Arkham City has been promoted and received with critical acclaim like few games before it. It was dark, funny, awesome and achieved the impossible in making you possibly agree with some of the villains. That alone is worthy of commendation. Having completed the game and played around the epilogue I'm ready to lay down my thoughts.
The game begins with part of Gotham being turned into a prison where criminals lay waste to each other. Bruce Wayne attempts to shut down Arkham where he is arrested, a psycho named Hugo Strange reveals he knows Bruce is Batman and imprisons him. From there Batman learns that The Joker is dying from the same disease that is killing him and has to find a cure.
That's only the opening hours, there's much more. Some may find it overwhelming or hard to keep track of all the characters but I found it no worse than Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row. And that's what this game is, it's a Wide Open Sandbox with the goddamn Batman. You can concentrate on rushing to the GCPD to find out Mr. Freeze had been kidnapped, work with Bane in a side mission, hunt down Riddler trophies or just go all Al's Ghul on the inmates.
There's a lot to do, and a lot of tools to do them with. You have your batarangs, grappling hooks, smoke pellets and such, but what about a gadget that jams a thug's gun? A zip line? A radiodecryptor? Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys indeed. Now to the two things that impressed me the most, the characters and the music.
Riddler for example has been turned from Jim Carrey as...Jim Carrey to Neil Patrick Harris as Jigsaw. The Penguin in Batman Returns is gross, in Batman The Animated Series he was cool but here he's made into a Complete Monster and delivers a memorable performance. And as I said at the start of the review you can see from the villain's point of view. Two Face being an okay guy? Imprison then kill off criminals, why not? Even the link between Batman and Joker makes sense. For that matter, in the game Batman is kind of a dick.
The music takes it's cues from the cartoon, The Dark Knight Saga, even Batman Forever. Just play the church and tell me you're not impressed.
My biggest gripe is you cannot skip the game over screens, they're cool but they get frigging annoying. I'm also not a fan of clothing damage on Catwoman, but now I've hit my word limit so check the game out for yourself.
A very deserving Game of the Year
Arkham City has been promoted and received with critical acclaim like few games before it. It was dark, funny, awesome and achieved the impossible in making you possibly agree with some of the villains. That alone is worthy of commendation. Having completed the game and played around the epilogue I'm ready to lay down my thoughts.
The game begins with part of Gotham being turned into a prison where criminals lay waste to each other. Bruce Wayne attempts to shut down Arkham where he is arrested, a psycho named Hugo Strange reveals he knows Bruce is Batman and imprisons him. From there Batman learns that The Joker is dying from the same disease that is killing him and has to find a cure.
That's only the opening hours, there's much more. Some may find it overwhelming or hard to keep track of all the characters but I found it no worse than Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row. And that's what this game is, it's a Wide Open Sandbox with the goddamn Batman. You can concentrate on rushing to the GCPD to find out Mr. Freeze had been kidnapped, work with Bane in a side mission, hunt down Riddler trophies or just go all Al's Ghul on the inmates.
There's a lot to do, and a lot of tools to do them with. You have your batarangs, grappling hooks, smoke pellets and such, but what about a gadget that jams a thug's gun? A zip line? A radiodecryptor? Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys indeed. Now to the two things that impressed me the most, the characters and the music.
Riddler for example has been turned from Jim Carrey as...Jim Carrey to Neil Patrick Harris as Jigsaw. The Penguin in Batman Returns is gross, in Batman The Animated Series he was cool but here he's made into a Complete Monster and delivers a memorable performance. And as I said at the start of the review you can see from the villain's point of view. Two Face being an okay guy? Imprison then kill off criminals, why not? Even the link between Batman and Joker makes sense. For that matter, in the game Batman is kind of a dick.
The music takes it's cues from the cartoon, The Dark Knight Saga, even Batman Forever. Just play the church and tell me you're not impressed.
My biggest gripe is you cannot skip the game over screens, they're cool but they get frigging annoying. I'm also not a fan of clothing damage on Catwoman, but now I've hit my word limit so check the game out for yourself.