Batman Arkham City Review

Batman Arkham City Review | October 27, 2013
Xbox, Windows, OS X, PlayStation

With the greatness that is Batman Arkham Asylum we all knew that there was going to more games in this series. 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 new game. Batman Arkham City is more than twice the size of the Arkham Asylum. You only had Arkham Island to explore but now in Arkham City 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.

Batman Arkham City 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 and has 440 different Riddler challenges scattered all over the city. Side missions all 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 who is this secret society that keeps leaving marks around for Batman to find.

Arkham City has made the Detective mode more in-depth. It still highlights hidden things but you use it a lot for forensic investigations. For example, following a chemical in the air to your target, scanning for a blood sample at a crime scene or calculating the angle of a gunmen’s bullet. You could play the whole game in Detective mode. You can use it to see how many targets are in a building or room and how many of them are armed. You can play many parts of the combat however you want. You can just charge in and attack everyone you see or sneak up on thugs and take them out in more of a stealthy way. You can even use many of your gadgets as weapons during combat easily and you want to figure out how to use all of your gadgets in this way. This game is even better than the first Batman Arkham game and we loved the first game. 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. With great gameplay, many hours of missions and a high replay value we once again give Batman a perfect score and tell you, buying and playing Batman Arkham City is a gamers time and money well invested.

10 out of 10
Buy This Game Today

10 out of 10
Buy This Game Today

Rated
T for
Teen

Rated
PEGI 16