Before we start talking about Batman Arkham City, we gotta start by saying: if Arkham Asylum had a flaw, it was that the game was so freaking awesome in the way they illustrated the Batman universe. We couldn’t figure out anything that was left to cover or accomplish in a sequel. Game developers Rocksteady already got everything down to perfection with Batman, from his smooth fighting style, gadgets, and amazing detective skills. The game featured about a dozen of Batman’s greatest enemies, and then included hidden references to more just to make fans even happier.
Arkham Asylum was the perfect Batman game. Absolute freaking perfection.
When we heard about the sequel, the question on all of our minds was, “Wha? Sequel? Really? How the hell can they beat Arkham Asylum?” But you know what? They did it. From the second we started playing Arkham City, all we kept thinking was: Arkham Asylum was practice. Compared to the sequel, the “best superhero game ever” was like a first draft of what the perfect Batman game was going to be. After two years of wondering where the sequel would go, Arkham City delivers.
Batman Arkham City picks up months after the events of Asylum. Former Arkham warden Quincy Sharp is now the mayor of Gotham City, and he’s moved the inmates from Blackgate Prison and Arkham Asylum to a sealed-off area smack in the middle of Gotham – Arkham City. Batman has made it his job to see what in the world is going on inside of it. It’s a pretty interesting story that starts off with one of the best openings that we’ve seen for a game in a long time.
The story is special, combining the best of the Batman: The Animated Series episodes, the brutal darkness of a Frank Miller comic and some cues from Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. Within the first 15 minutes of the game, you’ll be overpowered by moment upon emotional moment of shock, awe and squealing fanboy giddiness. By the last 15 minutes, you may honestly hold back some tears, and not for a reason you’d ever expect a superhero game to deliver.
The most obvious thing about Batman Arkham City is, well um, Arkham City. When the first game was released, a small island asylum probably seemed like the only feasible setting for a decent Batman experience. The second you try to depict the architectural impressiveness of Gotham and you might as well be developing another Spider-Man game. The sequel, though, proves that assumption wrong. The asylum is still on an island – kinda. It’s a bordered, cordoned-off section of Gotham City – but is at least four to five times as large as before, and a lot more detailed.
You can stand still at any point and you will be in absolute awe of Batman Arkham City’s intricacy. There are seemingly endless rooftops that stretch into the horizon, each with different neon signs, like Ace Chemicals, where Joker was born, or the peeling billboard of Clayface’s famous movie role, ‘The Terror’. A certain apartment building can almost be instantly recognised because Selina Kyle’s cats are outside one of the windows. Every building in the game is unique, adding to the atmosphere. A gigantic Ferris wheel can be seen that, when scanned with Detective mode, reveals a body in each compartment.
Just to give you another idea of how much bigger and better Batman Arkham City is than its predecessor, think of how many Batman villains were mentioned in Arkham Asylum, but never seen. Half of those now play major roles in the sequel, in addition to return appearances of baddies introduced in the first game. And just for good measure, new heroes like Robin, Alfred, Vicki Vale and Talia Al Ghul, and a bunch of surprise cameos were tossed into the new game.
Did we mention that you get to play as Catwoman, too? She’s not as fun to control as Batman, but her segments are a refreshing change of pace and her animations, whether swan-diving off of a rooftop, cartwheeling through a fight, crawling upside-down beneath a catwalk, or whipping an enemy into submission, are all mesmerizing to watch. She’s also important to the overall story, so it’s a little screwed up that new buyers have to enter a code to unlock her, and used buyers have to spend an extra $10.
We’ve tried to describe as much of Batman Arkham City’s awesomeness as we could, but we don’t want to give too much away, because you’d have nothing to look forward to! The music is epic, the graphics are stunning, and the voice acting is absolutely phenomenal. We have to say Mark Hamill gives the Joker a particularly perverse performance. We may be biased, because we’ve been fans of Hamill since Batman: The Animated Series, and we really can’t think of anyone else playing the Joker. Other things that we particularly enjoyed were the ‘Riddler’s Revenge’ challenges, where you have to clear a room of enemies using specific equipment or strategy, and the menus filled with bonus short stories that address some of the questions you might have assumed were left unanswered. There were other clever little choices as well, like having the Bat-Signal as a waypoint marker. And the bosses are even cooler this time around.
The worst thing about the greatness of Batman Arkham City, is wondering what Rocksteady can possibly do to top it in the next game, or if they’ll even try. But we really can’t wait to find out.
