Batman: Arkham City; the Best $30 I’ve spent In a Long Time

Written by Cole Burton Monday, 28 November 2011 12:00

When that “wonderful” time of the year we know as Black Friday rolled around this year, I realized how much I have and how little I need.  Crazy, right?  All of this extra money, low prices, and no shopping list.  But, there was one game I had been determined to get since its release.  Unfortunately, Batman: Arkham City got buried deep on my to buy list, what with all of the other hit games ever since late October.  I finally pulled the trigger, and have spent very little time away from the controller.

Batman: Arkham City has actually changed my gaming style in a way.  For example, I HATED COLLECTABLES.  In any game from Uncharted to Call of Duty, I always hated wasting time, searching the entire game for scraps of nothing.  I mean, come on.  What do those treasures and intel pieces do for you?  While they do make sense, at least keep them out of the trophies and achievements.  Well, much of Arkham City’s replay value comes from searching every square inch of the map getting countless riddler trophies.  But, they find ways to make this enjoyable.  You can interrogate certain enemies to get the rough location of these trophies, and then spend the chunk of time figuring out how to collect them.  In Arkham City, it’s more about getting to them than it is finding them.  Some of these said trophies will require a lot of cunning to uncase and gather.

Another thing about my gaming style is that I hate button mashers.  Games like God of War and Heavenly Sword and other “Combo Games” just aren’t my type of game.  But, Arkham City is different once again.  It may seem like a button masher for a moment or two if you’re surrounded by unarmed guards and choose to take them all out, but otherwise it’s up to you.  You can be stealthy and pick them off one by one from behind, you can lay traps, you can use your Bat arsenal, and it’s really up to you.

The plot of Arkham City is amazing, and just about every Batman villain you want to see will appear in some way.  This keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time, but there was one thing that disappointed me, and that was the appearances of heroes.  While you get more than your fair dose of bad guys, the frequent heroes are just Batman and Catwoman.  Nightwing is the first DLC for Batman: Arkham City, but he doesn’t appear in the story mode at all.  Then, the more recent DLC character Robin only appears once in the story, despite saying he would not be leaving Arkham City.  I discussed this with some friends and they all roughly gave me the same response: the game’s focus is with Batman, not his allies.  This may be fair, but a lot is being asked of Batman.  It’s like if Ramirez was the only Army Ranger in Modern Warfare 2…oh, wait…

Batman: Arkham City was one of the only AAA games of 2011 I had yet to play.  That ended with Black Friday, and I feel it was a mistake waiting that long.  I loved Batman: Arkham Asylum, and feel Arkham City has returned seeking Game of the Year.  I guess we’ll have to wait a little longer to see how it manages this; it will be no easy feat.  Look around everybody, this is one of those years that we should be proud to be gamers!