Zloth
I smell a... wumpus!?
I just finished Batman: Arkham City. Excellent game marred by some console holdovers. It's very much an action game but there is a little "RPGness" to it with your ability to choose upgrades. The story was also fairly good and had an excellent ending. (Unlike the previous game, the final battles were quite fun.)
The battle action is fast, furious, and an absolute joy to watch. They often look like finely choreographed fight scenes from an action movie instead of a video game! Every once in a while you'll see Batman teleport a couple of feet backwards or some such and I did have troubles convincing him to attack the guy I wanted attacked (targeting consists of pointing in the enemy's general direction and hoping for the best) but I enjoyed most battles.
Unlike Arkham Asylum, the game world is pretty open. I had a great time just travelling around the city - particularly when there was a timer ticking and I had to get to the other side of town quickly. They've also got more Riddler trophies. A *lot* more. I swear half the roofs in town had some sort of puzzle set up and quite a few allies had something as well! Riddler must have been working for years setting them all up.
For an open world, this place has a LOT of attention to detail. The enemies are pretty much clones but the city itself... wow! The level designers and artists did a great job, IMHO. (And it looks excellent with 3D Vision, too.)
I'm not really a big Batman fan. Mostly I've just seen the movies and played Batman: AA. However, even with just those, it was fun to see the characters come to life. And they are SUCH characters! I wish we could get more over-the-top characters like these in our RPGs. In fact, the bad guys were so good that Batman came off as rather bland.
Catwoman makes an appearance in this version, too. She shows up early then vanishes for quite a long time, only to pop up again toward the end of the game. Her skills are somewhat different than Batman's and her animations are quite different. I found her to be a nice change of pace. If only I could have used her animation-style costume instead of that damned biker outfit....
One of my beefs with the game are the saves. There's no option to save when you want. I found myself grabbing going into buildings or grabbing Riddler trophies just to convince the game to save. I think the saves are all stored out on Games for Windows Live, too, which really made me nervous. I never lost a save but I did hear people complaining because they did.
The game does lock you in to the story toward the end. I was starting to get real worried that I was going to miss a ton of trophies and side quests because the game was headed for it's epic conclusion and insisting that I actually save the city from impending doom instead of trying to land on a button with enough force to open a trophy cage. There was no need to worry, though. Once the story ends, you're free to roam around and finish off the side quests to your heart's content. In fact, you even gain the ability to switch between Batman and Catwoman when you want instead of having to wait for the story to switch them for you. My latest night playing the game was actually just after finishing the story!
All in all, great stuff. It's sad that it had to make allowances for those ancient console systems but it's still very much worth the price. Playing time will depend a lot on how many side quests you do but I would guess it would take about 30 hours for a quick run through and more like 60 for a completionist.
The battle action is fast, furious, and an absolute joy to watch. They often look like finely choreographed fight scenes from an action movie instead of a video game! Every once in a while you'll see Batman teleport a couple of feet backwards or some such and I did have troubles convincing him to attack the guy I wanted attacked (targeting consists of pointing in the enemy's general direction and hoping for the best) but I enjoyed most battles.
Unlike Arkham Asylum, the game world is pretty open. I had a great time just travelling around the city - particularly when there was a timer ticking and I had to get to the other side of town quickly. They've also got more Riddler trophies. A *lot* more. I swear half the roofs in town had some sort of puzzle set up and quite a few allies had something as well! Riddler must have been working for years setting them all up.
For an open world, this place has a LOT of attention to detail. The enemies are pretty much clones but the city itself... wow! The level designers and artists did a great job, IMHO. (And it looks excellent with 3D Vision, too.)
I'm not really a big Batman fan. Mostly I've just seen the movies and played Batman: AA. However, even with just those, it was fun to see the characters come to life. And they are SUCH characters! I wish we could get more over-the-top characters like these in our RPGs. In fact, the bad guys were so good that Batman came off as rather bland.
Catwoman makes an appearance in this version, too. She shows up early then vanishes for quite a long time, only to pop up again toward the end of the game. Her skills are somewhat different than Batman's and her animations are quite different. I found her to be a nice change of pace. If only I could have used her animation-style costume instead of that damned biker outfit....
One of my beefs with the game are the saves. There's no option to save when you want. I found myself grabbing going into buildings or grabbing Riddler trophies just to convince the game to save. I think the saves are all stored out on Games for Windows Live, too, which really made me nervous. I never lost a save but I did hear people complaining because they did.
The game does lock you in to the story toward the end. I was starting to get real worried that I was going to miss a ton of trophies and side quests because the game was headed for it's epic conclusion and insisting that I actually save the city from impending doom instead of trying to land on a button with enough force to open a trophy cage. There was no need to worry, though. Once the story ends, you're free to roam around and finish off the side quests to your heart's content. In fact, you even gain the ability to switch between Batman and Catwoman when you want instead of having to wait for the story to switch them for you. My latest night playing the game was actually just after finishing the story!
All in all, great stuff. It's sad that it had to make allowances for those ancient console systems but it's still very much worth the price. Playing time will depend a lot on how many side quests you do but I would guess it would take about 30 hours for a quick run through and more like 60 for a completionist.