Tanks, but no tanks
The dark knight has had many a difficult knight (get it?) whether it be Arkham Asylum or Arkham City, Batman has had his fill of Arkham-ness. Now the new enemy arises only known as the Arkham knight, and only our caped crusader can take him down…
June 2015, midnight, this was it the long-awaited sequel to Arkham city, I was standing drenched outside with friends, waiting for the store to let us in to acquire the game. I remember feeling excited and extremely happy, however once I got home and installed the game, I didn’t feel like I was in Gotham anymore…
To start off the game holds up even 6 years later, looking crisp and clean. The gameplay feels upgraded to what the other TWO felt like (not including Arkham origins) the free flow combat was more advanced, and the movements somewhat felt batman-ish, at some points the game felt sluggish and slow, the predator sections felt underwhelming as the story progressed on. I felt like fear wasn’t a big part of the Batman character in this game as opposed to Arkham city or asylum.
It was a treat to have the dlc in the Christmas of 2015 as well, as more villains got the chance to appear and wreak havoc, my personal favourite was Mr freeze, as it continued the story and character arc from Arkham city, this made me incredibly happy as Mr freeze is an immaculate villain. The same with Ra's al Ghul following his iconic appearance in Arkham city as the big bad guy, i felt like his was pushed to the side as he was undercut by the simplest of villains EG: professor Pyg and the mad hatter.
The DLC was worth every penny and so was the suits… got to love an alternative Costume, as you had costumes featured from the first appearance of Batman to the dark knight costume, and the new 52 costume set. My personal favourite is the Batman beyond suit as it feels more personal, after growing up with the Batman beyond tv show.
Now being a huge Batman fan i wanted nothing more than to have my fill, running around Gotham in a giant bat suit, and driving the car. And I have to say that speeding down Main Street Gotham, in a giant tank felt great however it came up short. Every section that featured a tank battle, took at least 15 to 20 minutes as you constantly had to power up your Canon and wait for it to reload which took a second or two. The tank battles were too constant, there was no need for a battle every 30 seconds. It’s slightly broke the game down for me as I couldn’t drive to a location without getting into a fire fight. So, I prefer to glide and run across rooftops because to me that feels truer to Batman’s character then driving a tank.
One side mission which I hate to death was the Riddler trophies, As the other two games had the Riddler trophies i felt robbed of time and effort. They are not fun, they are not enjoyable and it’s not worth claiming a PlayStation trophy or an Xbox achievement for. And in all honesty, Personally the best part of this game was the side missions from Professor Pyg, And Two Face. The side missions are what was needed as it gave the game more content than just fighting the Arkham knight or scarecrow to progress the story.
The character design was amazing, bring back scarecrow from Arkham asylum. Rocksteady peppered Arkham City with little tidbits and Easter eggs of the scarecrows return. The design of the bat suit stayed true to the prequels however the new suit that is used doesn’t feel like it is a bat suit more than an iron man suit! Oracle, Alfred and Robin all look great and well designed, as does the environment. The whole city from the slums to the sprawling metropolis looks filthy and crime ridden, which is what I want from a Batman game.
I enjoyed this game, I know a lot of people that didn’t like it felt it to be too exposed, I’ll standby this game although the tank sequences should’ve been less frequent and to focus a lot more on detective work as Arkham origins did. And I wasn’t a fan of Arkham origins as it felt rushed and was buggy but that is a conversation for another time.
I shall continue to protect Gotham
Dan Hewitt
(Wishing he was the batman)
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