Game Review: Batman: Arkham City

BATMAN has always been a pretty cool hero, from the early days of Adam West strutting around in his tights, to the dark and somewhat bleak Christian Bale versions , and of course we have had the video games with Batman: Arkham asylum followed by the brilliant Batman: Arkham City.
By The Leet
Published 3rd Jan 2013, 10:00 BST

Now for all you gamers who missed it first time round Warner Brothers have released Batman: Arkham city game of the year edition, it is packed with loads of extras, and if you haven`t played it already then it’s definitely worth a look

This version has all the DLC included, there are seven new maps, three playable characters and twelve skins available plus Harley Quinn`s revenge , where you get to play as both Batman and Robin, interchanging between characters to utilise each ones unique skills.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Batman Arkham city is the follow up to the acclaimed Arkham asylum both developed by UK based Rocksteady studios, it has the same intense atmospheric feel as the first one, only with more stealth and combat, written by veteran Batman writer Paul Dini it quickly absorbs you into the corrupt and twisted world of Arkham city a maximum security prison for some of Gothams most dangerous and deranged criminals, reminds me of Escape from New York the 1981 Kurt Russel action movie.

The story begins as Bruce Wayne, the Billionare playboy with a few flying rodent issues, is kidnapped at a political rally and incarcerated inside Arkham city, a massive prison in the centre of Gotham, under the cover of a riot, Bruce makes a break for it and contacts Alfred who sends over his Bat suit, and then its kicking bottoms time, you mission, to protect the inmates from the really bad inmates and investigate the mysterious protocol 10.

As Batman you then proceed to take down the likes of Penguin, Joker and a multitude of deranged bad guys, with plenty of gadgets and a fair amount of sneaking around, and because the game is open world there are plenty of side missions to take on, if you’re stuck on the main story and fancy another challenge for instance.

The voice acting is brilliant with Kevin Conroy as Batman and the return of Mark (Luke Skywalker) Hamill as the Joker , with a brilliant music score by Nick Arundel and Ron Fish, Batman Arkham City is a pretty full on experience.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

With a challenging campaign and plenty of side missions available its great value for money, the graphics and game mechanics work really well with some nice combos and weaponry, there tends to be more stealth than actual combat, yet it’s still quite a challenge to pick off the bad guys especially as some of them have heart monitors, night vision goggles and even jammers so you really have to plan your moves before you get stuck in.

Originally released in 2011 Batman Arkham City received numerous awards including Best Xbox 360 game, Best Graphics and best score to name just three, having sold two million copies in the first week of release it became one of the fastest selling games of all time.

Summary

Batman: Arkham city is by far one of the best games to hit consoles in a long time and with the updated Batman Arkham City Armored Edition for the WiiU also available there are no excuses for missing out

Batman: Arkham city Game of the year edition is certainly worth the money if you have never played it before, with a great story, superb graphics and challenging gameplay (especially now with all the DLC included)

Batman Arkham City Game Of The Year Edition

Developers: Rocksteady

Publishers: Warner Brothers Interactive

Playstation 3®

Xbox 360®

PC

WiiU

OSX

Genre: Openworld/Stealth/RPG

Release Date: 30th November 2012