Batman Arkham City Armored Edition Review

Batman Arkham City Armored Edition Review | October 27, 2013
Nintendo Wii U Exclusive Title

With the greatness that is Batman Arkham Asylum we all knew that there was going to more games. Being trapped on Arkham Island with the inmates and many of the Blackgate prisoners was everything that a superhero gamer could want. Arkham City finds a way to make something even better in this. Batman Arkham City Armored Edition is more than twice the size of the Arkham Asylum and has way more things to do. You only had Arkham Island to explore now you have an entire city that Hugo Strange has blocked off and let the criminal element run wild, even though he is telling everybody in Gotham that everything is under control. Arkham City is huge devolving area filled with nothing but crime and political prisoners who were throw into this walled off part of Gotham. Even Bruce Wayne is imprisoned for speaking out. Now that he is inside Batman is trying to find out what Strange is up to and how did he get the mayor to agree and also bypass Commissioner Gordon who is not in favor of this new prison system.

Batman Arkham City Armored Edition brings together great gameplay and engaging storytelling in another perfect game. The perfect combat returns along with outstanding controls and the camera is always where it needs to be. There is zero issues with the game mechanics. The increase in the size of the game is what is most impressive. Using your grappling hook to travel across the city is something that was missing from the first game. Arkham City is huge with new side missions to figure out and 440 different Riddler challenges scattered across the city. Side quests cover other Batman villain’s stories like Victor Freeze needs your help finding his wife. Somebody is assignation people with a perfect shot every time and a secret society is leaving marks around for Batman to find.

So how is Armored Edition different from the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Arkham City? First Armored Edition is more of a GOTY edition because it comes with Harley Quinn’s Revenge and Catwoman pack, both have single player campaigns. Plus the game has several other DLC packs like challenge maps and new costumes. The DLC is on the disk, so even used copies of the game should have this content (this could change). The most important different is the Battle Armored Tech Mode or B.A.T. Mode. This is a suit of armor that Batman and Catwoman are wearing that builds up energy when taking hits or dealing damage. Once the suit gets powered up you can unleash the power making your hits stronger and do more damage and take out and of the villains easier.

The Detective mode is a little different also. You use the gamepad to scan for evidence and you have access to all of Batman’s gadgets right in front of you. This game is even better than Arkham Asylum but Asylum is not available to Nintendo gamers on the Wii or Wii U at the time of this review. The story has many twists and integrates many of the people in the Batman universe perfectly. There are 94 personal bios to find from everyone to Vicki Vale to Calendar Man. Even after you go through the 12 to 15 hours storyline all the side missions and Riddler stuff could take you between 50 to 70 hours overall if not more. With great gameplay, many hours of missions and a high replay value we once again give Batman a perfect score. Worth buy even at new game prices!

10 out of 10
Buy This Game Today