Reviews

Batman: Arkham City

(Rocksteady Studios)

Batman: Arkham City In a game full of lunatics and supervillains that need to be brought to justice using stealthy takedowns and gadgets, you know that Rocksteady have created a complete Batman masterpiece.

Following the aftermath of the previous best-selling Batman game, Batman: Arkham Asylum, which saw Batman defeating the Joker, one year has passed. Rather than peace being restored, things have taken a drastic turn, causing Bruce Wayne to switch his focus to Arkham City.

From the game's starting point, mad scientist Hugo Strange has intentions of releasing Protocol 10, which is unknown to Batman. Upon trying to uncover Hugo’s plans Batman has a run-in with the Joker, making his main focus from here to uncover Protocol 10 and find out what part the Joker plays.

Arkham City is five times bigger than Arkham Asylum, which means there is more to do and which makes it even more demanding than its predecessor. There’s a lot to explore and more tasks to take part in to make the city safe. Side missions have also been introduced, so the main storyline isn’t the only focus running in the game, making the Joker and Hugo Strange not the only priority - remember, other supervillains roam Arkham City too!

Gameplay controls are not a problem if you’re familiar with the previous game. It’s fairly easy to get into the spirit of things, although new combos have been introduced and the ability to use the environment to your advantage (such as slamming your enemies' head on the rail bar) proves useful and entertaining. For those new to the game, you still won’t have any problems slipping into the fairly simple controls.

The upgrading system follows the same lines as the previous game. You gain upgrade points for beating enemies as well as solving riddles, although there are more categories to choose from, so use your upgrade points wisely as accumulating points is difficult.

As for gadgets, minor new ones have been added, but other than that the gadgets remain the same as used in Arkham Asylum.

Although I loved the fact that Catwoman was a playable character, I was disappointed to see that she only had a short appearance in the entire game. However, I was more disappointed that Robin wasn’t playable throughout any of the main story. Despite this the game still plays exceptionally well.

Edward Nigma, a.k.a The Riddler, returns to the stage with his smarter-than-Batman brain, leaving riddles all over the city. Being based in such a big environment makes it more difficult and annoying to track down the Riddler's trophies. Some are cased in cages linked to puzzles that you have to solve to open, but all is worth it as it counts towards one of the side missions as well as putting the Riddler to shame.

As a Batman fan, this is by far the best way to experience such an amazing hero, from scurrying over rooftops to solving puzzles and taking on the most deadly of villains, but best of all becoming the Dark Knight is just an incredible and honourable experience. Well done, Rocksteady.

5 out of 5