylum did, remember the awesome Scarecrow scenes for example and goes too far in expanding its size in both gameplay, riddles and enemy amounts.
It's size can be interpreted in both a negative and positive sense but I felt it's a clear quantity over quality here.
For me, City doesn't quite do what Asylum did so cleverly. Less is more.
