I've wanted to play a good Batman game for a long time, heck even a good DC game. The last good Batman game I played was the Lego Batman series, which I loved, but I could never bring myself to play the Arkham series despite hearing that it was incredible. I've seen gameplay and things of all sort but naturally I would want to start with the first game, Asylum, but I never had the system for it since I was team Nintendo so I tried the demo on my old laptop...it couldn't run decently enough to be comfortable with, my laptop was old and non-beefy and I wasn't even too big of a fan of what I played in that demo.
Arkham Knight came out and I had a PS4, along with that came ‘Return to Arkham’ but I didn't have enough interest to pursue either. Spider-Man for PS4 comes out and people compared it to Batman. I loved that game but I wouldn't care to see the same gameplay put into a different game. So, what made me break down and get Arkham City then? Well I can confirm that you play as Bruce Wayne. This very much interested me because I like playing both parts, I like the little bubble of ordinary inside of an unordinary world. I thought we might get a slice of life out of Bruce Wayne...but in reality, it’s just one scene at the beginning of the game and it’s a good sequence but not the Bruce Wayne I was hoping for (kind of representative of the game if I’m honest). I tried the demo out and it grew on me.
Not only do you play as Bruce Wayne but you play as Catwoman and with this Game of the Year edition, it comes with added costumes (which is kind of just a bonus since I wouldn't normally care about that) but I particularly like using the Dark Knight Returns outfit because it makes me feel like I'm Ben Affleck's Batman. I would use either the 70's or Animated one more but I can't help but feel they look out of place, it's not the game's fault though, I felt that way with some of the Spider-Man costumes. With that, this game has a pretty big cast of villains especially if you count the side missions.
Catwoman isn’t as involved as I would have liked. I remember seeing promos for this game and being like "Catwoman and Batman working together!" Well not really, you save Catwoman then you play as her to save Batman. Then after the credits roll Catwoman comes back? Why did the credits roll if the game wasn't over? Well Catwoman is apparently DLC. I'd be disappointed if I paid to get 4 episodes (missions) of playing as Catwoman, it's not even a proper cohesive story and barely ties into Batman's at all, I played the ending and didn't even know it was the ending of her story, I had to look it up because you just pick up the stuff and it’s over.
For the console version, you can pick specific episodes and pick the costumes through that but with the PC version (might just be GOTY edition, I don't know) you have to change it as if you would Batman's and the two extra suits (Halloween and Animated) you have to pick either Year One or Animated Batman and it automatically switches to her alternate costume, which is kind of lame that she doesn't even get her own menu. As for the challenges, you get a menu for all of them and even Harley Quinn's Revenge so I don’t know what to think. I'm not usually one for challenges but you can play as Nightwing and see (some of) Wayne Manor, which is pretty cool.
The gameplay is pretty much what a beat-em-up would be like in a 3D environment. They focus a lot on combat and for good reason. One thing I've known before I even played the game and kind of respected was that you know an enemy is down for the count when you hear that crack and then the slow motion for the final enemy in the group, if I didn't know better that Batman is a ‘pacifist’ of sorts, I would’ve mistaken him for a killer because there are some brutal take-downs and Batman is cold and merciless with his personality like he's fed up with your b.s. (Poor Tim though). The take-downs stay fresh, showing me combos I haven't seen before, so yeah it's kind of just button mashing but I'm okay with that, it has a lot of thought, care and effort put into every move on the developer's end and they don't really make it so easy either. I feel like Spider-Man made it more balanced but it doesn't feel like Spider-Man to me so I almost can't compare it. That could be because I played Spider-Man on PS4 and this on PC but I doubt it, I notice a lot of different things that Spider-Man did differently, maybe it just used some elements, so that inital concern is out of the window.
This seems like a very short game, the credits started rolling and I was like "Really?" I would've done more side-quests but I figured I still had a while, plus it doesn't always let you do them when some main missions have urgency. Speaking of, Batman just leaves some of the victims there, like the nurses and the scientists, he's like "Wait here" and then comes back late in the game and is like "You're good at hiding...so keep doing it." Like dude, you just abandoned these guys the whole game, I get the urgency and stuff but they're desperate and we never really even got them out (unless that's a side mission I don't know about but I really doubt it)
Now Harley Quinn's Revenge.
It made me realize that people play this game very differently, maybe they have a different difficulty set, the console version is very different or maybe they unlocked something I don't know about but I see them knocking out 3 enemies at a time then KO’ing each and every one, I'm not sure how they knocked that many out at once and I'm not sure how they got them to stay down long enough to take them down one after the other, not to mention mastering the Critical Hit meter. It's not a very long story though, I've seen videos that finish it in an hour, for me it took maybe 2 and I didn't even do the final boss, I just got fed up because I would do a part so many times, get to the end then not be able to take out the last guy, I just looked the cutscene up on YouTube.But I like Batman most for Stealth and Robin for combat. Maybe I'll play Arkham Knight some day, I don't know, I imagine it improves a whole lot. As I was saying, it’s a good game just not what I expected.
Arkham Knight came out and I had a PS4, along with that came ‘Return to Arkham’ but I didn't have enough interest to pursue either. Spider-Man for PS4 comes out and people compared it to Batman. I loved that game but I wouldn't care to see the same gameplay put into a different game. So, what made me break down and get Arkham City then? Well I can confirm that you play as Bruce Wayne. This very much interested me because I like playing both parts, I like the little bubble of ordinary inside of an unordinary world. I thought we might get a slice of life out of Bruce Wayne...but in reality, it’s just one scene at the beginning of the game and it’s a good sequence but not the Bruce Wayne I was hoping for (kind of representative of the game if I’m honest). I tried the demo out and it grew on me.
Not only do you play as Bruce Wayne but you play as Catwoman and with this Game of the Year edition, it comes with added costumes (which is kind of just a bonus since I wouldn't normally care about that) but I particularly like using the Dark Knight Returns outfit because it makes me feel like I'm Ben Affleck's Batman. I would use either the 70's or Animated one more but I can't help but feel they look out of place, it's not the game's fault though, I felt that way with some of the Spider-Man costumes. With that, this game has a pretty big cast of villains especially if you count the side missions.
Catwoman isn’t as involved as I would have liked. I remember seeing promos for this game and being like "Catwoman and Batman working together!" Well not really, you save Catwoman then you play as her to save Batman. Then after the credits roll Catwoman comes back? Why did the credits roll if the game wasn't over? Well Catwoman is apparently DLC. I'd be disappointed if I paid to get 4 episodes (missions) of playing as Catwoman, it's not even a proper cohesive story and barely ties into Batman's at all, I played the ending and didn't even know it was the ending of her story, I had to look it up because you just pick up the stuff and it’s over.
For the console version, you can pick specific episodes and pick the costumes through that but with the PC version (might just be GOTY edition, I don't know) you have to change it as if you would Batman's and the two extra suits (Halloween and Animated) you have to pick either Year One or Animated Batman and it automatically switches to her alternate costume, which is kind of lame that she doesn't even get her own menu. As for the challenges, you get a menu for all of them and even Harley Quinn's Revenge so I don’t know what to think. I'm not usually one for challenges but you can play as Nightwing and see (some of) Wayne Manor, which is pretty cool.
The gameplay is pretty much what a beat-em-up would be like in a 3D environment. They focus a lot on combat and for good reason. One thing I've known before I even played the game and kind of respected was that you know an enemy is down for the count when you hear that crack and then the slow motion for the final enemy in the group, if I didn't know better that Batman is a ‘pacifist’ of sorts, I would’ve mistaken him for a killer because there are some brutal take-downs and Batman is cold and merciless with his personality like he's fed up with your b.s. (Poor Tim though). The take-downs stay fresh, showing me combos I haven't seen before, so yeah it's kind of just button mashing but I'm okay with that, it has a lot of thought, care and effort put into every move on the developer's end and they don't really make it so easy either. I feel like Spider-Man made it more balanced but it doesn't feel like Spider-Man to me so I almost can't compare it. That could be because I played Spider-Man on PS4 and this on PC but I doubt it, I notice a lot of different things that Spider-Man did differently, maybe it just used some elements, so that inital concern is out of the window.
This seems like a very short game, the credits started rolling and I was like "Really?" I would've done more side-quests but I figured I still had a while, plus it doesn't always let you do them when some main missions have urgency. Speaking of, Batman just leaves some of the victims there, like the nurses and the scientists, he's like "Wait here" and then comes back late in the game and is like "You're good at hiding...so keep doing it." Like dude, you just abandoned these guys the whole game, I get the urgency and stuff but they're desperate and we never really even got them out (unless that's a side mission I don't know about but I really doubt it)
Now Harley Quinn's Revenge.
It made me realize that people play this game very differently, maybe they have a different difficulty set, the console version is very different or maybe they unlocked something I don't know about but I see them knocking out 3 enemies at a time then KO’ing each and every one, I'm not sure how they knocked that many out at once and I'm not sure how they got them to stay down long enough to take them down one after the other, not to mention mastering the Critical Hit meter. It's not a very long story though, I've seen videos that finish it in an hour, for me it took maybe 2 and I didn't even do the final boss, I just got fed up because I would do a part so many times, get to the end then not be able to take out the last guy, I just looked the cutscene up on YouTube.But I like Batman most for Stealth and Robin for combat. Maybe I'll play Arkham Knight some day, I don't know, I imagine it improves a whole lot. As I was saying, it’s a good game just not what I expected.