Follow Genre: Action
Modes: Single Player
Released: Nov. 22, 2011
Audio: 5.1 Surround
Publisher: WBIE

OnLive: Batman Arkham City Review

December 21, 2011 - Oscar Langford

OLF Score

9.0

Good: Large world, varied missions, plenty of hidden content.

Bad: Many items rarely used

User Score

8.0

(25 votes)

Click to vote

Comic book video games have always been a bit of a mixed bag. Over the years, it seems every superhero and masked vigilante has made the jump from colourful pages to electronic boxes, and most have done so in a spectacularly disappointing fashion. This was not the case with 2009′s Batman: Arkham Asylum, a title that many feel to be the very best comic-based game ever created. Arkham Asylum placed you in the shoes of the Caped Crusader (or Dark Knight, as the cool kids call him), and tasked you with escaping from the infamous prison after falling prey to one of the Joker’s dastardly traps. Along the way you solved puzzles, used gadgets, stealthily took down armed assailants, and faced off against a wealth of classic Batman villains.

The same formula is used in the recently released sequel, only this time you’re not confined to the walls of the Asylum, but allowed to run free in the large world of Arkham City – a prison town created to keep all the scum that cannot be kept in the limited space a walled penitentiary can hold. As the game begins, Bruce Wayne is giving a speech on the dangers of the city, only to be captured by Hugo Strange, warden of Arkham City and a man who seems to know a little too much about Bruce’s alternate identity. A quick Kapow, Sock, and Bif later, and it’s time for the bat-suited capers to begin. After rescuing Catwoman from the clutches of the twisted Two-Face, Batman soon locates the Joker, who is said to be dying after his consumption of the dangerous Titan Formula in the first game. This is where things begin to heat up as, in a move that would make Eric Cartman proud, the Joker poisons Batman with his own tainted blood. Now the Dark Knight must find the antidote to save them both, at the same time figuring out the devious plot Hugo Strange apparently has planned.

The story, while not overly complex, serves it’s purpose quite well. As in the first game, much of the thrill comes from meeting and beating the famous villains we’ve all grown to love/hate during Batman’s decades of adventuring. Once again, the voice acting is superb, and fans will be pleased to know that Mark Hamill returns to play the Joker – a role he takes on fantastically. Having said this, though, one voice that seems to fall short is that of the Penguin, who’s stereotypical cockney speech sounds like someone putting on a fake English accent after watching Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Thankfully, we don’t have to hear him too often, and it’s a small detraction from an otherwise wonderfully acted game.

Much of the gameplay has returned form the original, the big difference being the open world environment you now have to explore. It’s a structure that’s been seen in a lot of titles over the years, but it’s still fun to traverse the world using Batman’s grappling hook and gliding abilities. Of course, some will say that the linear path of Arkham Asylum made for a title with better pacing, but I’m glad the developers decided to try something a little different rather than simply create Arkham Asylum 2. Dotted around the map are various missions, some major, some minor, along with numerous hidden riddles, secrets to find, and random crimes to stop. There really is a lot of stuff to do, and I can see myself going back to this title in order to finish off the side-missions I missed the first time around.

Okay, so lets talk a little about what really makes these games great. Who among us can honestly say that, after enjoying a Batman movie or game, they didn’t spend the next few hours announcing “I’m Batman”, in the best gravelly voice they could muster? Come on, I know it’s not just me! Well, Arkham Asylum showed us that finally we could be Batman, and it achieved this with a fantastic blend of combat, gadget use, and stealthy predator sections. This has not changed in Arkham City, and it feels just as good as ever to glide from the shadows and silently take down a heavily armed henchman, causing others in the area to get more and more freaked out as their numbers dwindle. Of course, the same amount of stealth need not be applied to thugs who don’t carry guns, and fighting is still one of the best aspects of the game. A simple combination of punches, dodges, and counters forms the basis of combat, and the Caped Crusader blends these into a seamless string of attack moves, causing your combo counter to rise with each successful hit. Bring your combo up to certain points and unleash one of many Critical Hits, taking down foes in one strike, stunning all those around you, or breaking the weapon of anyone you choose. That’s not all, though, as the gadgets used to progress through the levels also double as weapons, giving you an extra set of techniques to master. Is this a good thing? Maybe not, as the simplicity of the combat mechanics is part of the fun, and many may find that throwing so many different moves into the mix just complicates things, although none of them are really essential in order to win.

In fact, speaking of gadgets, the large number unlocked throughout your adventure never seemed like a good thing, even outside of combat. So many of them were used very rarely to advance, to the point where the game often prompted you to equip them when faced with a puzzle, as though assuming you had forgotten you even had them. Arkham Asylum kept the number of gadgets fairly small, and every one you unlocked felt like it had definite purpose through the rest of the game. Arkham City goes the opposite way, giving you a large number of toys in a relatively short space of time, the majority of them just hanging from your utility belt until an impassable object forces you to pull one out for a minute or two. Sometimes simplicity is best, and I can’t help but feel that a smaller number of gadgets with more opportunity to use would have led to better puzzles in the game.

One really nice aspect introduced in this title is the inclusion of Catwoman. In fact, before you even step into the shoes of the Dark Knight, you play small section as the foxy feline and get a chance to do so in a few other parts of the game. Not only is Catwoman sexy enough to make Lara Croft look like Marcus Fenix, but her play style is actually a lot of fun. It’s similar to Batman’s, but traversing the city using whip and claws creates a different feel from the usual glide-and-grapple you’ll grow accustomed to. It’s kind of a shame that her sections are few and far between, and makes me wonder if a spin-off title may show up at some point.

Arkham City comes to OnLive in a truly spectacular port. Graphics are crisp, made all the more so by a recent update, frame rate is solid, and latency is imperceptible. While it works fine on a mouse and keyboard, I played through using a controller, feeling the added precision of analog control during combat sections would be a benefit. Unfortunately, this brought with it a problem in the form of the recurrent trigger mirroring bug that’s doing the rounds at the moment. There’s a whole host of DLC available ranging from alternate skins right through to extra challenge modes and characters. There’s also no touch control yet, for those using the Android or iOS app, but I’m interested to see how they handle this when the update comes – it may be cumbersome, but I can’t wait for the time when I can tell a friend I’m playing Arkham City on my phone as they sit there enjoying Angry Birds.

Batman: Arkham City contains a lot of content, including the large selection of side missions, hidden riddles, unlockable character biographies and trophies, and bonus challenges to test your combat and stealth skills. But, of course, many of these were also present in the first game, and this is something that should be mentioned. Even though this title adds a lot of new stuff, much of it is going to feel quite familiar to fans of Arkham Asylum. Part of the thrill of the original was mastering the nuances of combat, the techniques of luring enemies into your traps, and the discovery of all the excellent Batman lore present throughout the game. The gameplay in Arkham City is refined and in some ways improved, but not quite as magical as it felt the first time around. This is the unfortunate case with many sequels, but as I mentioned before, it’s a relief that the developers took the time to give us a whole new location and mission structure rather than just retread the path of the original.

So overall, Batman: Arkham City is an excellent game. It’s fun, challenging, has plenty of stuff to see and unlock, and should keep players going for many hours into the night. It may not be quite as original as Arkham Asylum, but it certainly lives up to the high standards fans have come to expect from the Caped Crusader over the last few years. OnLive have done an excellent job bringing this title to the service, and have done so relatively close to its release on other platforms. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have bad guys to catch and a city to save. Who am I? I’m Batman.

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