In 2009, a relatively unknown developer called Rocksteady caught the worlds attention when they released 'Batman: Arkham Asylum'. For the first time, a game had been made where you could really play the role of one of the most endearing and appealing pop culture icons. There had been attempts before it yes, but all had failed to encompass enough of what defined the character within the public consciousness. 'Arkham Asylum' contained the right blend of exploration, action and stealth, presented with polish and a love for the source material. This year's follow up has been hugely anticipated and should Rocksteady fail to meet their great expectations they stand to loose much of the good faith they earned just two years ago.
My biggest problem with 'Arkham Asylum' was it's story and gameplay focus. While the mechanics were all excellent, the plot was concerned primarily with Batman fighting bigger and bigger thugs. As much as I enjoyed aspects of the tale, I found this main drive to be boring and worse – miss the key elements of Batman role-play. The enclosed setting didn't help, with your time spent either inside corridors or outside in small, enclosed sections of the asylum grounds. Had the story been more of a psychological exploration of this enclosure, as the novel of the same name or games like 'Resident Evil' have done before, it could have worked. Instead, they only offered fighting. That fighting was good, but like most fans, I yearned to play as Batman in Gotham City, leaping across rooftops and gliding through the sky towards the next piece of an interesting mystery – not jogging and waiting for doors to open between meaningless brawls.
So when the sequel was announced just one year later, I had mixed feelings. I was so glad that the game would now be set in an urban area, but couldn't see the logic in keeping the 'Arkham' title. Did Rocksteady not understand? Their first game didn't win them the rights to develop the 'Batman: Arkham' game franchise, it won them the 'Batman' franchise as a whole! Besides, where do they go next? 'Arkham County'? 'Arkham World'? That question hasn't been answered, but I was relieved to find by playing the game that my fears were misplaced and that Rocksteady are well aware of what they're doing. When a thug on the streets made that exact same comment, it was confirmation that the developer knew this was an issue and clearly have a plan in mind.
In 'Arkham Asylym', Rocksteady failed to use the classic setting to tell a classic story. Thankfully with 'Arkham City', they at least use an original-if-contrived setting to tell an original-if-contrived one. There are two major plots going on behind the security walls. The first is the mysterious work of Hugo Strange, the man in charge of Arkham City and the only person to figure out Batman's secret identity. The other is the plight of The Joker, now fatally ill after the events on Arkham Island. These two stories never really work together, however while one of them has a damp ending, the other builds into a genuinely memorable climax. The whole thing has a pace and urgency that keeps things entertaining, and I'm glad to report that this time the story is actually one of the game's better aspects.
While the plot may have failed, what made Arkham Asylum both engaging and memorable were the mechanics of freeflow combat and stealth predation. Both are back for 'Arkham City' as you'd expect, only now even richer and better implemented. The attacks and counters are all context sensitive, meaning a fight by a wall will be completely different to a fight by a ledge. New to this game are group counters and takedowns, which are also context sensitive, making fights against huge gangs even more dramatic and dynamic. Batman will grab one thug, throw him into another, leap off a wall and kick two more at once before slamming the lasts head into a railing. The sense of empowerment is palpable – it's raw, exhausting and completely badass in a way few other games have ever matched.
The best move is a welcome surprise – interrogation. Rather than the maps from Asylum, City gives Batman a new, more appropriate way to seek out the locations of those pesky Riddler trophies. While stalking the streets you'll spot Riddler informants; some you can pick off in an alley, others you'll have to carefully avoid as you fight off a whole gang while keeping them conscious until the end. Once you've got them alone, you shake them down for info. This move is also context sensitive, and easily the most Batman-y thing you'll ever do in a game. Holding a man by his ankle off a rooftop as you bark threats to receive information leading you to a trapped hostage is exactly what a Batman game should be about! I've wanted to do this since I was a child, and it delights me every single time. It gives you a reason to take on big fights long after you've unlocked all the upgrades, and once winning a fight becomes the norm it adds a greater sense of accomplishment.
Those hostages you're after are just one of a wide array of side missions scattered across your map. From hunting serial killers to solving elaborate puzzles for trophies (which unlock concept art, character models and more), these tasks are much better than similar parts of other games (such as the flags of Assassin's Creed) and are enriched by a fidelity to the wider Batman mythos. Beyond the main game and it's harder Game Plus mode, there are also loads of challenge maps to play through, now with a harder linked campaign mode. The combat and predator mechanics are so well made they really do deserve a place to shine and can offer hours of fun in their own right. These take place in various locations from the game, with the predator maps really showing a quality of design as you'll find all sorts of ways to move through them and stalk your prey. If that's not enough, now you can even design your own challenges, setting the rules to test your skills.
Free from the Asylum, these locations are much more varied than before. Now you hunt through smoke stacks, sneak through alleyways and wage one-man wars on rooftops. One of the best parts of the first game was Batman's gliding ability, but there was never anywhere you could really use it. Thanks to the loading doors between even outside areas, you were left to do more mundane walking and sprinting instead. Here the glide is your default movement, used with your grapple to quickly travel around the sizeable cityscape. Once you unlock the Grapple Boost move you can increase speed and launch right off another ledge, and then the dive bomb lets you gain speed and altitude as well as making a great impact on anyone unlucky enough to be below you. As with the combat, these mechanics are fluid while always feeling powerful. It's a natural expansion to the gameplay and one of it's best selling points. Simply moving around the city is entertaining, and while the visuals do still lean towards dark and murky, they're suitably Gothic and punctuated by select uses of bright neon details. The open world takes the game away from the Metroid-room structure used last time, making for better contrast between indoors and out. Now the interiors are more like classic Zelda dungeons, where you move through, seek upgrades, solve puzzles and fight the occasional boss. Every setting feels Batman appropriate and are fun to return to and explore once the story is over.
The politics of Arkham City make it a much more interesting social setting than Arkham Asylum. A super-villain gang war is a natural progression of the concept of an unsupervised city-prison, and the execution is satisfying. The freedom of the location allows each rogue to create their own environment rather than vaguely adopt one; Penguin has his Iceberg Lounge, Two-Face his courthouse, Joker his funfair/steel mill. Thugs are made-up in line with their gang leader, speculating on characters and story events on the rare occasions they're not trying to kill you. Their conversations are a large part of the atmosphere of 'Arkham City', a reminder that the conditions of the prison are cruel and hostile. Prisoners assault one and other for food, live in dilapidated shanty towns and suffer the cold of a winter's night. The snow that falls through the dark sky is reminiscent of that in Max Payne, another game where a grim and violent urban setting is given the same gentle visual contrast. It may not feel entirely unique, but it's undoubtedly effective and sets just the right tone for a story concerned with disease, death and injustice.
Unfortunately this is not the only feature of the game's overall design you'll feel like you've seen before. From the appearance of the characters to the composition of the score, everything in 'Arkham City' feels like it's been assembled from the bits of other Batman media – and not in a good way. I understand the reasoning, it's an artistic approach that will curb fan-boy backlash and deliver a Batman that can be recognised by the widest possible audience. However the finished product is sloppy - a Frankenstein's Monster without a genuine vision for who they really are aesthetically as an individual piece of work. When you look at the best Batman books, films and television shows you'll see a huge variety of styles that are all recognised as Batman, yet completely their own. From Burton to Dini to Nolan, from Miller to McKean to Lee even, you find bold and unique visions of The Dark Knight and Gotham itself. All Rocksteady and their artists have done is collect the bits they liked and put them into a blender. For example; their Joker has Nicholson’s eyes, Hamill's voice and Lee's slender frame. These are all great, what what does this Joker have that's all his own? What do any of the characters in Arkham City have that fans can look to and say “that was a great idea”? Their approach is safe, sterile and worst of all – incoherent! They say Two-Face was scarred by acid – so why does he have the fire burns from 'The Dark Knight'? If he was burned, how does he have the perfectly separated two-tone suit from 'The Animated Series'? For all the work done to realise Arkham City as a populated world, most of the final product just doesn't fit together.
I will admit the one area where this blended approach works is the music. While it's clear where the Elfman brass ends and the Zimmer strings begin, it almost doesn't matter because this is one cut-and-paste job with some thought behind it – a collage that creates something bigger out of its parts. Composer Nick Arundel's fusion of big bravado choirs with lighter, steady percussion rhythms and scratchy strings is something I can't say I've heard before applied to Batman and it works magnificently. The way the music builds during predator encounters is amazing and by the time the last man is standing you'll be completely absorbed in the character and the action. The sound design is also rock solid, especially the Batman specific sounds such as the grapple or smoke bombs that are exactly as you'd imagine, even if they've never been done quite this way before.
While still not perfect, 'Batman: Arkham City' has taken the gameplay that worked in 'Arkham Asylum' and applied it to a much more open and suitable location. It has a better story to tell, more to do and is always thrilling to play. It's exciting to think of where this franchise could go next, although at least now we finally have a Batman game worthy of the series. It could use a strong artistic vision to match the outstanding gameplay, but for now this is merely one of the best third-person action games of this generation, and a strong contender for the best superhero game of all-time.
Rating: 4.5 Stars
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