Batman: Arkham City
Once again you don the mantle of the world’s greatest detective in Arkham City the thrilling sequel to Arkham Asylum.
Set almost a year after the events of Arkham Asylum the warden’s plans to turn the slums of Gotham City (more commonly known as the narrows) as a sort of mass prison are set in motion when he becomes mayor. Batman is totally against the plan but he is powerless to stop it, but maybe Bruce Wayne can do something. Though getting kidnapped and carted off to the new prison isn’t exactly the something he had in mind.
Batman quickly breaks free and is ready to take on the inhabitants of Arkham City, because it isn’t just the Joker this time that has come out to play….
Over the course of the night you will:
Be kidnapped, shot at, see both sides of Harvey Dent, get poisoned, shot at again, play a game of cat and mouse with Zsasz, save the innocent prisoners, go ice skating with Mr Freeze, shot at again, take a trip to the city of future, see an angel, take a tour of the museum, have a tea party, partake of some drugs, test out all your new nifty flying skills, get shot at again, have an identity crisis, play green peace with bane, put penguins on the endangered list, play spin the mace with a dead man, dance with the devil, meet a Strange man take in a show with a blob of clay and jump from a lot of really, really high places.
Riddler has also upped his game this time doubling the amount of riddles and puzzles to well over 400 all scattered across Arkham City. Everything from simple pick-ups to timed traps and precision hitting. Collecting the trophies brings you a step closer each time to freeing one of the Riddler’s hostages from his saw-esque styled rooms of death to the man himself.
Batman has a large area to take on and so his arsenal of gadgets and moves has also grown to match this. He has no less than 12 different styles of takedowns some of them quiet and some not so much but all are effective as you battle your way through the masses of henchmen and thugs that roam the prison grounds. You also get a few more gadgets, like all your basic ones from the Asylum plus some new ones like the ability to create a tight rope to walk along, frost grenades and weapon jammers.
You also now have the ability to glide and dive to increase your speed enabling you to travel faster and further than ever before, and once you obtain the grapple boost upgrade you could cover the entire zone without your feet ever having to touch the ground.
intermixed with the main story is a side story based around Catwoman (which you need to Download if you want to play) and her war with Harvey and a bunch of her treasure, will she escape the city or come to the aid of our caped crusader?
So are you ready to put on your cowl and face the night? Let’s Talk Batman Arkham City.
Brilliant piece Charlie you have summed it up perfectly it makes me want to play it again. The thing that makes this game for me is the combat system. Some people will call it button bashing but once you get to grips with the gadgets and the flow its one of the best systems and really makes you feel like the dark knight. The stealth and detective modes are extremely addictive I never get tired of stringing a poor sap up by his ankle lol
thanks :) I try not to add every single thing into the body of the piece so there will actually be something to talk about afterwards :) yeah the combat is greatly improved over the first game more fluid and less halting can easily clock over 35x combos with enough goons to smack in the face. i like all the new take downs smashing through walls and windows but still the classic swoop from a hanging spot to string them up is my favourite. the best improve over stuff that was in both games however is the detective mode. in the first game i felt like i had to have it on alllll the time and was missing out on most of the beautifully crafted landscapes and stuff but now its mostly turned on for finding evidence and once or twice when i first enter a room, from then on i can just use my eyes.
uh huh :D its a challenge i set to my self to stealth out the entire room with none the wiser of where i am :D by the end i have one guy left shaking in his booties blasting at steam pipes, I've also never lost a Riddler informant though this one has been harder when there is also a boss involved I usually stun lock the informant (three swoops of the cape to the face) so they are down and out of the fight for a bit and arn't likely to be bashed up by me or the other guys.
I started off being super careful with them like you but then after a while i would try to leave them to last dodging their attacks or cape stunning them. If it didn't work and they got a slap from me I would have to find another.
One of the things that did bug me was some of the finer controls. Movement wasn't very delicate and the edge detection sometimes was shocking leading to some fustrating leapsb and falls lol
pfft i never treated them like delicate flowers if there was only a few guys i would just jump over them and sometimes counter their moves it was only in the larger groups (8+) when i could be there for a while that they got the stun lock treatment.
ha i don't think i have played a game yet that has fully gotten that right, really bugs me in most platformers (uncharted assassin's creed, prince of Persia was a big one for this) "I SAID JUMP FORWARD DAMMIT IT NOT RIGHT!!!!!!!!" <that was me...... a lot
have you played as catwoman? i brought the collector's edition so she was always there from my first playthrough, so i don't know what its like to play without her part in the mix. if you did what do you think of her part in the story? how was her mechanics handled? if you don't do you think there is something missing from the game without her there?
I love all of Batman's gadgets. Hanging upside down and snatching the guys up is boss! But I hate how it would start you ALL the way across the city when you died on a mission and you would have to get back before you could reattempt it. That frustrated me and took a lot of the fun away. I agree with Guy, the combat is really awesome and you feel like you are actually in a fight.
okies i think i figured out what's happening for you, its taking you back to the last time it auto saved. if you are having trouble staying alive outdoors find a building close to the area you need to fight in and enter it or solve a riddle and collect the trophy it will save/checkpoint you there other then that i'm sorry there isn't much you can do except survive the fights :(
run through this check list if anything ticks play it
kicking ass
looking awesome while kicking ass
love of gadgets
sneaking up on bad guys and mushing their heads into walls/floors/other thugs
listen to an engaging storyline - key points on this everyone in there barring catwoman want to kill batman :P
Beat this game a week or so ago, and there is still a ton of stuff to do in it. The combat system feels more fluid than Arkham Asylum's, and the gadgets are awesome. I find the freeze blast and cluster grenades especially useful. The boss fights were also a lot more fun than AA, IMO. I especially enjoyed the fights against Freeze and Ra's al Ghul.
What was your opinion of the ending?
yes I found it much more fluid and easier to rack up the combo flow in AC even in hard mode, heh one of my favourites is the gun jammer disable the weapons and instead of sneaking up to knock them out i land right in front of them and watch them freak as their weapons don't work, after that they make a nice rug to walk over.
ooo yes freeze's fight made you stop and think (well not literally stop cause then he'd catch you :P) and the whole Ra's story arch was awesome, though I slightly liked the scarecrow boss from AA more.
I was shocked by the ending. but really anything could happen in the next one.
thanks for reading :)