As I dive further and further into Arkham Knight’s Season Pass content, I am reminded that Rocksteady still remembers what their strengths are, yet are either too stubborn or even apprehensive to not make a game with a pointless open world.
The Bat Girl DLC for Knight is a good example of what everyone liked about Asylum, tight and focused linear design where each area felt like it had purpose. And while this does not reach those heights, it does come relatively close.
Batgirl herself feels like a “lite” Batman in a physical and electronic sense.
You’re dropped into a free flow segment almost immediately, and I could not help but feel a bit disappointed that she shares so many animations with Batman, thankfully her faster animations make her feel a little more difficult to get the hang of and given her much lower health, you can’t button mash like you could in the base game. Batgirl’s speed is balanced by having her attacks cause much less damage, but the game also takes this into account by never throwing extremely large mobs at you when solo to pad out the play time.
In the comics Batgirl is a master hacker, and the game incorporates this skill into the game play frequently, with the tutorial section outright locking you in place until you use her remote hacking device. As someone who pen tests for their day job, I found that the hacking only consisting on hitting left trigger to brute force a trap or having to do the series staple password cracking rotating sticks mini game very underwhelming. There could have been mini games where you engage in social engineering to gain access to passwords, install key loggers on consoles to gain access codes to doors, subtly place usbs with malware on the ground, or tailgate a thug who has a key card, as a few examples.
This underwhelming feeling is exacerbated because you’ll be “hacking” after every free flow and predator segment. The fact that Rocksteady dropped the ball this hard on such an integral aspect of the character is astounding.
Batgirl only has around 1/3rd of the gadgets Batman has, which feels deliberate in order to make you focus on the remote hacking device. During predator segments, you’ll need to lure enemies to exploding consoles in order to use it effectively. As the enemy placement is smart as to not have you abuse it. The AI during these segments is some of the most impressive in the entire franchise, as some grunts will stand near certain vents and vantage points in an attempt to flush you out, as well as grouping up and constantly turning around for coverage. You will have to use your smoke pellets far more here, as once again this DLC does not have a lot of grates you can hide in to abuse. As well as plenty of open doors forcing you to thoroughly study your surroundings.
While I feel somewhat sick that I have to praise the bare minimum here. There are a few puzzle segments where you have to know what gadgets to use to progress, and unlike 90% of 8th gen-current games, Batgirl never tells you what to do, you must figure it out on your own. I was pleasantly surprised by this, as sad as that sounds given how far the industry has fallen in this regard.
The amusement park you spend your 90 minutes of playtime in is thankfully quite small and intricate instead of being an open world. The game also clues you in when you first arrive that the closer objective markers are the easier tasks, but you have the freedom to go about them in any order you wish. You even get rewarded for exploring of the beaten path if you play some of the carnival games with audio logs of the history of the park. Many games fail at teaching with out telling when it comes to non linear progression, so it’s great to see it be nailed here.
Once again the boss fight is incredibly poor. You’ll just be wailing on thugs until an LB prompt shows up every 4- or so seconds, you then run up to Joker or Harley, press the button, and repeat for 4-6 minutes. I’m not surprised at the continued dropping of the ball when it comes to the boss fights in Knight, I fully expect it now.
The plot isn’t anything special, Batgirl needs to save her father and she does her job well rescuing hostages and defusing bombs along the way. Joker and Harley never make the effort to truly test her physical or hacking skills and it gives the entire story a clock in clock out 9-5 vibe.
While the music is still mostly reused from the base game, there is a new track this time that plays during predator segments, it features far more slower paced percussion to illustrate that Batgirl is not at Batman’s level just yet and is a nice addition, though the dlc really could have used another 3-4 tracks.
Graphically the DLC is as impressive as ever, from little details like the stitching and scratch marks on Bat Girls ass plates, to the dilapidated rotted wood and twisted marine creatures of the amusement park, you’ll be in for a feast for the eyes.
Matter of family was heavily marketed as the marque title for Arkam Knight’s Season pass back in 2015, and from a glance it certainly is the cream of that crop. Like every other piece of Knight’s dlc it clears the low bar its base set, and you’ll have a good time that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, though it can’t help but make you long for a more fleshed out campaign.
7/10.
The Bat Girl DLC for Knight is a good example of what everyone liked about Asylum, tight and focused linear design where each area felt like it had purpose. And while this does not reach those heights, it does come relatively close.
Batgirl herself feels like a “lite” Batman in a physical and electronic sense.
You’re dropped into a free flow segment almost immediately, and I could not help but feel a bit disappointed that she shares so many animations with Batman, thankfully her faster animations make her feel a little more difficult to get the hang of and given her much lower health, you can’t button mash like you could in the base game. Batgirl’s speed is balanced by having her attacks cause much less damage, but the game also takes this into account by never throwing extremely large mobs at you when solo to pad out the play time.
In the comics Batgirl is a master hacker, and the game incorporates this skill into the game play frequently, with the tutorial section outright locking you in place until you use her remote hacking device. As someone who pen tests for their day job, I found that the hacking only consisting on hitting left trigger to brute force a trap or having to do the series staple password cracking rotating sticks mini game very underwhelming. There could have been mini games where you engage in social engineering to gain access to passwords, install key loggers on consoles to gain access codes to doors, subtly place usbs with malware on the ground, or tailgate a thug who has a key card, as a few examples.
This underwhelming feeling is exacerbated because you’ll be “hacking” after every free flow and predator segment. The fact that Rocksteady dropped the ball this hard on such an integral aspect of the character is astounding.
Batgirl only has around 1/3rd of the gadgets Batman has, which feels deliberate in order to make you focus on the remote hacking device. During predator segments, you’ll need to lure enemies to exploding consoles in order to use it effectively. As the enemy placement is smart as to not have you abuse it. The AI during these segments is some of the most impressive in the entire franchise, as some grunts will stand near certain vents and vantage points in an attempt to flush you out, as well as grouping up and constantly turning around for coverage. You will have to use your smoke pellets far more here, as once again this DLC does not have a lot of grates you can hide in to abuse. As well as plenty of open doors forcing you to thoroughly study your surroundings.
While I feel somewhat sick that I have to praise the bare minimum here. There are a few puzzle segments where you have to know what gadgets to use to progress, and unlike 90% of 8th gen-current games, Batgirl never tells you what to do, you must figure it out on your own. I was pleasantly surprised by this, as sad as that sounds given how far the industry has fallen in this regard.
The amusement park you spend your 90 minutes of playtime in is thankfully quite small and intricate instead of being an open world. The game also clues you in when you first arrive that the closer objective markers are the easier tasks, but you have the freedom to go about them in any order you wish. You even get rewarded for exploring of the beaten path if you play some of the carnival games with audio logs of the history of the park. Many games fail at teaching with out telling when it comes to non linear progression, so it’s great to see it be nailed here.
Once again the boss fight is incredibly poor. You’ll just be wailing on thugs until an LB prompt shows up every 4- or so seconds, you then run up to Joker or Harley, press the button, and repeat for 4-6 minutes. I’m not surprised at the continued dropping of the ball when it comes to the boss fights in Knight, I fully expect it now.
The plot isn’t anything special, Batgirl needs to save her father and she does her job well rescuing hostages and defusing bombs along the way. Joker and Harley never make the effort to truly test her physical or hacking skills and it gives the entire story a clock in clock out 9-5 vibe.
While the music is still mostly reused from the base game, there is a new track this time that plays during predator segments, it features far more slower paced percussion to illustrate that Batgirl is not at Batman’s level just yet and is a nice addition, though the dlc really could have used another 3-4 tracks.
Graphically the DLC is as impressive as ever, from little details like the stitching and scratch marks on Bat Girls ass plates, to the dilapidated rotted wood and twisted marine creatures of the amusement park, you’ll be in for a feast for the eyes.
Matter of family was heavily marketed as the marque title for Arkam Knight’s Season pass back in 2015, and from a glance it certainly is the cream of that crop. Like every other piece of Knight’s dlc it clears the low bar its base set, and you’ll have a good time that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, though it can’t help but make you long for a more fleshed out campaign.
7/10.