I've been playing video games since the 80's. I've also been a fan of Batman for as long as I can remember. That said, for the longest time, there was a very strange relationship between Batman and Video Games all the way up until Arkham Asylum. Somehow taking Batman (totally awesome!) and throwing him in a video game (totally awesome!) turned out to be anywhere between just ok, barely passable down to just bad. Arkham Asylum really was the first game to change that.
Not only was it better than 'OK' it was actually a great game, and surprisingly lengthy next to what you would have expected it to be. It also was being released curiously between 'Batman Begins' and 'The Dark Knight,' which you'd have to live in a very, very remote part of the world not to know about, and curiously this game made absolutely no attempt to relate itself to those wildly successful movies. This is really a Batman in the style of some of the comics or even one you can sort of recognize and relate to from the animated series, something a lot of us probably grew up watching.
(My brief caveat here may be that this is a much more violent Batman than we have seen in any of those places, so parents, I would probably think long and hard before buying this for your little boy or girl.)
STORY (No spoilers)
This is the sequel to Arkham Asylum, and not something as immediate as you would think. There has obviously been some time between the end of the last game and the beginning of this one. The short explanation is that a section of Old Gotham City has been turned into a sort of prison city. This may create some suspension of disbelief problems for some people as there are a slew of reasons why this would/could never happen in reality, but on a whole, among comic story settings, it is not so outlandish to sabotage the game.
It also helps that our protagonist Bruce Wayne/Batman thinks its an awful idea so your natural inclination to think 'thats messed up' or that its just wrong is playing into your being able to identify with the character a little. If you don't think this is strange, then you still get to play as the Batman, something that can only be described as ceaselessly entertaining.
Probably the worst that can be said about this game is that there's a lot there. Really they jam a lot of characters in there, and there are a few twists and turns throughout the game. Nothing shattered my disbelief though. Part of that may have been that I kind of knew what to expect, and you can take it one of two ways, as far as I can see: either it is nice that they included so much of the Batman universe in one game or maybe they made the plot a little more drawn out than it needed to be so they could involve more characters. Either way, the longer the story, the longer the game, and when you're having this much fun, its hard to complain. I would probably give this the grade of a B on story/writing.
GRAPHICS
This game utilizes a recent version of the Unreal engine. This is so common, that it is sort of the B+ of graphics these days, but it does have some extra tie-ins to make a game that is impressive in both the macro and the mirco. There is room to nit-pick here, but this is a game where at times very tiny spaces are your entire world--crawling through air ducts and through tight spaces, and then you exit and you're in a few dozen square blocks worth of a dark and violent city.
There are certainly games out there that portray larger areas that you can travel across, but that shouldn't take away from just how big and impressively detailed Arkham City is. There is a definite style to the city itself, but with enough variance that you don't feel, or at least you can't pick out where they might have used the same building twice. I might even say that they didn't do this. Of course when you get into those tight places, there are times where you might notice the textures are maybe not as detailed as they could be.
Character models are generally pretty good, and there's a good amount of detail. You could say that they use their own stylized realism here, something based on a sort of classic comic archetype. The people are all pretty bulky, which you can rack up to a certain level of physical fitness/intimidation and the wearing of a lot of baggy clothes. Batman is cut like your superhero figurines from your youth and all of the women in the game are thin and shapely. Textures on the model are pretty good. They are certainly very detailed, and from the model viewer in the game, maybe even more than they would need to be.
I enjoy the lighting in this game. There are nice effects with rays of moonlight, soft halos where appropriate. All in all, though, I would give Batman: Arkham City a solid A.
SOUND
A lot of the sound effects from this game come from Batman: Arkham Asylum. If they have been altered, it is not in a noticeable way, and this isn't really bad, because the sounds of combat and ambient sounds were good in that game. What is probably more important is the voice work. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill return to voice Batman and Joker respectively. As they have been doing this for nearly 20 years, they are almost as iconic to the sound of these characters as they can be, and they do their job fabulously. They are supported by a wholly believable and generally well voiced cast of less iconic actors and a large number of extras. There are no moments that stand out where the voice acting falls flat or is memorably bad. If I were to complain about anything, it would be the pronunciation of "Ra's al-Ghul" as it is different than I remember in Batman Begins. Which one is right? I don't know, but I can tell you if that's what sticks out most in the sound department, they did a great job. A for this too.
SOUNDTRACK
I feel that I should probably separate out the soundtrack from the sound, and indeed the soundtrack in game from the soundtrack they allow you to download if you buy the collector's edition. The soundtrack in the game is very atmospheric. It is not music that you will remember or find yourself humming along to. It is really functioning to emphasize the mood, whether it is more panic, action, sneaking mode or even the embodiment of stillness. There are little bits and pieces of melody that vaguely remind me of the old Danny Elfman works (Tim Burton's Batman and Batman: The Animated Series) but there's also definitely hints of Hans Zimmer in there too. It all sounds 'appropriately Batman,' I would say. I would give it a B or maybe a B+, because it is really quite effective for what it is, but I couldn't give it an A without claiming there was something remarkable in it.
Then there is the Batman: Arkham City Album, given away as a bonus, which is a bunch of music that appears nowhere in the game. I'm not going to pass too much judgment on this either positively or negatively. There may be some music on here that you will enjoy, and there's a very good chance that there will not be anything here that you like, but if you think it has anything to do with the score or music in the game, you will be disappointed. I mention this more as a buyer beware than anything, because few movies or video games have both a score and an album, and I would not factor this into your equation as a bonus for ordering the special edition.
GAMEPLAY
Batman: Arkham Asylum had the best melee combat system I have ever seen. Honestly, when I heard they were going to spend a full two years making a new game in a development environment that tries to push annual releases for popular franchises, I got a little nervous that they were going to try to mess with the equation too much. I hate to say that what I wanted was really 'more of the same' for fear that what they would change would be totally annoying. Anyone who's played a game, and maybe a few of its sequels knows well the danger in adding or changing major elements.
What they ended up giving us was more of the same, plus a much bigger environment to play around in, greater ability to wander and try to solve puzzles, do the riddler's tricks, pick up side-quests, and then they even expanded the combat system. There is the inclusion of a few additional enemy types that actually add something to the game, and some minor tweeks. The end result is that they actually made the system a little better than it was. Yes, it is a little more complicated in one or two areas, but it is also easier in others, and much more enjoyable really. Probably my favorite addition is multi-person counter-attacks. Previously, the bad-guys would usually approach in classic kung-fu movie blocking, one at a time, generally, and you would deal with them one at a time, regardless of how many there were. Now sometimes they attack two or three together, and the beautiful melee system has a variety of animations to show how Batman (or others!) deal with this.
Or others? It is probably worth mentioning that you can play as Catwoman in this game. This is an enjoyable change of pace and also quite enjoyable. I will mention she has a whip which is used in place of a grappling hook and cape, and watching her fight is very interesting. Similar to Batman, they gave her a very unique and showy fighting style, though his is all brutality, an hers is quick and nimble.
In any case, gameplay, A+. These guys did a great job with this element the first time around, and they did a great job with it the second time around.
SPECIAL EDITION STUFF
This comes with some extra goodies in the special edition. I will sum it up in short what my opinion on this stuff is...
- Batman: Arkham City album: nothing to write home about.
- Batman: Gotham Knight movie: As the Animatrix was to the release of the Matrix reloaded, so Gotham Knight is to the release of Dark Knight. It gives you a few takes on the character of Bruce Wayne/Batman. I already owned it, but I enjoyed it. I'd probably give it 4/5 stars if I were to review it separately.
- Collectible art book: This actually replaces the case, curiously enough, and that's the worst part about it, but... I do like the pictures.
- Iceberg Lounge Challenge Map and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns DLC: kind of neat, and it would save you a few bucks in the future, maybe.
- Custom Batman statue: This is a quality model. If you like statuettes, this guy probably would retail for $60+ bucks by itself. It is very cool if you like to display your gamer culture, and more than worth the price difference by itself if you do.
CONCLUSION
Now I've been very long winded, but if you read half of whats above, you know there's no reason to draw this out further. This game lives up to its hype. It lives up to the previous game and then some. If you like Batman and/or if you like video games, its hard to come up with a reason to avoid this title. Buy it. Plain and simple, you will enjoy it.
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