Batman: Arkham City PS3 Review

This is the first ever game console title review on Technology Blogged from myself however as an avid gamer whom enjoys a lot of varied releases (from Ratchet & Clank to Battlefield 3) Batman games have always appealed to me, especially when they are as dark as the recent films in which Christian Bale puts on the cape.

At first glance then this Batman: Arkham City Review is a fairly easy review to do if you are clued in to gaming. On all major and more niche gaming websites, the game has fundamentally blown all of them away which has resulted in 9.5/10, +95% and sometimes even 10/10 scores. That, my friends, is what I like to call as close to perfection as a game may ever get, and buying this game as a consumer I thought what the heck, I may as well put my stamp on the envelope too as to how good this game really is. Read on to find out what’s what, and whether this game really should be in your PS3 with our Batman Arkham City review.

The good

Excellent free roaming world. Fun and powerful combat. Batman foes and allies portrayed wonderfully. Excellent graphics. Addictive content.

What’s bad?

Slightly easy boss fights.

Review

Batman Arkham City is the sequel to Batman Arkham Asylum released in late-ish 2009, and the developers have been working hard behind the scenes to bring us it. For those not in the know, or whom have not followed the Ayslum story so far, Arkham warden Quincy Sharp now holds his place as the mayor of Gotham City, and he’s conveniently merged the bad guys or ‘goons’ from Blackgate Prison and the inmates from Arkham Asylum within the previous game to a highly sealed off area within Gotham City. The sealed off area is what is called ‘Arkham City’, and the guy running it is Dr. Hugo Strange, one of Batman’s earliest foes first introduced to the comics in 1940. From the outset, and as soon as you start playing the game, your job as Batman is to find out why the heck Dr. Hugo Strange is running things, and to unravel this mystery, you’ll have to direct the world’s greatest detective around some truly compelling content.

Any gamer who appreciated Batman Arkham Asylum will immediately appreciate the fluidity this latest release brings across from it because Rocksteady have done a great job at not only mirroring what made the previous game great (gameplay), but they have also made it even better. Essentially, beating up the bad guys is the core of this game, and it’s a two button affair with square being melee attack and triangle being counter. Although this may sound primitive, it actually works great, and the game rewards you for having terrific timing whereby you’ll be beating one guy to the ground whilst another tries to attack, only to have his own body weight used against him in an Aikido fashion all from pressing the triangle button. All in all, it’s quite easy for a first timer to look like a complete pro, however the game also has more complexity to its fights whereby you can use combo’s to disarm and destroy opponents rather than just melee and counter.

Rocksteady have also done a great job with Arkham City by keeping your fights different. Unlike a few combat orientated games, in this you’ll encounter goons with armour, shields, stun rods and guns as well as bosses – this makes each fight much more exciting than all of them being the same. What this also means is that the game has a lot of diversity to it, and finding yourself in all these different combat situations keeps you on your toes and never bored, allowing you to tactically fight rather than just mash buttons together.

Speaking of tactical gameplay, and you’ll find that as you make your way through Arkham City, you will never be scared. Essentially, taking high numbers of bad guys can be done with ease as long as you are prepared, with thanks to Batman having access to smoke pellets, a stun gun and freeze grenades which are unlocked once you beat Mr. Freeze in a boss fight. Numbered against 20 goons then, dropping a smoke pellet will render you invisible and in the time the smoke lasts, you’ll be able to beat down at least two before retreating back to the shadows and re assessing the situation.

Moving on to boss fights since I mentioned Mr. Freeze above, and they’re all quite easy to get past on easy and normal gaming modes. Crank the difficulty up though, and you’ll find a true challenge awaits. Of the boss fights, I’d say that the Mr. Freeze one took overall the longest for me as he adapts to each attack you place on him, rendering that attack useless against him a second time. In second place comes The Joker whilst trying to get a cure for Batman’s poisoned blood, where there are a lot of enemies to disperse whilst also trying to dodge trains from running you over. Overall however the boss fights are different from one another, keeping you on your toes and sometimes crying for the next one.

The map you’ll explore within Batman Arkham City is, for me, an enjoyable and diverse one and whilst you can’t exactly go in to every building (what would be the point?) you can pretty much zip-line up to any point you want and browse the city from high up, a lot like Spiderman games. Also littered across the map are side missions, which give you as the player another option aside from playing the main story of trying to figure out what’s going in Arkham City.

Replayability wise, I completed this game 2 days ago, however I’m playing through it again right now. The reason for this is pretty simple; Rocksteady have implemented a ‘Game Plus’ mode in to Arkham City whereby you can play the game once again, however with all your gadgets in tow. What this means is that you can easily disperse enemies and know exactly how to, however for me the benefit of this is that I can become more like Batman, and perfect myself in his shoes.

Overall

Overall Batman: Arkham City is an incredibly neat, polished and enthralling package all tied up with perhaps the greatest Detective of all time. During my play, there was not once that I wanted to put down my controller, and the game is so addictive I’m playing it twice. In terms of general appearance, and the graphics within the game are perfect, and the character voice overs are also brilliantly done whilst character portrayal is (dare I say it?) better than the recent films. All in all, I wouldn’t rather be playing any other game right now.

Rating: (9/10)