Batman: Arkham City for Playstation 3

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Anybody who has played Batman: Arkham Asylum and loved it knows precisely why it was such an amazing game. Take one part Matrix: Path of Neo for epic, super-human martial arts beat-em up; ad in another part Splinter Cell style sneaking around in dark environments for tense moments that test skill and patience; throw in some cool gadgetry to help you along the way like in Ape Escape; mix it in with amazing graphics, superb voice actors, and arguably the greatest super-hero ever and you had Batman: Arkahm Asylum.

So, how much more can such an already amazing game offer us if given a sequel? Apparently, a whole lot more.

If you can believe it, the intro to Arkham City is even better and more pulse-pounding than the intro to the first. You start off, not as Batman, but as Bruce Wayne, who is lobbying against Arkham City. I won't give anything away about what soon happens to our seemingly mild-mannered aristocrat, but I will say this...laying the beat down on some thugs as the boy-billionaire is one of coolest experiences I've had in gaming.

Soon afterwards, you suit up. Now you are Batman, but this isn't a self-contained island you're dealing with anymore. This is a no man's land. Pouncing on an unsuspecting group of baddies isn't as simple as it used to be; there are always more goons lurking around the corners, ready to jump into the fray like a vicious pack of wolves. More than once you'll find yourself overwhelmed and having to flee a fight while the stinging insults of said goons follow in your wake. Take my advice and just let it go. Survival is the name of the game.

If you've been watching Youtube then you've no doubt seen Batman's new flight mechanics. These are as fun in practice as they are to watch, although there is a learning curve to gliding effectively. There's also a pesky helicopter searching for you at all times. These guys are Tyger, Hugo Strange's own henchmen. Avoiding the helicopter can be tricky, but also fun.

As you'd expect, Arkham City plays almost exactly like the first one with a few tweaks and upgrades. Batman starts off with most of the same gadgets he had at the end of the first, including the grapple gun, the cryptographic sequencer and the remote batarang. He also has several new moves for melee situations. Batman must've been taking lessons from Chuck Norris because his martial arts are better and flashier than ever. He now has the ability to perform a counter-attack against two or more assailants at a time instead of just one. He has a new punch combo attack where he repeatedly thrusts with each press of the button. As Batman lays down an 18 punch combo on a single guy, or gigantic goon, I can't help but think of Kenshiro! "The one-hundred crack fist of the North Star! You're already dead!" Oh, but...this is Batman so minus the brutal killing of your foes. Let's just say he's more like Donkey Kong when beating up some Tikis.

The new combat moves make the game as fun as ever but also makes NOT using them an exercise in restraint. As stated before, enemies can show up when you least suspect and they sometimes pack heat. This will undoubtedly force all of us to use our brains even more when devising effective plans of attack. To aid in stealthy takedowns are a new set of "predator moves" where Batman can use far more takedowns from different hiding positions than he had previously. Again, a new set of moves and abilities to augment the ones we had before in Arkham Asylum. It's almost like the first game just laid the foundation and the sequel built onto it!

In addition to the main story mission are additional side missions that will pop up along the way. These may have you saving random inmates from other, worse inmates, to working with Bane to dispose of drums of Titan chemicals (Titan once more plays into the game's story) to solving mysteries planted by the Riddler. (By now we've all heard the "Riddler is Jigsaw!" equations made by everyone so I won't bore you with that. I don't even like Saw). You may want to hold off on the missions that involve Zaasz making you run across Arkham City to answer telephones until you've unlocked some flying upgrades. Certain henchmen will be highlighted in green. These are henchmen you can interrogate to acquire more info about the various crime lords they are working under. Taking them out last to initiate interrogation is a tough and not always fun exercise that we will nevertheless do in order to gain more precious XPs.

This game has a dark look and feel that pulls you in. Jumping across rooftops as the Batman is a whole `nother experience from doing it as Spiderman. The dingy, grungy look of the city, the background music and ambience. All of these together invade your subconscious until you feel alive with primal, survival instincts. I can't even describe it, really. You feel like a predator, but also like the prey. You're always walking a narrow line between seeming invincibility, and utter helplessness. This game puts you in a place all of us have been our whole lives without always realizing. When we dreamed we were running from danger, or dreamed we were conquering obstacles to achieve glory. This is just a personal opinion, of course, but I'd swear I've seen this in my dreams. Maybe I was just dreaming of being the Batman. This is as close as any of us will likely get.

The villains look fantastic. Mr. Freeze, interestingly enough, has a huge suit that reminds me of the Mr. Freeze suit from Batman and Robin. I apologize for even bringing THAT movie up, but the suit in that movie was still cool looking. Mr. Freeze looks menacing and sounds awesome with the voice talents of Maurice LaMarche (the guy who was Brain in Pinky and the Brain and about a million different voices in Futurama!) Penguin looks viscious and cruel and is twice as ruthless, no doubt to overcome his own size. Twoface looks somewhere between The Animated Series version and the Dark Knight version. Then there's the unexpected appearance of Solomon Grundy who looks like a nightmarish Frankenstein's monster and who is even bigger than Killer Croc!

In summation, Arkahm City is anther step forward for an already revolutionary game franchise. There are the usual shortcomings, however. You may find yourself wandering around, not knowing what to do until you trigger the right event to move the game forward. Figuring out some of the new controls may be a chore even to veteran players. And the boss fights still feel like, well, boss fights. Run around, dodge attacks and wait for the inevitable weak point to expose itself. Standard video game stuff, really. Of course, that's just all part of the experience. If it was too easy we wouldn't enjoy it as much, would we?

There's no reason for anyone who liked Arkahm Asylum to not like this one. If you didn't like the first one then I don't know how I could recommend this to you. It's the same game, just much bigger. If you don't like sandbox sandbox games and prefer something linear you can still focues on just the main mission. On the whole it's the same game, just with more stuff. That may be good news to some and bad news for others. For fans of the first, it definitely delivers. We finally got the new Batman Game, now just three more weeks til Skyrim!

**Update**

Some people may compare this game's story, not unjustly, to Escape from NewYork. Maybe they're just nitpicking, though. Even if that's the case, there are still plenty of twists and turns to keep players genuinely surprised right up until they get to of the end main mission.

I'm afraid I can't comment much on DLC since they have it in such a way that different people get different things. I've heard after a certain point, though, we'll all be able to download the same content...for a price.

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I really enjoyed Batman: Arkham Asylum so I expected big things here. Thankfully, Arkham City keeps all the good elements of the first game, makes some improvements, and adds enough new elements that the experience still feels fresh.

The one major downside to Arkham Asylum to me was the need to almost constantly use the X-ray vision mode to see where thugs were lurking around corners in order to plan stealth attacks in relatively small spaces. This time around, the city environment allows for much greater movement, and the lighting makes it easy to see enemies without going to X-ray mode, while still keeping a dark atmosphere. Strategy is still needed since some of the bad guys carry guns, but I no longer feel like I'm playing the role of a ninja, taking out one guy and scurrying back into the shadows. It's very cool to look to the sky and see the bat-signal indicating the direction of your current primary objective.

The number of melee attacks you can unlock is so extensive it felt overwhelming at first. Fortunately you have the option to have a prompt come up at the bottom of the screen when your combo meter is high enough to use advanced attacks. The more sophisticated and varied your fighting style, the more XP points you get to unlock more abilities and upgrade your armor.

Then there are the hundreds of Riddler trophies to obtain. Some are merely hidden from sight, while others are in plain view but require solving a puzzle to free them for collection. There is even a device that involves chaining letters together to form words to solve some of the riddles. There are also various challenges like gliding a certain distance, performing certain attacks successfully, and destroying Joker teeth, each of which awards a Riddler trophy. Just collecting all the trophies is like a game in itself, and is a nice way to break up the action. Also, you can hold down the L2 button to mark a Riddler trophy on your map if you can't currently retrieve it. Tip: If there is no evident way to get to a trophy, mark it and move on. Many require gadgets that you may not have yet, and the red ones can only be obtained by Catwoman.

Catwoman has really nice martial arts attacks, can use her whip and other weapons, and can make repeated jumps to scale a building in place of Batman's grappling hook. She definitely feels fully developed and in no way tacked on as a promotional gimmick.

Batman's gliding ability combined with being able to grapple from midair makes it easy to get around the city. It's fun, the physics are well done, and it is practically useful.

The graphics in this game are some of the best I've ever seen. I never have that sensation like in some sandbox games where the buildings look painted into the background and unrealistic. It really feels like a living, breathing world, especially since there are always optional side missions popping up and bad guys lurking and chatting about what's going on. The voice acting is very good, especially Mark Hamill's portrayal of The Joker.

AI in this game is impressive. If I take out one in a gang with stealth and the others find him, they go on alert and actively search. This means altering their patrol patterns, staying closer together, and turning around much more often to watch their backs. It's a refreshing change from games where guys go on alert for a minute, then return to mindlessly walking the exact same path and begging to be picked off. The game is challenging but never cheap, and if you have trouble with certain elements of fighting you can upgrade accordingly. The ability to throw down a smoke pellet when coming under gunfire is a great addition.

I don't have a bad thing to say about this game. I'm not one to go overboard with praise and ignore flaws, but there are no issues here. No bugs, no collision detection problems, no slowdown despite the huge scale of the city, no painful logic gaps in the story or motivation. You can tell Rocksteady had a great engine to start with, and spent their time fixing issues and expanding gameplay in creative ways. Too often I get frustrated during a game and wonder "didn't the developers care if this is actually fun to play?". During the many hours I've spent in Arkham City, I have only asked that once, which was when I was first learning how to glide. There is no tutorial and I had to go online to figure out how to dive and pull up. That temporary problem aside, the game is nonstop fun, with enough challenge that I've died numerous times in ways that left me saying "I need to plan better next time". This is the sort of game where you're saying goodbye to months of your life when you pick it up, which you should do right now.

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Full disclosure: I bought this knowing with 100% certainty that I will never ever play it. And, since we got it, I haven't. But I'm going to approach this review from another perspective entirely: that of the girlfriend.

My boyfriend's birthday was the day after this game was released. I picked up Batman Arkham Asylum: Game of the Year Greatest Hits for him last year and he loved it, so I was well prepared this year and placed my pre-order months in advance. When he finally was able to open it on his birthday, my boyfriend was thrilled and couldn't wait to play the game that had been hyped as the best game to be released in 2011.

Now, I don't avoid playing these kind of games because I'm a girl. I'm well aware there are heaps of girl-gamers out there who will eat this game up, but I'm not going to lie and pretend I'm one of them. I cripple under the pressure of playing dark and gloomy high-stakes video games. I'm one of those people who panics when the characters are shooting at me so I'm usually dead before I've even completed one percent of the gameplay. Little Big Planet 1 & 2 and the Lego games are more my speed (lame, I know...) That said, I'm the kind of person who enjoys being the co-pilot, so to speak. My boyfriend will play this game for hours on our HDTV and, if nothing better is going on, I'll sit beside him and watch. I often catch little things he misses, like the side missions, Ridler trophies, level up's, etc. I'm sure this could probably get annoying, but I try to keep my mouth shut as much as possible and act only as an occasional assistant.

But from the perspective of the girlfriend who loses her boyfriend for hours (and sometimes days!) at a time while he's fully immersed in the gameplay and hogging our television... this game is pretty sweet. What I like most about it is that there is so much going on all at once. It isn't the same old repetitive thing where a bunch of hostiles come around a corner and sneak attack you and you spend the entire time taking them down one by one. There are puzzles to problem-solve, there is definitely a strategy to it, you have side missions with the Ridler and Zsaz... It's more like watching an interactive movie for the person who isn't playing the game, which keeps me interested instead of annoyed.

As compared to the last installment in the Batman: Arkham francise, this game seems to have at least four times as much content to it. It's longer and it involves a lot more multi-tasking than the last one. Which is great in the bang-for-your-buck sense, for sure. I like it because it wasn't cheap, but I feel like it's going to take my boyfriend a while before he gets all the way through it.

So, all in all, if you're considering buying this for your spouse/significant other/roommate/family member, but you don't want to be bored out of your mind while they become a game-zombie: fear not! Even from the perspective of the outside observer, this game is a great choice too!

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This wont be like my MW3 review, but in contrast, will be more brief and informative for this is how I like to present them.

This game is hands down amazing! There are no other words to describe it. From start to finish I was fully immersed into the story and gameplay. So what exactly makes this game so awesome you might ask. Well, let me elaborate a bit about the key features that really drew me in. The new combat moves are sick! I felt like a champ owning the cpu's in Arkham Asylum, now, In Arkham City, Im feeling like a boss tearing through these guys like a martial arts virtuoso. In short, you are going to have a lot of fun with this. Now, on to the storyline and gameplay. This is probably the most important feature of the game and it does not disappoint. Nowadays, most games rely on great looking graphics to fill the gap that the horrible story creates. Luckily, that is not the case for Arkham City. In this game, it seems as if both awesome graphics and amazing storyline coexist creating this single player masterpiece. I think that future developers should take note of this, and use it in upcoming titles. During the game, I found little to no dull spots. There was always something keeping my attention, which is great. There was also very little repetition, so you cant really get bored of the same thing recurring. The last thing I'd like to talk about is the dialogue. Your probably thinking, how is that important? Well, Its something you really cant tell is good, until its gone. I have had many instances with other games where the dialogue was so bad, that it threw off my entire gaming experience. As you might have guessed, Arkham City excels in this area as well. The voice acting was executed superbly and was like music to my ears hearing realistic responses and arguments. Overall, this game is fantastic. I believe the developers of this game have really outdone themselves here. A truly awesome experience. I'd recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of the batman series or just loves superheros. This game will not disappoint.

If you found this review helpful, please leave a positive vote. Thanks. Also, If you have any questions regarding the game or this review, feel free to leave a comment and I'll be sure to answer them as best as possible.

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I bought this game because I heard alot of good things about it. I could not find any "legitimate" bad reviews. All I can say is this is a great game from start to finish. Anyone I have let play it has become completly hooked. It doesnt hurt that it was just voted as game of the year. Well deserved and highly recommended!