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Game Corner [Robin Month]: Gotham Knights: Deluxe Edition (Xbox Series X)

Dr. K6 Comments

In April of 1940, about a year after the debut of arguably their most popular character, Bruce Wayne/Batman, DC Comics debuted “the sensational find of [that year]”, Dick Grayson/Robin. Since then, Batman’s pixie-boots-wearing partner has changed outfits and a number of different characters have assumed the mantle as the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin have become an iconic staple of DC Comics. Considering my fondness for the character and those who assumed the mantle over the years, what better way to celebrate this dynamic debut than to dedicate every Thursday of April to celebrating the character?

Released: 21 October 2022
Developer: WB Games Montréal
Also Available For: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S

The Background:
In 2008, Eidos Interactive and Rocksteady Studios delivered one of the greatest superhero videogames of the modern era, Batman: Arkham Asylum, which proved to not only be a critical and commercial success after years of Batman games of varying quality but also kick-started an incredibly successful and well-regarded series of videogames. Batman: Arkham City (ibid, 2011) proved to be bigger and better and, despite criticisms of its driving sections, the final game in the series, Batman: Arkham Knight (ibid, 2015), was still met with largely favourable reviews. After the success of Arkham City, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment turned to WB Games Montréal to develop a prequel and give Rocksteady Studios time to produce their expansive and impressive finale. Although Batman: Arkham Origins (ibid, 2013) is often considered the black sheep of the franchise, I found it to be just as enjoyable as Arkham City and it still sold incredibly well and it even laid the foundation for a spin-off focusing on the Suicide Squad. Indeed, in August 2020, it was announced that Rocksteady would be returning to their popular spin-off franchise for a Suicide Squad title but, at the same time, WB Games Montréal were also revealed to be working on their own Bat-centric title, one that wasn’t connected to the Arkham series but still owed a lot to it in terms of its presentation and gameplay. Unlike the Arkham games, Gotham Knights was to be a multiplayer, open-world adventure set after the Dark Knight’s death and focusing on his four protégés; the game was built to incorporate role-playing elements and online functionality to allow players to co-operate in combat and missions. However, also unlike its spiritual predecessors, Gotham Knights was met with mixed reviews; while the customisation and visuals were praised, the combat and focus on grinding was criticised; the lack of variety offered by mission objectives and dull mechanics were also a negative, though the focus on character relationships was praised.

The Plot:
Batman is dead, killed in battle with Rā’s al Ghūl. In his place, his four protégés – Dick Grayson/Nightwing, Tim Drake/Robin, Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, and Jason Todd/Red Hood – must work together to combat the escalating crime sweeping the city, fill the void left by the Dark Knight, and investigate a mysterious secret cabal known as the Court of Owls.

Gameplay:
Gotham Knights is a third-person action game that takes place in an open-world environment, includes a great deal of role-playing game (RPG) elements, and allows players to pick between one of the four titular Gotham Knights and take on a variety of missions across different nights in Gotham City. Although each of the Gotham Knights has their own pros, cons, and special abilities, they all share the same control scheme, which, like many things in the game, is similar to that of the Batman: Arkham series but also a little different. You attack enemies with X; tapping the button will unleash a small combo that quickly gets a little repetitive and holding X charges up an attack for extra damage and to break through the enemy’s guard or shields. A is use to open doors, squeeze through gaps, interact with the environment, and to hop over obstacles using the game’s dysfunctional parkour mechanic; as you run around (accomplish by pressing in the left analogue stick), you can tap A to hop over gaps or up to higher levels, but the only time you can actually jump is after grappling to a ledge (accomplished by tapping the Left Bumper). Press Y sees you toss out a ranged attack, either with Batarangs or Red Hood’s apparently non-lethal pistols, and you can also hold Y to knock back and stun enemies with a wider ranged attack. B allows you to evade; there is no counter system like in the Batman: Arkham games but you can hop over and under incoming attacks and out of the way of gunfire (helpfully indicated by danger lines) and, if timed correctly, pull off a counter by tapping X after a dodge. Like the combat, it’s not as slick or intuitive as in the Batman: Arkham games, which again is something that comes up a lot here, but it does a decent enough job.

Each character has their own unique skills and abilities to fight crime in a Gotham without Batman.

The Left Trigger allows you to precision aim your projectile to attack specific enemies or interactable elements, such as exploding barrels, electrical boxes, or chains to create platforms; the Right Trigger lets you grab enemies after you’ve whittled their health down enough, allowing you to finish them off with a strike attack with X, interrogate them to fulfil mission objectives with Y, or toss them at other enemies (or off a rooftop!) with B. The Right Bumper brings up the onscreen “Ability” menu; as you pummel enemies and perform well-timed evades, a meter will build up that allows you to perform your character’s unique attacks, such as a flurry of strikes, unleashing an elemental attack, calling in a drone for a short time, or sending out a bunch of little nanobots. Some of these will boost your attack, other will create a hologram to distract enemies. Similar to the Batman: Arkham games, you can also crouch by pressing in the right stick and take to higher perches to scope out large groups of enemies; this allows you to pull off silent takedowns or ambush takedowns if you want to make a little more noise, disable any security cameras or turrets, and use the environment to instil fear in your enemies and cause them to hesitate. While there are no “Predator” sequences, the spirit of this mode is still alive here; you’re often encouraged to take a stealthy approach, something Robin is especially good at, but you can just as easily tackle most situations head-on since the Gotham Knights are much better at resisting and avoiding gunfire. Additionally, your health will no longer be restored after taking out enemies; instead, you carry a limited umber of health packs, which you can use by pressing right on the directional pad (D-pad); enemies will sometimes drop health packs when defeated so look out for these and, if you’re defeated, you’ll respawn but will have lost a chunk of the bootie you picked up in the mission. At first, the Gotham Knights seem a bit limited compared to their caped mentor; each has their own individual strengths, with Nightwing being more acrobatic and Red Hood a powerhouse brawler, for example, but none of them are capable of gliding, at least not at first. You’ll need to complete a series of side missions with each character, ranging from stopping the randomly-generated “procedural crimes” around the city, interacting with non-playable characters (NPCs) like Alfred Pennyworth and Renee Montoya, to eventually unlock each character’s unique traversal method (known as “Heroic Travel”). Nightwing gets a jet-powered glider, which is a bit clunky to control; Robin taps into the Justice League’s satellite’s to teleport short distances, Red Hood harnesses the power of the Lazarus Pit to pull off a mid-air leap, and Batgirl gets a conventional glide.

Race through the streets on the Batcycle and use the shadows and your detective skills to complete missions.

All of these are performed with RT and you’re encouraged to practice and master them using time trials scattered across the city, but I found them a bit unwieldy so I relied mostly on the grapple, which can be chained together to quickly cross horizontal and vertical distances, and the Batcycle. Summoned by pressing up on the D-pad, the Batcycle is a fast and nimble way to get around the impressively crowded city streets; RT accelerates, LT brakes, reverses, and lets you perform a drift, Y sees you perform your ranged attack (though you can plough through pedestrians and enemies as well), A performs a wheelie for a ramp boost, and you can even rocket off the Batcyle with LB. The Batcycle is much more fun than Arkham Knight’s Batmobile and Gotham Knight’s handy and familiar compass and waypoint system mean it’s easy to blast your way to each objective, but you can also unlock various fast travel points across the map by taking out drones as a story objective to make things even faster. Between missions, you’ll return to the Belfry to rest up, advance the story, interact with characters, and upgrade your gear but you can also quick launch missions from here, which will spawn you in a unique and enclosed section of the city to take on one of Batman’s rogues in a specific environment, such as Arkham Asylum or the city dam. Another holdover from the Batman: Arkham games is the ability to scan the environment; pressing or holding down on the D-pad lets you perform an AR Scan, which highlights interactable elements, allows you to tag specific enemies, and is essential for examining crime scenes. Here, you scan dead bodies, lab equipment, and other key areas for clues; sometimes you need to identify a specific item, other times you need to link two together, and you’re often given the option of quick-solving the puzzle if you take too long. It’s a decent system as you’re spending half the game in what’s essentially a wire-frame mode like in the Batman: Arkham games, but it can lead to you feeling obligated to AR Scan every nook and cranny for potential items of interest. When playing Gotham Knights, you have the option of focusing on the main story or taking care of numerous side missions, however this is often actually integral to completing the main story or upgrading your characters. Consequently, while you could glide past most of the random crimes and enemies in the Batman: Arkham games, that’s not the case here; playing on the “Normal” difficulty is quite a challenge, practically forcing you to engage with every premeditated crime and side mission to get stronger, so I definitely recommend playing on an easier difficulty to make things less repetitive. And things can get very repetitive: crimes range from punks trying to bring into cars or escaping police custody, to performing bank heists, hacking into terminals, attacking armoured cars, and even racing away down the streets. You’ll be retrieving organs from organ traffickers or Modchips from goons, defending your allies and other NPCs from attacks, tracking down pieces of Basil Karlo/Clayface, disrupting Doctor Harleen Quinzel/Harkey Quinn’s latest scam, and sneaking into areas through vents to take out enemies.

While you’ll be repeatedly stopping the same crimes, some missions are more memorable than others.

These missions repeat over and over, with stronger and more diverse groups of enemies being mixed in, but with very little deviation; sometimes you can gain bonus rewards if you stay undetected or take out enemies in certain ways or avoid damage, other times there’s a loot crate for you to collect, but mostly you’ll be swinging in to do the same tasks over and over, which can get repetitive very quickly. The main story is where the meat is at. While you often have to complete some side missions to advance it, such as repeatedly infiltrating Oswald Cobblepott/The Penguin’s Iceberg Lounge, disrupting enemy strongholds, rescue hostage strapped to bombs, avoid attracting the attention of the distrustful and trigger happy Gotham City Police Department, and exploring some of Gotham’s most notorious locations, such as Blackgate Prison and even the cavernous tunnels beneath the city. There’s generally a good balance of action, stealth, and puzzle solving when on mission; you might have to sneak into an area and quietly take out goons, but you can also bust heads if you feel like it and are strong enough to pull it off. Puzzle solving becomes more prominent as the plot thickens and the Court of Owls and League of Shadows get involved; you’ll be finding Owl’s Nests all over the city, interacting with hidden doors and taking on the zombie-like Talons to clear them out, as well as infiltrating a masquerade ball and staying undetected as you listen in on the Court’s conversations and examine various parts of stately homes for hidden doors. The Court like to test your mettle in a series of elaborate death traps; you’ll have to avoid instant-fail traps like bursts of flame and spinning blades while on a conveyor belt, for example, muddle through the dark caves and even the wreckage of the Batcave, and at one point are drugged and forced to endure a maze full of spike traps and tricky platforming while the game distorts around you. There are a lot of mazes, elevator shafts, and simple to tricky puzzles to solve, these latter being difficult mainly because the things you need to find are so small. Again, things can get very difficult and very frustrating very quickly on higher difficulties, where you absolutely must tackle every and any crime happening around the city to level- and power-up but, on easier settings, things are much more enjoyable, if still a bit repetitive. While you can upgrade and modify your gear at any time, you can only switch characters in the Belfry, which will end that night’s patrol. The city map reloads, with any incomplete missions still active, and it pays to swap characters between missions to unlock all their abilities and mix things up, and also because some are better suited for certain missions than others.

Graphics and Sound:  
Gotham Knights absolutely impresses in its visual presentation; Gotham City is bigger than ever, divided into different sections, many of which will be familiar to players of the Batman: Arkham games, and the city is awash in ominous darkness, glows with light, and often covered with rain. All the familiar locales you’d expect are here: Blackgate Prison, Arkham Asylum, GCPD headquarters, and the like, alongside chemical plants, docks, cemeteries, towering skyscrapers, dingy alleyways, and gothic cathedrals. Many areas include little references to other Batman villains and stories, which is fun to see, or house plaques and other scannable points of interest for you to interact with. Unlike the Batman: Arkham games, Gotham Knights’ overworld is fully populated not just with criminals, but pedestrians and traffic! Gothamites can be saved from attacks, run into with your bike, and will offer commentary when they see you, which really helps the city to feel alive for the first time. As ever, the thugs come in all shapes and sizes and are loyal to different gangs but also offer some amusing commentary when you stalk and batter them. Posters, scannable graffiti, and a variety of warehouses are also on offer; thugs will take over Robinson Park, break into banks, and cause disruption in the streets all around you, all of which helps make this the most lively, dangerous, and accurate Gotham City of any Batman game despite how repetitive some elements can be.

The game looks great and has lots of customisation options but is a bit unstable at times.

Gotham Knights is a very story-driven game, so it’s good to see that there’s basically no distinction between cutscenes and in-game graphics; if you customise your character a certain way, they will appear like that in every cutscene, and dialogue and interactions differ depending on which character you play as (and, presumably, how many of you are playing at once). While I’m not a fan of all the costume choices on offer, they do look impressive and the game only struggles whenever your character wears a cape; sometimes the cape physics go a little janky. While combat is noticeably stripped down compared to the Batman: Arkham games and much more reliant on special abilities, it is fun, especially when you level-up and/or lower the difficulty, but the game struggles to maintain a consistent framerate at times. More than once I experienced dramatic and game-breaking slowdown, with the action stuttering or the game out-right crashing at least five times in my playthrough, which I really don’t expect from an Xbox Series X game. Things can also get quite cluttered very quickly, especially when completing the organ harvesting missions; it was never clear to me where I was supposed to take the organ, meaning I’d often run out of time and would have to clear away other active missions before trying again with a clearer compass. Still, the interactions between the Gotham Knights are one of the best parts of the game; they’re united in their grief but still act like siblings at times, making jabs at each other and learning to live and move on together, which was great to see. More often than not, when you switch characters, you’ll be able to interact with parts of the Belfry to learn more about each character, in addition to completing missions for your allies out in the field, all of which allows you and the characters to grow into their roles as Gotham’s protectors.

Gotham is more alive than ever but the game really shines when the environments are visually altered.

Gotham City is an expansive open-world map full of overground trains, built on top of the Court of Owls’ grimy tunnels, and filled with colourful characters. However, certain missions will restrict you to a specific game area, an isolated and reskinned version of the map tailored to that villain, and this is where things really get visually interesting. When confront Doctor Victor Fries/Mr. Freeze at the Elliot Center and Blackgate Prison, Gotham is ravaged by a vicious snowstorm; ice and snow are everywhere, with innocents caught in the crossfire, and it really helps set the mood for the battles against Mr. Freeze. Similarly, you’ll explore the gothic and ransacked remains of Arkham Asylum, enter the Gotham General Hospital after it’s received a makeover by Harley Quinn, and even venture into the ruins of the Batcave, giant dinosaur and penny and all, as you track down the Court of Owls. While it’s often difficult to see in these areas and they’re fraught with danger, they help to mix up the gameplay and the visuals and the enemies you encounter, from Mr. Freeze’s Regulators to the sword-wielding League of Shadows, then start to appear on the overworld, and in stronger forms, to help keep things a little interesting even as you complete the same tasks over and over. It’s fun just barrelling through the streets or taking to the rooftops, stopping crimes along the way to your next objective and stumbling across side quests as you go; there are various items to examine or interact with, generally for exposition or to aid you in combat, and lots to see and do in terms of customisation, though I found the menus a little finnicky to navigate at times.

Enemies and Bosses:
As in the Batman: Arkham games, Gotham City is ravaged by a contingent of criminals, all of whom are loyal to one gang or another. You’ll encounter “Freaks”, street punks who follow Harley’s lead, the Regulators, who wield tech and often use Mr. Freeze’s toys, be attacked out of the blue by the League of Assassin’s ninjas and stir up the Court of Owl’s zombie-like Talons in their nests. Enemies come in different types, from regular grunts to ones with weapons (Molotov cocktails, rifles, freeze or electrical weapons, and even annoying drones), and bigger enemies who have shields or can tank your hits. Each gang has these different types of enemies so, if you fight three different types of Regulators, you’ll encounter similar versions when fighting the Freaks, though they do look different. The bigger Freaks have large metal shields and sometimes maces, for example, whereas the larger Talons wear ceremonial armour and carry axes and the larger Regulators can create an electrifying area attack. Generally, they all go down quite easily once you get the hang of combat; you can dodge out of the way of their attacks and gunfire, which also seems to damage enemies, and take advantage of any interactable elements to stun or defeat them, but things can get quite hectic as enemies mix and match and you take on waves of them to complete objectives or defend endangered Gothamites. You’ll also have to avoid the GCPD; police officers are often in the streets or will arrive at crime scenes after you’ve cleared out enemies; they won’t hesitate to shoot or chase you and you won’t gain experience points (XP) from taking them out, so it’s better to just avoid them.

Thankfully, Man-Bat is on hand to offer a bit of spice after pummeling Harley and her freakish thugs.

You’ll encounter each type of enemy in a dedicated fight as the story progresses, essentially making them almost like mini bosses. Tackling the larger enemies is good practice for the battle against Harley Quinn’s goons, Basher and Blazer; one is obviously a large brute and the other is smaller and likes to toss flaming bombs at you, all while other goons attack you and a series of bombs activate in an enclosed space that you need to disarm before the timer runs out. By this point, you’ll have encountered similar enemies to these two more than once, and many others after ape their strategy, so it’s not exactly hard to break through Basher’s guard with a heavy strike and pummel him while dodging Blazer’s projectiles and smacking him up too, but make sure to take care of the bombs as soon as possible. Harkey Quinn herself (now using the alias Dr. Q) is also fought later in the game after you disrupt her operation and confront her in the vandalised hospital. Harley’s a nimble little minx, deftly cartwheeling about while swinging first her giant hammer and then a sledgehammer infused with electricity. Harley also tosses playing cards are you and sends her goons against you, but you can take advantage of the environment to deal damage to her as long as you can dodge her manic swings and land a good combo once the window of opportunity opens up. Later in the game, after spending a great deal of time investigating Doctor Kirk Langstrom’s death and research, you’ll not only engage with the various Talons of the Court of Owls, who can poison you and are so quick that you need to stun them with a heavy ranged attack, but you’ll also battle a number of Man-Bats across the city. Though they look scary and vicious and can blast you away with  scream, swipe at you, and will pin you down to gorge on you, these monstrous freaks are actually quite a pushover, especially by that point as you’re pretty well powered up, and can easily be beaten into submission.

Mr. Freeze and Clayface represent two of the most frustrating and unfair encounters in the game.

However, before that, you’ll endure two of the most frustrating and game-breaking bosses battles I’ve ever experienced. The first is Mr. Freeze, who initially tries to freeze the city with a big machine that deals damage when you get too close. Mr. Freeze stomps about firing missiles at you and his freezing gun, both of which can freeze you on the spot or cause painful ice spikes to sprout from the ground. Mr. Freeze also has a habit of flying about the place, drops down with a slam, and swipes at you when you’re up close. After you deal a bit of damage, he retreats to the machine and it sends out freezing bolts that you have to frantically dodge and he unleashes blasts from a shoulder cannon. This is the first boss fight of the game and is honestly one of the worst experiences of my life; Mr. Freeze is an absolute tank, with your attacks barely fazing him, so you absolutely must have ice resistance and fire damage equipped, be at a higher level, or lower the game’s difficulty because this is an absolute chore of a fight otherwise. It only gets worse in the second bout; this time, Mr. Freeze has escaped Blackgate Prison inside a giant spider-like mech! He stomps about the place, causing a freezing effect, and bombards you with missiles from afar, so you’ll constantly be running and dodging and frantically attacking his legs to get a good shot on his cockpit. The fight then shifts to a frozen platform on the sea, where you need to quickly grapple up top to avoid being flash-frozen, some goons join the fray, and everything becomes even more frustrating and tedious. Clayface is just as bad; after tracking down his clones around the city and taking them out in a massive melee, you battle him in the sewers and your attacks barely do a dent without the right modifications; in my first encounter, he could one-shot me with his annoying grab attack and I was only able survive and beat him by lowering the game’s difficulty. Successfully avoid his swipes and grabs and you’ll have to outrace his liquid form and clay tendrils in the sewer tunnels, which can result in some unfair instant failures if you’re not careful, before fighting him one last time in a furnace. Here, he sprouts extra arms and become much more aggressive but things are significantly easier if you’re equipped right, correctly powered up, or playing on easier difficulties. Still, these boss battles were a pain in the ass, with unfair checkpoints and a startling difficulty spike that almost had me rage quitting!

Ultimately, you’re forced to battle a resurrected Bruce and a malicious Talia to safeguard Gotham.

These bosses are possibly so annoying and difficult because Gotham Knights really doesn’t feature many boss battles at all. The game is padded out by multiple encounters with Mr. Freeze and Clayface, meaning that you only interact with the Penguin rather than fighting him and have to settle for Man-Bats and tougher enemies as your main obstacle as the final portion sees you fending off Talons and the League of Assassins in the catacombs beneath the city. Here, Talia al Ghūl, predictably betrays you and sets a volatile, resurrect Bruce Wayne against you. Bruce is actually quite a fun boss but not too dissimilar from most of the enemies you’ve fought up to that point; you have to dodge his flurry of blows, break through his guard, and deal enough damage to drive him to his knees so you can tap A to appeal to his better nature. When this works, Talia engages you directly in a two-stage boss fight that takes place around a Lazarus Pit (that ironically hurts you if you step into it). Talia is swift and attacks like lightning, teleporting around the arena and striking with her sword, so you’ll need to be tapping that B button like a madman (or precisely, to pull of perfect dodges and counters) and landing combos wherever you can. She also fires arrows at you in a spread and a charged attack, and switches to an even faster and more aggressive spear for the final phase, which includes a big jumping strike that leaves her open to damage. While the fight is needlessly drawn out since your window or opportunity is so short, both Talia and Bruce are far less of a headache than Mr. Freeze or Clayface since they don’t just absorb your blows, you should be much stronger by then, and the fights are more diverse with more opportunities to land hits.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Even on the easier difficulty settings, you’ll want to engage with as many premeditated crimes and side missions as possible to earn the XP you need to level up, the AP you need to upgrade your special abilities. Gotham Knights incorporates a loot system; defeated enemies, chests, and mission rewards will include a whole bunch of scrap, “Modchips”, and other rewards that you can use to customise, craft, and enhance your gameplay experience. You’ll get different colours and parts for your suits and the Batcycle and the more you collect, the more you can craft to create better equipment. You can also unlock “Transmogs” (basically skins) to be applied over the game’s suits if you like (which I preferred; you miss out on being able to customise each part of the suit, but you also get to wear a strong outfit and avoid some of the game’s uglier designs). Mod chips can be applied (and up to four fused together) to your suit, melee, and ranged weapon for additional buffs, such as increasing your health, durability, and attack power, adding elemental attacks and resistance to your character, and other benefits that I honestly didn’t look too deep into as it was a bit of a cluttered and confusing system. I simply crafted and created the strongest elements I could and went from there, but you’ll definitely need to think about adding fire attacks and ice resistance to your character when taking on Mr. Freeze, for example. As you defeat enemies and complete mission objectives, you’ll also earn XP; earn enough XP and you’ll level-up, increasing your stats and awarding you Ability Points (AP) that can be spent upgrading each character’s unique skills. This is where you’ll unlock their more powerful abilities, but you’ll also be able to buff their damage output, gain a respawn for Batgirl, increase their stealthiness, and other useful perks that make gameplay more enjoyable. However, while each character levels-up at the same rate (if you only play as Nightwing, the other characters will level-up when he does and you’ll be able to use the same AP to upgrade them, making things less of a grind), there is a level cap; once you hit Level 30, you’re done and can’t earn any more AP until you overwrite your game save with New Game+, which ups the level cap to 40. The Gotham Knight’s headquarters, the Belfry, also changes as you progress through the story; more interactable elements are added and it becomes more homely and fit for purpose as you progress, just as your abilities become more honed from battle.

Additional Features:
Gotham Knights boasts forty-eight Achievements, at least eight of which are essentially unmissable as they’re awarded for clearing the story’s case files and taking out Batman’s leftover rogues. Achievements are also earned from defeating certain enemies, preventing crimes across the city, crafting certain gear, and fully upgrading each character. Unlike the Batman: Arkham games, there aren’t any riddles to worry about here; you can scan landmarks across the city, and graffiti, and find Bruce’s discarded Batarangs for more rewards and Achievements, but these are surprisingly difficult to find and thus not much fun to search for, as well as mysterious symbols strewn all over the place that I could never quite figure out. You’ll unlock audio files, comic book covers, information about the city, and details on all of the enemies, bosses, and allies you encounter as you do so, in addition to earning some Achievements, but there’s a lot less on offer compared to the Batman: Arkham games as the focus is more on the multitude of side missions. Gotham Knights has four difficulty settings but no Achievements tied to them so I absolutely recommend playing on “Very Easy” to help balance the more repetitive and frustrating aspects of the game. Clearing it unlocks New Game+, which overwrites your save file, increases enemy difficulty, and carries over your upgrades and unlockables, but it irked me that it meant losing my save file to play it. There is a lot of gear to find and craft, though a lot of it is superfluous; I don’t get why you’d wear a suit or use gear that’s weaker compared to others, so some of the customisation is lost there as I simply favoured the strongest setup and then applied a Transmog. The Batcycle can also be customised, to a degree, and this Deluxe Edition of the game comes with some additional gear and skins for it and the characters, though you’re not missing out on much if you just get the standard version. You can also play the arcade version of Spy Hunter (Bally Midway, 1983) in the Belfry, where you can battle even tougher versions of the bosses if you’re a sadist or take on training missions to learn new skills, but they’re nothing compared to the combat challenges of the Batman: Arkham games. Finally, Gotham Knights can be played in multiplayer; two players can play alongside each other and even team up to perform team attacks, and up to four players can take on challenges in “Heroic Assault” mode, though there are no Achievements tied to these features either, which is weird considering it’s a pretty big part of the game.

The Summary:
I’m sorry that my review has constantly made reference and comparisons to the Batman: Arkham games but it’s frankly unavoidable given how much of Gotham Knights’ gameplay and visuals takes from that series. in many ways, I feel the game could’ve easily been a continuation of Rocksteady’s franchise with just a few minor tweaks here and there, but it is unfair to make such comparisons as, for all its visual and gameplay similarities, it’s a very different game. Gotham Knights is a long, story-driven action experience; the focus on these characters continuing on after Batman’s death is very intriguing and I really enjoyed their interactions and camaraderie, as well as their individual playstyles. I thought I would favour Nightwing as my go-to character but all of them had their pros and I enjoyed swapping in and out and customising their costumes and gear. Gotham City has never looked better and it’s amazing to see it alive not just with crime, but civilians as well; it’s a massive city that can be daunting to traverse, especially with so much going on at any given time, but you’re given plenty of tools to navigate and address those issues. Unfortunately, the game is severely let down by its repetition and frustration; even on “Normal”, the game is unfairly and unnecessarily grind-heavy, especially considering the level cap. Bosses are an exercise in frustration without being properly prepared, making it less a game a skill and more a game of tenacity, and few of them were fun to play against. The instability of the game was also a factor; I was shocked by how often the game stuttered, glitched, or out-right crashed on me, forcing me to restart missions or even give up at certain points until things sorted themselves out. There are a lot of mechanics here that may appeal to RPG players, but they’re a bit complicated, cluttered, and annoying for me; I get that the point is that you’re learning and growing alongside the Gotham Knights and that’s conveyed very well, but it’s just tedious doing the same tasks over and over and cobbling together new gear that’s instantly rendered superfluous by better gear. In the end, it’s a decent game and I did enjoy it; it might be better (or worse) playing alongside a friend and there’s a decent amount on offer, but I can’t say I’ll be deleting my game save to tackle New Game+ any time soon.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

What did you think to Gotham Knights? How would you rate it against the Batman: Arkham games and do you think that’s a fair comparison? Which of the four playable characters was your favourite and why? Did you also struggle against the game’s bosses and difficulty spike? What did you think to the combat and RPG elements of the game? Did you enjoy crafting and customising your characters? What did you think to the relationship between the Gotham Knights? Did you ever play the game online and, if so, how did it hold up? Which of Batman’s sidekicks is your favourite and how are you celebrating the Boy Wonder this month? To share your thoughts on Gotham Knights, leave a comment below or on my social media.

Talking Movies [Robin Month]: Teen Titans Go! To the Movies

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In April of 1940, about a year after the debut of arguably their most popular character, Bruce Wayne/Batman, DC Comics debuted “the sensational find of [that year]”, Dick Grayson/Robin. Since then, Batman’s pixie-boots-wearing partner has changed outfits and a number of different characters have assumed the mantle as the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin have become an iconic staple of DC Comics. Considering my fondness for the character and those who assumed the mantle over the years, what better way to celebrate this dynamic debut than to dedicate every Thursday of April to celebrating the character?

Released: 27 July 2018
Director: Peter Rida Michail and Aaron Horvath
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Budget: $10 million
Stars: Scott Menville, Hynden Walch, Khary Payton, Tara Strong, Greg Cipes, Will Arnett, Kristen Bell, and Nicolas Cage

The Plot:
Determined to be a Hollywood star, Dick Grayson/Robin (Menville) will go to any lengths to impress director Jade Wilson (Bell) to notice him and his team! With a few madcap ideas and musical numbers, the Teen Titans try to take the limelight, but when Slade Wilson/Deathstroke the Terminator (Arnett) messes with their plans, the Teen Titans will have to become true superheroes to save the world!

The Background:
About four years after the debut of the Justice League of America (JLA), their teen sidekicks came together to form the Teen Titans, presumably to appeal to younger readers. The team were a relatively consistent presence throughout the 1960s and 1970s but writer Marv Wolfman and George Pérez breathed new life into the concept with characters like Victor Stone/Cyborg and Princess Koriand’r/Starfire, who became synonymous with the team. No strangers to adaptation, the Teen Titans have seen some success in animated ventures; Teen Titans (2003 to 2006) was widely regarded as a popular spin-off of the incredibly well-regarded animated series pioneered by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini. Many long-term fans were therefore put off when the show was retooled into a more kid-friendly aesthetic with the slapstick Teen Titans Go! (2013 to 2022), though many praised the show for its bizarre nature and light-hearted humour. Additionally, the show was popular enough to spawn this feature-length production; universally praised for its metatextual comedy, its gleeful destruction of superhero tropes, and its unhinged comedy, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies also gave finally star Nicolas Cage the chance to portray Clark Kent/Superman after missing out on a live-action appearance in the nineties. With a box office gross of $52.1 million, the film was followed by a reasonably well received straight-to-DVD crossover between the Go! Titans and their more serious predecessors, as well as a couple of other similar features of varying quality.

The Review:
So, like a lot of kids my age, I watched a fair amount of Bruce Timm and Paul Dini’s DC cartoons back in the day; even into my late teenage years, I was enjoying Justice League Unlimited (2004 to 2006), and I really enjoyed the original Teen Titans cartoon. Although never explicitly stated to be a part of the same fictional universe, I always liked to think that Teen Titans was a spin-off from the main DC Animated Universe and I loved how it gave a bit of a gritty edge and a commanding presence to one of my favourite characters, Robin, and allowed him to be in the spotlight in a world where he’s often given the shaft in live-action movies. I’d be lying if seeing Teen Titans Go! for the first time wasn’t a little off-putting for me in this regard; however, it was clearly aimed at a younger audience and I found it to be quite funny the few times I did watch it, the same as Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008 to 2011), which showcased a more light-hearted version of the Dark Knight but in a fun and action-packed way. There is room for both interpretations of these characters, as much as I prefer the darker interpretations as they’re truer to the original spirit of Batman and his world, and it’s not as if there weren’t other animated ventures that showcased this side of the likes of Batman and Robin, so it was still pretty exciting when a feature-length presentation was announced, especially as it aimed to poke fun at Warner Bros.’ tumultuous history with cashing in on their DC Comics franchises.

The happy-go-lucky Titans are distraught to learn the public and their peers see them as bumbling fools.

Things get off to a loud and action-packed start as Jump City is attacked by the megalomaniacal supervillain known as Balloon Man (Greg Davies), a ludicrous character who is quite literally a gigantic, anthropomorphic balloon who can easily smash his way into a bank and squeeze through small gaps by expanding and contracting his bulbous body. Although Jump City’s police are no match for the inflated villain, the Teen Titans soon arrive to help out; what follows is a fight scene, set to an electric guitar remix of the Teen Titans Go! main theme, that helps to establish the characters and abilities of the titular team for those who are unfamiliar. Robin is the leader, jumping head-first into the fight and partially tearing Balloon Man’s hide with his shuriken; Cyborg (Payton) is the enthusiastic muscle, able to transform his body into all kinds of heavy ordinance; Starfire (Walch) is a naïve, childlike misfit from another world who wields incredible cosmic power but is easily distracted by cute things; Rachel Roth/Raven (Strong) is the dark, stoic enchantress capable of manipulating others and creating constructs out of a black magical energy; and Garfield “Gar” Logan/Beast Boy (Cipes) is the team’s goofball shape-shifter, who delights in monkeying around and transforming into a range of green-hued animals (including becoming a porcupine to pierce Balloon Man’s butt for an extended fart gag). So consumed by their own hype are the team that they completely miss that the Justice League – Superman (Cage), Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Halsey), and Jon Stewart/Green Lantern (Lil Yachty) – take out Balloon Man and are saddened to learn that both the public, and the superhero community, see them as a team of goofballs rather than “real” superheroes worthy of their own movies. Despite the fact that people “don’t talk” about Green Lantern’s movie, Superman advises the team that they’ll never be seen as anything other than a joke unless they shape up and start acting like real heroes rather than goofing off for food and dance numbers. Despite the evidence lobbied against them, Robin is adamant that he and his friends are not only world-renowned heroes but worthy of their own movie; it’s been his lifelong dream to have his own movie franchise, after all, and he’s determined to prove that he’s worthy of this accolade.

Robin’s so determined to get his own movie that he briefly messes up with the timeline.

Unfortunately, he and his friends are aghast to learn that they’re not on the list to attend the premiere of Batman’s (Jimmy Kimmel) newest film, and even more insulted when the Challengers of the Unknown, of all people, are more known than they are. Thanks to Raven’s ability to teleport them using her extradimensional portals, the team are able to gate crash the screening and steal the Challengers’ seats, introducing them to beloved superhero movie director Jade Wilson. Robin is dejected to see first-hand that he’s not only not slated to appear in a movie, but that the entire superhero community laughs him off as simply a sidekick and a nobody. After dispelling Robin’s depression with a musical number, the team head to Warner Bros. Studios in Hollywood, determined to demand that they get their own movie from Jade. Unfortunately, she’s not interested in the prospect of a solo Robin movie and states that she would only consider it if there were no other superheroes in the world, a dismissive comment that gives him the outrageous idea to travel through time to prevent the world’s superheroes from ever coming into being using their time cycles (because their regular time machine is too “boring”). Thus, the team prevents Krypton’s destruction (using disco-synth, no less), stealing Wonder Woman’s magical lasso when she’s just a girl, cause Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Eric Bauza) to get caught up in trash and drown as a baby, prevent four turtles from coming into contact with radioactive ooze, and redirect Thomas, Martha, and young Bruce Wayne (Kal-El Cage) from going down Crime Alley. As you might expect, this results in the world being overrun by supervillains in the present day and therefore no superhero movies being produced, so the Teen Titans immediately travel back to undo their efforts…resulting in them being directly responsible for Krypton’s destruction and gleefully pushing Thomas and Martha Wayne to their deaths with a smile and a thumbs-up!

Slade’s master plan to control the world brings him into conflict with the Teen Titans.

Since rewriting the space/time continuum did nothing to improve their standing in the superhero community, the Teen Titans resolve to prove themselves the old-fashioned way. Earlier, the others suggested to Robin that they’re not taken seriously because they lack a cool archnemesis with an ominous name and they attempt to address this by confronting Deathstroke (as ever referred to simply as “Slade”) as he steals “the perfect plot device”, the Ditronium Crystal, from Scientific and Technological Advanced Research Laboratories (S.T.A.R. Labs). A bombastic villain who mocks the Teen Titans pose and easily tricks them with simple illusions and distractions, Slade is nonetheless fully capable of holding the team off using only his skill, weapons, and vast array of gadgets. Still, by taking themselves seriously, the team is able to retrieve the crystal on their second encounter, but Slade easily escapes by preying on Robin’s ego and painting himself as his archnemesis. Incensed at their interference, Slade vows to divide the team to take away their greatest advantage, something made considerably easier when jade summons the team to Warner Bros. Studios, impressed by their fight, to start shooting their movie. However, when the others embarrass him by repeatedly pooping in a prop toilet, attacking their co-star and subduing Superman with Kryptonite, causing havoc, and almost destroying her Digitally Ordering Online Movies Streaming Directly At You (D.O.O.M.S.D.A.Y.) Device (Phil Morris), Robin angrily ditches his friends in order to have his own solo movie and shake the stigma of their idiocy from his character. Heartbroken at his decision, especially after they supported his dream all throughout the movie, the team leave him to indulge his greatest fantasies on the set of his very own movie, finally bringing him the adulation he has craved for so long, though all the digital enhancements and action sequences in the world can’t make up for the loss of his friends.

The Nitty-Gritty:
I gather there are a lot of people who dislike the art and animation style of shows like Teen Titans Go!; many comparisons are made to the likes of Steven Universe (2013 to 2019), though I’m not sure why that’s a bad thing as, while I’ve never watched it, I always thought the show was quite popular. Again, it’s potentially because of the nostalgia and love for Timm and Dini’s traditionally dark and moody visual style, and the anime influences seen in the original Teen Titans, but I thought the change in visual direction was a great way to immediately show that Teen Titans Go! is aimed at a completely different audience to its predecessor, and enjoyed the presentation because it, like some of the line-towing humour, reminded me of The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991 to 1996; 2003). Jump City is a bright maze of skyscrapers and beaches, its inhabitants all sport comically oversized heads and cartoonish proportions, and much of the allure of the movie’s visual style comes from the short, sharp movements characters make that remind me of traditional animation techniques such those using construction paper. The movie’s tongue-in-cheek approach is also evident right from the start, as DC’s heroes are chibi-fied in the opening credits to fit with the show’s more exaggerated art style; the movie even appears to ape the traditional Marvel Studios opening by rapidly flicking through pages of Teen Titans comics, only to subvert expectations and show that it’s simply a seagull flicking through a comic book! In this cartoonish world, the DC superheroes are such huge celebrities that they have their own merchandise and movie franchises, just like in the real world, with even the grim Dark Knight playing up to the paparazzi at the premiere of his new film, Batman Again, and heroes like Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Meredith Salenger) and even Doctor Raymond “Ray” Palmer/The Atom (Patton Oswold) being treated as Hollywood starlets.

The movie is jam packed with references, cameos, and fun musical numbers.

This is taken to the nth level when we see just how many superheroes are being given feature-films and the lengths to which Hollywood is going to milk Batman’s popularity with movies about his loyal butler, Alfred Pennyworth, his high-tech vehicle, the Batmobile, and even his utility belt! Although a hilarious gag at the time, and with some basis in truth given how much Batman content had been produced by 2018, this lands even harder now considering Alfred received his own live-action television series and we even got a Cars-like (Various, 2006 to 2022) Batmobile cartoon! Even the D.O.O.M.S.D.A.Y. Device is a precursor to the stranglehold over the genre that Marvel Studios would get with the onset of Disney+, making the film scarily ahead of its time in its metacommentary. The film also stands out with its fourth-wall-breaking humour; this includes jabs not only at existing DC properties, but also gags like the Teen Titans mistaken Slade for Wade W. Wilson/Deadpool, a parody of the iconic opening of The Lion King (Allers and Minkoff, 1994), references to one of my favourite cartoons, Animaniacs (1993 to 1998; 2020 to present), Superman (Donner, 1978) and the Tim Burton Batman movies (1989; 1992), and the Back to the Future trilogy (Zemeckis, 1985 to 1990), a gratuitous and self-referential cameo by Stan Lee himself, a fantastic jab at the whole “Martha!” debacle during the filming of Batman vs. Superman: Part II by having the two come to blows because their fathers have different names, and having Robin’s team mates embarrass him when they kick the crap out of Shia LaBeouf (James Arnold Taylor). Musical numbers also play a huge role here; we get our first taste of this when Balloon Man insults and shocks the group by claiming not to know who they are (he thinks they’re “lesser members” of the Justice League of the Guardians of the Galaxy), leading to them performing a rap number running down their names, powers, and a bit of their background (“GO!”). Unfortunately, they get so wrapped up in their singing and dancing that they’re completely upstaged by the Justice League. Struggling with his sense of self-worth and disheartened at being mocked by everyone, even the team’s adorable hand-crafted movie fails to cheer Robin up; it takes an amusingly generic “upbeat, inspirational song” to reignite Robin’s spark and renew his enthusiasm (“Upbeat Inspirational Song About Life”). Additionally, Robin’s able to describe his perfect solo superhero through song, resulting in a montage and homages to Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Miller, et al, 1986),  Batman: The Animated Series (1992 to 1995) specifically designed to emphasise Robin’s competency, cute butt, and totally adult hands (“My Superhero Movie”). When the Teen Titans travel through time to take out their competition, the sequence is brilliantly set to A-ha’s “Take On Me” and Huey Lewis and the News’s “Back in Time”, they play Krypton’s crystals like a DJ deck to prevent the decidedly Donner-esque planet from exploding, and Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy get themselves kicked out of their own movie by pulling pranks all over the Warner Bros. Studio (“Shenanigans”).

In the end, the Titans come together to defeat Slade and earn the respect of their superhero peers.

Robin is so caught up in finally getting his time in the spotlight, away from the shadow of the Batman and the goofiness of his teammates, that he doesn’t even question Jade’s motivations or inputting the code to the vault as part of his movie’s finale. All too late, he realises that he’s been tricked into opening the actual vault and that Jade has been Slade in disguise all along in a surprising, and amusing, twist. Thanks to his manipulations as Jade, Slade has effectively subdued the Justice League by distracting them with their movies, leaving him free to steal the Ditronium Crystal, insert it into the D.O.O.M.S.D.A.Y. Device, and control the minds of the world’s populace as part of a diabolical scheme for world domination. Thanks to his baby hands and Bat-gadgets, Robin is able to escape the exploding Titans Tower; seeing his home and his friends’ possessions go up in smoke makes him realise how selfish and foolish he’s been but his friends enthusiastically return to his side to aid him in stopping the broadcast of Robin: The Movie to prevent Slade’s plans from coming to fruition. After unmasking Slade before their superhero peers, the Teen Titans are forced to battle the Justice League when Slade uses the D.O.O.M.S.D.A.Y. Device to turn them into his mindless slaves; thanks to a golf cart and Raven’s portal abilities, they’re able to take the Justice League out of the equation but, when Robin engages Slade in a one-on-one fight, Robin’s unable to resist watching footage of his film and is compelled to attack his friends. Robin’s brought to his senses when forced to watch the remainder of the homemade film the Titans made for him, reuniting the team in friendship just in time to battle Slade’s ridiculously oversized robot! Although Slade mocks them and boasts at his invincibility, Robin realises that their greatest asset is their goofball antics and they’re able to take out Slade’s robot using another of their dope songs (“GO! (Battle Remix)”) and an overwhelming combination of their unique powers and abilities. With the world freed from Slade’s control, the Ditronium Crystal destroyed, and Slade defeated, the Teen Titans finally earn the approval and respect of their peers, though Robin’s denied the chance to deliver a meaningful speech as everyone else insists that the movie’s over.

The Summary:
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is a ridiculously over the top, slapstick romp in this exaggerated and cartoonish spin-off of the darker DC Animated Universe. Everything from the visuals, the gags, and the action is designed to appeal to younger audiences, ones who will delight at the instances of toilet humour and the fun music numbers, yet there’s a fair amount here for older audiences to enjoy as well. From cameos, references to other movies and DC properties, and some surprisingly dark inclusions that might go over the heads of little kids but had my spitting out my drink at times. The overriding narrative of the Teen Titans trying to earn respect for being superheroes is done pretty well, and wisely focuses on Robin’s obsession with being seen as more than a sidekick and worthy of his own movie, though the film doesn’t dwell too much on the wedge this causes between him and his friends. Similarly, the time travel side plot was primarily there as a gag, a funny one to be sure but one immediately undone to focus on the campaign against Slade. I would’ve liked to see the Teen Titans realise their worth in a world without the other superheroes, but it was fun seeing Slade mock them and wipe the floor with them and be revealed to have been disguised as Jade all along. While there isn’t much here for the other Teen Titans to do beyond be goofy, say their catchphrases, and sing and fight alongside Robin, the metacommentary on the influx of superhero movies was amusing and I found myself thoroughgoingly entertained through the film. I always enjoy it when animated movies sprinkle their narratives with little Easter Eggs for adults to enjoy and Teen Titans Go! To the Movies certainly succeeds in this regard, and with including some genuinely funny gags that keep the energy high, resulting in a very enjoyable animated romp.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Did you enjoy Teen Titans Go! To the Movies? Were you a fan of the cartoon or did the move towards slapstick put you off? Which member of the team was your favourite and what did you think to Robin’s desire to be taken seriously as a superhero? Did you enjoy the musical numbers and the sprinklings of dark humour laced throughout? What s your favourite incarnation of the Teen Titans? Who is your favourite Robin and how are you celebrating the Boy Wonder’s debut this month? Whatever your thoughts on this film, Teen Titans, and Robin, leave a comment either below or on my social media.

Back Issues [Robin Month]: The Brave and the Bold #54

Dr. K6 Comments

In April of 1940, about a year after the debut of arguably their most popular character, Bruce Wayne/Batman, DC Comics debuted “the sensational find of [that year]”, Dick Grayson/Robin. Since then, Batman’s pixie-boots-wearing partner has changed outfits and a number of different characters have assumed the mantle as the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin have become an iconic staple of DC Comics. Considering my fondness for the character and those who assumed the mantle over the years, what better way to celebrate this dynamic debut than to dedicate every Thursday of April to celebrating the character?

Story Title: “The Thousand-and-One Dooms of Mr. Twister”
Published: July 1964
Writer: Bob Haney
Artist: Bruno Premiani

The Background:
All Star Comics (1940/1941) brought together the Justice Society of America (JSA) for the first time, birthing the first ever superhero team in comics. While the JSA’s roster expanded and changed over the years, they were rebranded entirely in the late 1950s when editor Julius Schwartz tasked writer Gardner Fox with breathing new life into the team as the Justice League of America (JLA). The JLA brought together eight of DC’s heavy-hitters and their origin issue became one of DC Comic’s best-selling titles; a mere four years later, DC would assemble a new team, one that specifically targeted their younger readers by bringing together the sidekicks of three DC Comics’ most powerful superheroes. Under the leadership of Dick Grayson/Robin, the trio would later be expanded considerable and come to be known as the Teen Titans, with runs by the likes of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez being notably influential, and the team has seen success in both animated and live-action ventures.

The Review:
Our story begins in the town hall of Hatton Corners, where an “unusual” public meeting is taking place; specifically, Mayor Corliss is leading the charge against the disruptive and workshy youth of the day by calling for a curfew to help solve the town’s teenage problem. At the same time, in a dilapidated barn across town, the Mayor’s son, Eddie, is rallying the town’s teenagers, threatening that they’ll go “on strike” if they don’t get their new clubhouse, and both mobs are vehemently against the other. Robin, colourful partner and ward to Bruce Wayne/Batman, is on the side of Hatton Corners’ youths; while the Batman believes that the kids are acting like spoiled brats, Robin believes the kids’ voices need to be heard and accepts their invitation to join the Hatton Corners Teen Club (with Batman’s permission, in an amusing bit of irony). Barry Allen/The Flash is equally disturbed by the teenagers’ unruly attitude but his young partner, Wally West/Kid Flash, believes that adults have forgotten what it’s like to be a teenager and also agrees to join the club (again, with his mentor’s permission). The Hatton Corners Teen Club is so adamant about recruiting teenage heroes to their cause that they’re even able to extend an invitation (via an eel carrying a note in a bottle…) to Gar/Aqualad at the bottom of the ocean! Although Arthur Curry/Aquaman believes that kids shouldn’t dispute with their elders and warns Aqualad that he can’t survive out of the water for longer than an hour, he also allows his youthful companion to attend, and the three arrive at the club astonished not only to see each other there but also to find the barn demolished and deserted.

Mr. Twister kidnaps the rebellious youths of Hatton Corners and delivers a bizarre threat.

The trio go to Mayor Corliss for answers and he shows them a note form Eddie that reveals he and his fellow “cats” decided to “skip” until the adults “get hip” and build them a new clubhouse. While the Mayor and the town’s other adults believe it’s a ruse to get attention, Robin believes the note is phony since it didn’t use a more appropriate word for “music” (like “jive”); realising that the town’s elders won’t be of any help, the Boy Wonder takes charge and tasks Kid Flash with scouting around the area and Aqualand with checking out the surrounding waters for any sign of a clue. Robin stays in town and is thus on hand to help get the townsfolk to safety when a twister suddenly comes barrelling into Hatton Corners; despite his best efforts to resist the wind, Robin is tossed into the tornado and faces certain death courtesy of Bromwell Stikk/Mister Twister. Thankfully, Kid Flash is able to use his incredible speed to brave the winds and bring Robin to safety, but the young speedster is knocked for a loop when he tries to confront Mr. Twister and gets a blast from his odd staff. Mr. Twister takes credit for the missing children and threatens Mayor Corliss that the youths won’t be returned unless he bows to his demands; in the unspecified amount of time that follows, the townsfolk express regret at how quiet and lifeless it is without the kids, much to the trio’s disgust (though we never see the reactions from any parents except for the Mayor, who seems more bothered about Mr. Twister’s return than the loss of his son).

Mr. Twister’s threat to the kids is all-too-real, necessitating the intervention of Kid Flash.

Mayor Corliss sheds some light on what Mr. twister’s beef is; back in colonial days, Bromwell’s ancestor, Jacob, allowed settlers to build Hatton Corners on his land in return for him and his descendants being paid one passenger feather a year or forfeit one of their youths. Since the demand was so ludicrous, the town’s founders never honoured the agreement and, when Bromwell showed up looking claim on the unpaid debt, he was laughed out of the Mayor’s office and vowed revenge. With passenger pigeons having gone extinct in the intervening years, Robin decides to do a little detective work to find the missing kids and discovers records of “unidentified flying objects” heading southwest to…Goat Island…the same night the teenagers vanished. Aqualad arranges them some transport to the island on the back of a manta ray; along the way, he and Kid Flash get into a bit of a dispute over the appeals of the sea and super speed and Kid Flash even questions Robin’s tendency to bark orders considering his lack of superpowers. Still, they arrive at the island and find the missing teens being put to work by Mr. Twister to build a massive stone tower in his honour. Although Eddie tries to fight back by…throwing a rope at their captor…his efforts are easily subdued thanks to Mr. Twister’s staff and he (as in Eddie) and his fellow teens are suddenly longing for the safety and security of their town and its adults. Mr. Twister leaves to run an errand and threatens them with punishment if his tower isn’t completed by the time he gets back; while Robin goes to uncover the source of the villain’s powers, Kid Flash uses his superspeed to build the tower in no time at all, thereby sparing the youths the wrath of their kidnapper.

Despite being touted as invincible, Mr. Twister is defeated with a ridiculous amount of ease.

Back on the mainland, Robin discovers Mr. Twister using “long lost Indian medicine” to empower his staff; when he’s discovered, Robin leaps into action, tossing sand in the villain’s face and landing an uppercut to his jaw. However, his eagerness backfires; as long as Mr. Twister is in possession of his staff, his body automatically repels any force used against it. Mr. Twister uses a tornado to dump Robin back into town with a further threat to destroy the town unless his debt is paid, but the Boy Wonder is clueless how they can meet the villain’s demands or oppose the power of his staff. Jealous of the adulation Kid Flash receives from the town’s kids, Aqualand returns to the ocean to revitalise his strength and discovers that Goat Island is…somehow…held aloft by an extremely narrow piece of earth under the sea. Using his command over marine life, Aqualad has a bunch of whales literally transport the island out of Mr. Twister’s grasp, bamboozling the villain and earning him the admiration of the kids. Although the teenagers are safely returned to town, Mr. Twister makes good on his threat by conjuring a cloud of dust to bury the town; however, Kid Flash is easily able to disperse it with his superspeed. When Mr. Twister tries to flood the town in torrential rain, Aqualad is able to drain the water by commanding a narwhal to bore a hole into the ground but, when the villain rains literal fire upon the town, Kid Flash and Aqualad are incapacitated by bolts from his staff and the town is slowly consumed by fire (…despite the fact it was just half-submerged under water). Robin pulls his friends to safety and hops into a fire engine; he climbs up the fire ladder and is able to disarm the villain with a ridiculous amount of ease simply by tossing his Bat-Rope and because Mr. Twister was apparently unable to get a clean shot…even though he hit Kid Flash mere moments earlier! Anyway, Mr. Twister is depowered and apprehended, the trio put out the fire, the adults agree to build the teenagers their clubhouse, and everyone celebrates their newfound appreciation of each other.

The Summary:
Holy God! I was expecting this to be pretty bad but, somehow, the first team-up of the proto-Teen Titans managed to exceed my wildest dreams. I’ve said many times how much I dislike the dialogue and characterisations of teenagers and women of this era of comics, so it’s no surprise that I wasn’t best impressed by all the lame attempts to be “cool” by shoehorning in language and anti-adult attitudes all over the story. I liked that the story kind of acknowledged this when Robin noticed the note was clearly written by an adult; it’s ironic as this story, and all other teenage characters, was written by adults trying to capture the speech and beliefs of the younger generation and it just comes across as awkward and out of touch. The whole “teenagers against adults” thing is pretty overplayed throughout comics, especially in the pages of Teen Titans and its successors, but it’s paper thin here; we’re never seen what the Hatton Corners teenagers do that’s deserving of a curfew and the kids only rally against the adults because they won’t build them a clubhouse. There’s no discussion about the relationship between Mayor Corliss and Eddie, no reaction from any parents, and the kids immediately start praising the ground the adults walk on when they’re forced into slavery by Mr. Twister.

Although portrayed as a threat, Mr. Twister’s motives are paper thin and he’s easily defeated.

Speaking of whom…what the fuck is this villain? He’s the descendant of some landowner who made a bonkers agreement that was immediately welched on and yet he somehow stumbled upon some poorly defined “Indian” magic to empower his staff and gain control of the elements. I mean, I’ve seen some pretty wacky villains in comics in my time, but Mr. Twister takes the cake! He’s literally willing to kidnap a whole bunch of kids, force them to build him a monument, and destroy the entire town, killing all of its inhabitants, unless he’s given a bunch of feathers! He makes the pompous Mayor Corliss look reasonable by that measurement, but the worst part is that he’s portrayed as a credible threat! And that’s a really weird thing for me to complain about as I’m normally bemoaning the fact that the villains of these team-ups aren’t enough of a threat, but Mr. Twister makes mincemeat of both Kid Flash and Aqualad with his staff’s power and could’ve easily killed Robin when he had him unconscious but chose not to for no bloody reason! And yet, despite his vast power, the heroes have to triumph so the story pulls some of the most ludicrous explanations out of its ass to facilitate that; Goat Island is held aloft by a thin perch of earth? A goddamn narwhal? And the fact that Mr. Twister can “kayo” the two superpowered teens but can’t hit Robin because he’s climbing a ladder?!

Thanks to Kid Flash and Aqualad’s bickering, it’s easy for Robin to stand out and take charge.

The whole story is just a complete mess of a fever dream. The three teenage heroes are brought together in the most contrived way possible and, for all their high and mighty talk of the troubles of the youth moment, only go to Hatton Corners when their mentors give them the go-ahead! The dynamic between the three isn’t very developed, but there’s definitely potential here; the rivalry between Kid Flash and Aqualad doesn’t get a lot of play but it was kind of fun seeing them out-doing each other to impress the girls and bickering about their respective powers. If there’s a standout of this story, it’s Robin; he takes command of the three easily and naturally and they listen to him without question (save for one inconsequential remark from Kid Flash). As the far more logical and level-headed of the three, it’s fitting that Robin discovers where the kids have been taken and the source of Mr. Twisters power, and the remarks about his lack of superpowers mean he was obviously going to be the one to topple the villain…I just wish it had been in a more impressive fashion. In the end, “The Thousand-and-One Dooms of Mr. Twister” is indicative of the storytelling of its era; it might seem unfair to hold that against it, but I’m going to. There are certainly far better Teen Titans origin tales out there and you’re really not missing all that much if you skip this one unless you’re a big fan of outdated slang, outmoded opinions on both age groups, and nonsensical storytelling.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

Have you ever read “The Thousand-and-One Dooms of Mr. Twister”? If so, what did you think to it? Do you own a copy of the original comic or do you remember reading it when it was first published? What did you think to the first team-up of Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad? Were you also put off by the outdated slang and attitudes or did you enjoy these aspects? What did you think to Mr. Twister, his motivations and powers, and the way he was defeated? What are some of your favourite Teen Titans stories? Whatever your thoughts on the Teen Titans, and Robin, drop a comment down below and check back next Thursday for more Robin content.

Back Issues [Crossover Crisis]: Spider-Man and Batman

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In April of 1985, the first issue of the ground-breaking, twelve issue Crisis on Infinite Earths (Wolfman, et al, 1986) was published. This event, which was easily the biggest in DC Comics at that point (and for many years), saw the destruction of the “Multiverse”, an infinite number of parallel worlds, and the awkward establishing of one unified DC canon. Over the years, DC have returned to this concept again and again, retconning it, expanding upon it, and milking it to the point of excess but that doesn’t change how influential this massive crossover was. To celebrate this momentous event, I’m looking at multiversal crossovers every Tuesday in April in an event I call “Crossover Crisis”.

Story Title: “Disordered Minds”
Published: September 1995
Writer: J.M. DeMatteis
Artist: Mark Bagley

The Background:
You might be surprised to learn, considering they’re in direct competition with each other, that DC Comics and Marvel Comics have had a reasonably collaborative and amicable relationship over the years. Obviously, there’s been lawsuits and underhanded tactics from both, but not only were legendary Stan Lee and disreputable sham Bob Kane close friends but both comic giants borrowed from and inspired each other and they’ve even collaborated on many joint publications in the past. Having already had Clark Kent/Superman and Peter Parker/Spider-Man come to blows in Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man: The Battle of the Century (Conway, et al, 1976) and Bruce Wayne/Batman test his mettle against Doctor Bruce Banner/The Hulk in Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk (Wein, et al, 1981), DC and Marvel brought together their two most popular characters for the first time in this 1995 one-shot adventure. As is the case with many of these DC/Marvel crossovers, Spider-Man and Batman can fetch a pretty high price for collectors, and it also wouldn’t be the last time that the web-slinger and the Dark Knight crossed in one form or another.

The Review:
Our story begins with Peter Parker wrestling with the guilt and shame of being partially responsible for the death of his beloved Uncle Ben. In a nightmarish revisitation of the fateful night when Dennis Carradine broke into the Parker home and gunned down Ben, Peter (as Spider-Man) is on hand to strike with a furious vengeance, viewing the gunman as some maniacal monster who simply laughs at his murderous actions so hard that he eventually turns into the Joker! Peter awakens in horror, eased through the aftermath of this oft-recurring nightmare by his beautiful and busty wife, Mary Jane Watson-Parker. As ever in times of emotional crisis, Peter takes to web-slinging to help clear his head and ventures out into the night reaffirming his commitment to using his powers responsibility in order to live up to the examples set by his doting aunt and uncle. Coincidentally enough, that very same night, Bruce Wayne is also reliving the night that his parents died, gunned down in an alley in a senseless act of violence. Similar to Peter, Bruce’s dream sees him (as Batman) leaping into action, hatred for the inhumane monster boiling in his veins, and awakens to find himself, as ever, alone in his vast mansion with only his heartache and faithful butler and father-figure, Alfred Pennyworth. However, while he appreciates Alfred’s concern and loyalty, he heads out into the night as Batman without a word, determined to ensure that none should suffer as he did from random acts of violence. With our characters and their motivations firmly established, the story jumps over to the Ravencroft Institute, where Spider-Man is accompanying Doctor Ashley Kafka for a visit to the imprisoned Cletus Kasady/Carnage, who’s being held in a specially-constructed cell that keeps his violent symbiote at bay presumably using heat. The purpose of this is similar to the opening panels as Kasady simply taunts Dr. Kafka with a summary of his abusive and disturbing childhood, some of which may be true and some of which may just be another aspect of his twisted personality since Kasady is obsessed with murder, mayhem, and (quite fittingly) carnage.

Batman is less than thrilled when Spidey swings in to help after Carnage breaks free.

Carnage surprises both of them by breaking out of his cage, claiming himself to be a “walking impossibility” beyond logic and reason, but luckily Spider-Man and a security force led by Colonel John Jameson are on hand to subdue the serial killer with their fists and microwave guns, respectively, though newcomer Cassandra Briar proposes a far more permanent (if radical) solution to Kasady’s frequent maniacal outbursts. Utilising a “bio-technic cure” for Kasady’s insanity, Briar has a computer chip installed in his cerebral cortex, which promises to render him for more docile and stable, though Dr. Kafka likens it to the equivalent of a modern-day lobotomy and Spidey remains doubtful that it’ll stick since he’s more than familiar with Kasady’s volatile nature. Similarly, over in Gotham City, Batman puts a stop to the Joker’s latest scheme to infect millions of people with a deadly virus transmitted through bats and returns the Harlequin of Hate to Arkham Asylum (though he’s disgusted when the Joker lands a bite on him during their scuffle). There, Briar proudly shows off how meek and timid Kasady has become from her controversial treatment and uses this success as all the justification she needs to implant a similar chip into the Joker’s head, thus becoming a media sensation for rendering two of the country’s most violent and sadistic supervillains “as harmless as a puppy”. Determined to ride these successes to a wider rollout of her “miracle cure” and receive Presidential approval to eradicate psychopaths everywhere, Briar receives the shock of her life when the Carnage symbiote suddenly bursts out of Kasady’s body after shorting out her chip, taking both her and the terrified and submissive Joker hostage. Thankfully, the Batman is on hand (having disguised himself as a guard) to confront the demented killer, but his usual tactic of goading a villain into discarding their hostages in favour of him fails to work since Carnage has no interest in prioritising Batman over anyone else. Luckily, Spider-Man makes a surprise appearance to whisk Briar out of the maniac’s clawed grip and the two masked heroes take the fight to Carnage, despite Batman’s assertion that he doesn’t need the help.

While the villains’ alliance is short-lived, Batman is soon recruiting Spidey’s help in dealing with Carnage.

Regardless, the two briefly knock Carnage off balance, but he’s able to slip away by firing shards of his symbiote at the nearby cops and strangling the others with his bloody tendrils, creating an effective distraction to cover his escape. Naturally, Batman is less than thrilled to see Spider-Man encroaching on his turf, both out of a desire to keep the web-slinger from getting hurt due to his unfamiliarity with the city’s unique dangers and because he doesn’t need or want his help or him getting in the way, though Spidey naturally ignores this warning. In comparison, Carnage admits to an admiration for the Joker’s “homicidal genius [and] shameless depravity” and uses a small fragment of his suit to short out the chip and return the Clown Prince of Crime to what asses for normal. Although initially confused, frustrated, and angered at the Joker’s babbling and insolence, Carnage quickly gleefully rejoices in the Joker’s commitment to the absurd meaningless of anarchy. However, their partnership is short-lived. When the Joker takes Carnage to his secret, fairground-themed hideout to retrieve the remainder of his virus, joyfully expositing his plan to douse hundreds of Joker-themed jack-in-the-boxes with the toxin and distribute them to kids, Carnage is disgusted since it would take too long for the bodies to start piling up and he delights in getting his hands bloody from up-close-and-personal slaughter. The two come to blows over their differing methods and mentalities, with the Joker easily slipping away through a hidden trapdoor and even attempting to kill Carnage by blowing up his lair. In contrast after Batman contemplates Carnage’s unique brand of madness and sadistic nature in the Batcave and Spider-Man sees first-hand how different things are in Gotham when nobody bats an eyelid when a random civilian is screaming bloody murder in the streets, our heroes finally come together when Batman not only picks Spider-Man up in the Batmobile but even apologises for giving him the brush off.

Though pushed to their limits, Batman and Spider-Man are ultimately victorious and part as allies.

Though he has no time for Spider-Man’s quips and jokes, Batman recognises that he has unique insight into Carnage, and the two are able to track him to the wreckage of the Joker’s lair, where they find what appears to be his dead body but is, in fact, a decoy Carnage set up to trick the Joker. Delighted to have the Batman in his coils instead, Carnage plans to publicly execute Batman on top of Gotham Towers and, while comparing Carnage to Death itself, which passed him by back in Crime Alley, Batman orders Spider-Man to stop Carnage despite the threat to his life. However, it’s the Joker who actually intervenes in the tense showdown; claiming ownership over the Batman and determined to drop his virus on the four of them, killing all of them and everyone else in the city simply to spite Carnage, Kasady’s briefest flicker of fear is all the opening Batman needs to break free from his grip and leap into action. Spider-Man easily webs up the threat and, despite it taking the combined might of Spider-Man and Eddie Brock/Venom and many others in the past, the Batman is easily able to pummel Carnage into unconsciousness since, for all his powers and bloodlust, he’s simply another sloppy punk and a “scared little boy”. With Carnage subdued, Spider-Man chases down the Joker with an uncharacteristic rage; easily manhandling the Clown Prince of Crime, Spider-Man is barely able to stop himself from killing the Joker since he’s too great a threat, too dedicated to violence and chaos, to be left alive. While his better nature prevails and he ultimately spares the Joker, Spidey does deliver a knock-out punch to the cackling villain, finally bringing the story’s combined threat to an end. As if seeing Spider-Man pushed to the point of killing wasn’t surprising enough, Spidey is unusually quiet in his final confrontation with the Batman; weary from the night’s events, the two choose not to ruin the moment with words and instead part ways with a hearty handshake having found a common ground and a mutual respect through their conduct and escapades.

The Summary:
“Disordered Minds” is an interesting approach to take for an intercompany crossover. You might think with characters as wildly different as Spider-Man and Batman that the focus would be on their different methods; if Dick Grayson/Nightwing is an athletic chatterbox and the various Robins are brightly-coloured distractions to throw criminals off from Batman’s darker, more measured approach, then Spider-Man should drive the Dark Knight absolutely batty (heh!) with his constant chatter, quips, and annoying tendencies. Instead, there’s actually not much in the way of banter between the two; Spider-Man mouths off a little in the Batmobile, but that’s about it and the rest of their interactions basically boil down to Batman telling Spidey to fuck off and Spider-Man sticking around because of his innate sense of responsibility. This is a bit of a shame as I would’ve liked to see their contrasting personalities and methods more on show beyond “Gotham’s not what you’re used to sod off!” and “Boy, you’re grim” but the story does have to two united in their shared grief. Both carry a tremendous amount of survivor’s guilt, though for different reasons; Bruce was too young to do anything about his parents’ murder whereas Peter chose not to use his powers responsibly, so both are on the same path towards safeguarding others to ease their guilt and pain but have very different outlooks on the world. This comes up multiple times, with Spider-Man raging against the chaos and violence around him and Batman lashing out at “Death” and determined to rally against it however he can.

While the writing is a bit dodgy and there’s some wasted potential, the art work in phenomenal.

The art is where the story really shines; Mark Bagley is one of the top Spider-Man artists and, thanks to his work on the character and his various run-ins with symbiotes before, has more than proven himself capable of delivering a dynamic and visually exciting Spider-Man and menacing and dangerous Carnage. His Batman and Joker fare really well too, naturally, and the art is absolutely stunning all throughout even if the writing fails it somewhat. We spend no less than eleven pages recapping the origins of Spider-Man, Batman, and Carnage, which is probably great for newcomers but somewhat unnecessary for long-term readers when, normally, a simple text box sums it all up nicely. Thankfully, all of this is rendered in an interesting way through the use of nightmares and Carnage’s dramatic escape from custody, but the writing stumbles a bit mid-way through, too, since Cassandra Briar basically disappears after being rescued despite so much time being spent on her computer chip cure. I feel like a simple story about Kasady or the Joker being transferred across the country might’ve been a much simpler and faster way to get things moving since the chip is easily destroyed by Carnage and doesn’t factor into the plot beyond being a contrived way to get him and the Joker to cross paths. There’s also not a huge amount of interaction between Batman and Spider-Man; they don’t physically fight (which is unusual at the best of times but even more so for a crossover like this), join forces pretty quickly after Batman stops being irrationally stubborn, and it doesn’t really take much at all for them to defeat the villainous duo despite Carnage being so powerful that Spider-Man alone usually struggles to defeat him. there’s a promise of a twisted partnership between Carnage and the Joker but it’s almost immediately squandered simply because Carnage gets impatient, which is in keeping with his character but basically means the villains don’t actually do anything besides compliment each other, scuffle a bit, and then get taken out by the heroes. All in all, this was relatively entertaining and interesting first meeting between my two favourite comic book heroes but it didn’t quite deliver on its potential, despite the fantastic art work and some fun moments.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Have you ever read Spider-Man and Batman? If so, what did you think to it? Do you own a copy of the original comic or do you remember reading it when it was first published? Were you surprised that there wasn’t more time spent on contrasting the different methods and personalities of the two heroes? What did you think to the brief team-up between the Joker and Carnage the ease that they were defeated? Would you like to see DC and Marvel collaborate again in the future and, if so, what stories would you like to see? Whatever your thoughts on Spider-Man and Batman, and comic book crossovers of this kind, sign up to share them below or comment on my social media and check back next Tuesday as Crossover Crisis continues!

Game Corner [Bite Size / Robin Month]: Batman Forever: The Arcade Game (PlayStation)

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In April of 1940, about a year after the debut of arguably their most popular character, Bruce Wayne/Batman, DC Comics debuted “the sensational find of [that year]”, Dick Grayson/Robin. Since then, Batman’s pixie-boots-wearing partner has changed outfits and a number of different characters have assumed the mantle as the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin have become an iconic staple of DC Comics. Considering my fondness for the character and those who assumed the mantle over the years, what better way to celebrate this dynamic debut than to dedicate every Thursday of April to celebrating the character?

Released: 1996
Developer: Probe Entertainment / Iguana Entertainment / Iguana Entertainment UK
Also Available For: Arcade, MS-DOS, and SEGA Saturn

A Brief Background:
It’s easy to forget now but Batman Forever (Schumacher, 1995) was a pretty big deal for Warner Bros. back in the day; not only had they sunk $100 million into the film but they were desperate to appease those who were outraged with the dark, macabre content of Batman Returns (Burton, 1992) and craft a film that would be more appealing for the sponsors. While it garnered a mixed critical response, Batman Forever made over $330 at the box office and was accompanied by a slew of merchandise and ancillary products. Like its predecessors, Batman Forever also received a tie-in videogame that marked Acclaim’s first foray into the arcade scene. However, the 2.5D beat-‘em-up was met with mostly mixed reviews but still fared better than Acclaim’s other home console adaptation of the movie.

First Impressions:
If there’s three things you can always count on with me, it’s that I’m a big fan of arcade titles, sidescrolling beat-‘em-ups, and Batman. Although I didn’t grow up with a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), emulators have allowed me to have a great deal of fun with Batman Returns (Konami, 1993), which was a cracking licensed videogame simply because it aped the formula of genre staples like Final Fight (Capcom, 1989) and X-Men (Konami, 1992). While Batman Forever had an extremely dismal and almost unplayable sidescrolling adventure game released on Mega Drive and SNES, arcades were blessed with this far more enjoyable and fitting videogame, which thankfully came to the PlayStation so I was able to snap it up (and at a pretty good price, too, all things considered). Batman Forever: The Arcade Game can be played on three different difficulty settings (Easy, Normal, or Hard), with enemies increasing in number and toughness on the harder difficulty settings, and allows you to assign yourself up to seven continues. You begin the game with three lives and, once you’ve lost all three, you can enter a high score and switch your character to return to the action once more. In terms of controls, Batman Forever is as simple as it gets: one button punches, one kicks, and one jumps and that’s it. you can customise these in the options menu and choose to play as either Batman or Robin (or both together, if you have a friend), before jumping into the game proper. There doesn’t appear to be any technical differences between the two, but they do have different animations and Robin seems to be a bit faster on his feet, but that could just my psychosomatic on my part. Right away, you’re treated to a pretty impressive in-game cutscene as Batman and/or Robin heads to the streets of Gotham City in the Batmobile, and the first thing you’ll notice is how impressive and ambitious the graphics are. The game utilises pre-rendered, 2.5D backgrounds that, while murky and a bit washed out, are immediately evocative of many of the neon-drenched, bizarre locations seen in the film, such as the graffiti-and-litter-strewn streets, Edward Nygma/The Riddler’s big gala (with partially animated guests in the background), and Harvey Dent/Two-Face’s lair among others. The playing field allows you to wander into the background, with sprites scaling accordingly, though they do lose a fair amount of graphical fidelity, becoming even more pixelated and ugly as you move about.

While the game is cluttered and chaotic, it’s full of action and fun ways to beat up thugs.

Sprites in general look decent enough; they appear to be digitised, similar to the early Mortal Kombat games (Midway/Various, 1992 to 1996), and Batman and Robin have a glistening sheen to them that makes them look like action figures. Batman looks a little goofy, with his massive chest symbol, but Robin looks pretty good; the thugs you encounter, however, are swarms of Two-Face’s goons, robots modelled after the Riddler’s fortune teller machine, and other generic beat-‘em-up mooks, none of whom have a life bar. The sheer number of enemies is pretty impressive and overwhelming, however. It doesn’t take much for you to get pummelled to death as enemies swarm around you and trap you in an unblockable beatdown, and enemies will fire guns, toss grenades, drive motorcycles and cars at you as well as spring out from the scenery. To make matters worse, Two-Face occasionally pops in, riding a wrecking ball or shooting rockets at you from the foreground, though there are times where you can swing and grapple parts of the environment to barge trough enemies. Combat is a pretty simple affair, with you mashing punch and kick to string together combos, tossing and jump-kicking enemies as you’d expect, but the game makes a big deal out swamping you with various power-ups. As you take out enemies, little Bat Symbols scatter everywhere which power-up your “Combo Meter” as well as a variety of gadgets and pick-ups: Bat-Signals, Two-Face Ying-Yangs, and Riddler Symbols appear frequently, bestowing either gadgets or temporary buffs and debuffs. When you grab a gadget, like the Batarang, grapple gun, taser, or Bat Bola, your regular attack is replaced with a projectile; the grapple gun is particularly useful for landing up to 150 hit combos on enemies and sees you swinging and flailing all over the screen, while the Batarangs can quickly rack up points and the taser and bola can stun enemies for a short time. You can also pull off a screen-clearing attack, summon bats to protect and attack enemies, and toss a stun grenade, and all of these attacks will increase in power and change their appearance as your meter builds higher. However, this can make the combat and action extremely chaotic as the screen is constantly filled with enemies, items, and your almost incomprehensible attacks, making for a very frantic and confusing experience.

My Progression:
As you fight your way through the game, you can pick up and throw objects, grab the odd bit of health to sustain yourself, and will be blessed or cursed with power-ups such as invisibility, duplication, invulnerability, and shrinking you (or your enemies), among others. After clearing a stage, your score is tallied up; the more enemies you defeat and the more gadgets and such you use, the better your score and rewards. You can then pick from these rewards to start the next stage with a gadget or power-up advantage; some are merely cosmetic, like “VR Mode”, which sees enemies burst into green computer coding upon defeat, while others increase your combo by default, allowing you to build your meter faster. There are no save points, password, or checkpoints in the game, however; once you exhaust all of your continues, the game is over and you’ll need to start from the beginning, which is always a pretty shitty thing to do in a home conversion of an arcade game since its purpose isn’t to relieve you of your pocket money. All I’m saying is at least have the option to earn more lives or continues, or limit your continues on the harder difficulties and have them disabled entirely on Easy mode.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to save Gotham from the villains’ mad schemes…this time…

Naturally, you’ll have to battle a few bosses over the course of your playthrough, however not as many as you might think. The game is structured more to have you battle wave upon wave of the same goons over and over until you reach the end of a stage, where a boss may be waiting for you, but it’s not always the case. I didn’t fight a boss until the second stage, for example, which pits you against three slightly tougher goons: Nick, Blade, and Flex, each of which fires at you with an Uzi, tosses grenades, or throws knives at you and can block your attacks (something you’re incapable of doing). You’ll know when you’re facing a boss as they actually have a life bar and the screen flashes dramatically after you defeat them, and these three weren’t all that difficult but, again, it’s easy to get caught in a crossfire and just whittled down to nothing in no time at all. At the end of an alleyway, you’ll fight Tassel (who seems to be the neon-painted, clown-like goon who hassled Dick in the film), who’s joined by a couple of gun-and-grenade-toting henchmen and shows off a bit of flippy, martial arts skill. After battling through goons on a rooftop, you’ll be confronted by a helicopter and a seemingly endless supply of enemies; simply fend them off, dodging the chopper’s machine gun fire, and press attack to toss projectiles when prompted. Two-Face will continually pop up to fire rockets at you in the subway and at the gala, and two of the Riddler’s robots will attack you with their extendable arms to cover their escape. These then become regular enemies in a construction site full of explosive barrels, where you’ll battle Feather and Stew, with Feather proving pretty tough thanks to being very handy with his bo staff. My run came to a disappointing end in Two-Face’s lair, however, where his beautiful bodyguards, Sugar and Spice, absolutely wrecked me with their fast attacks, which pummelled me from both sides without any chance of fighting back, treating to me to a rather bland game over screen (in the Batman: The Animated Series (1992 to 1999) font, no less) informing me of my failure to save Gotham City.

I was having a pretty good time with Batman Forever: The Arcade Game once I got past the visual and sensory overload. The game includes a renditions of Elliot Goldenthal’s score and some brief sound bites from the movie, but the sheer number of enemies and chaos happening onscreen at any one time can be a little overwhelming. The game looks fairly decent, even though things can get a bit ugly and distorted at times, but the depth of combat is a little odd compared to other beat-‘em-ups; the gadgets and various pick-ups mean there’s always something happening and you can rack up big combos, but it also feels like a lot of control is being taken away from you as Batman and Robin leap into action with these big, elaborate movements at the touch of a button. Unfortunately, neither are particularly durable; your health bar can be whittled down to nothing in the blink of an eye and you’ll burn through your lives and continues in no time, with no passwords or cheat codes to make things easier for you. It’s probably do-able, maybe in two-player mode, and I’m sure I’ll return to it again as I do enjoy a bit of sidescrolling, beat-‘em-up action, but lumbering you with limited continues for a home console release always irks me and there’s not really anything to unlock or to discover outside of the main campaign, which continues basically no story and very few cutscenes (and even these are limited to the in-game graphics, impressive as they can be). I’d like to know if you’ve ever played this one, either in the arcade or at home, and how well you fared against Gotham’s colourful swarms of criminals? Which character did you prefer, and what did you think to all the gadgets and power-ups? Which licensed Batman game is your favourite? Who is your favourite Robin and how are you celebrating the Boy Wonder’s debut this month?  Whatever your thoughts on this game, and Robin in general, sign up to leave them below or share your thoughts on my social media, and check back soon for more Robin content!

Game Corner [Crossover Crisis]: Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (Xbox 360)

Dr. K6 Comments

In April of 1985, the first issue of the ground-breaking, twelve issue Crisis on Infinite Earths (Wolfman, et al, 1986) was published. This event, which was easily the biggest in DC Comics at that point (and for many years), saw the destruction of the “Multiverse”, an infinite number of parallel worlds, and the awkward establishing of one unified DC canon. Over the years, DC have returned to this concept again and again, retconning it, expanding upon it, and milking it to the point of excess but that doesn’t change how influential this massive crossover was. To celebrate this momentous event, I’ll be taking a look at multiversal crossovers every Tuesday in April in an event I call “Crossover Crisis”.

Released: 16 November 2008
Developer: Midway Games
Also Available For: PlayStation 3

The Background:
Mortal Kombat (Midway, 1992) stood out from the competition at the time with its focus on gore and violence and unique digitised graphics; the game was a massive success for Midway and the first real competition for Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Capcom, 1991) in arcades and on home consoles. However, while the franchise went from strength to strength during the 2D era of gaming, Mortal Kombat struggled to find a footing in the emerging 3D fighter arena, leading to the developers desperately trying to be innovative and appealing in an increasingly competitive business. Since Capcom had seen some success with crossovers with Marvel Comics and other fighting game developers, Mortal Kombat co-developer Ed Boon scrapped plans for a back-to-basics reboot of his violent fighting series in favour of a crossover with DC Comics. While incorporating popular DC characters like Bruce Wayne/Batman and Clark Kent/Superman had the potential to broaden Mortal Kombat’s mainstream appeal, the license carried many restrictions for the developers; Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was hampered by a “Teen” rating, which substantially neutered the series’ trademark violence. This, as much as anything, greatly contributed to the game’s mediocre reception; while some found the title surprisingly enjoyable, despite its bonkers premise, others found the gameplay and variety frustratingly tedious. Although the game received a “Kollector’s Edition” release, this was Midway Games’ last project before they went bankrupt and plans for downloadable content were subsequently scrapped. Thankfully, this wasn’t the final nail in the coffin for the franchise; the association with DC’ s parent company, Warner Bros, saw Midway being purchased by Warner and restructured into NetherRealm Studios, and the ultra violent was not only soon back on track but the new studio also eventually found success with the DC license in a separate series of fighting games.

The Plot:
After Raiden and Superman repel invasions from both their worlds simultaneously in their separate universes, villains, Shao Kahn and Darkseid are unexpectedly merged into “Dark Kahn” and the two universes to begin merging, with catastrophic events. With characters from both universes wildly fluctuating in power, representatives from both worlds come together to stop the merger by any means necessary.

Gameplay:
Mirroring the style and presentation of its mainline series, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is a 2.5D fighting game in which players pick from a roster initially comprised of twenty fighters of iconic characters from both franchise’s and battle through the game’s single-player story mode, fight one-on-one against another player or computer-controlled opponent, battle their way through an arcade ladder, or take on a series of increasingly difficult combo challenges. By default, fights take place in a best-of-three format and against a time limit but you can alter these settings (and many others, including the game’s difficulty and the use of blood) in the game’s main options menu to speed up gameplay or make it more accessible to you. Rather than employing different fighting styles and weapon combat like its predecessors, or properly incorporate different variations like in the later games, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe takes a very barebones approach to combat and gameplay options: controls are fully customisable but, by default, you can throw with X or Y, kicks with A or B, toss them aside with a generic throw with Left Bumper, block incoming attacks by holding the Right Trigger, dash towards (but not away from) your opponent, jump in or crouch down to attack or avoid incoming attacks, and string together combos by quickly pressing the attack buttons alongside directional inputs. The game includes a practice mode to help you get to grips with this, and a “Kombo Challenge” feature that helps you practice the game’s tricky combo system, but you can bring up your fighter’s moves at any time by pausing the game. It has to be said that combat is quite a hurdle here; you’ll sometimes jump or dash when you don’t mean to, even when using the directional pad, jumping punches can be very floaty and often miss, and the game seems weighted in the CPU’s favour even when playing on the easiest setting as they have no difficulty pulling off some of the ridiculous combos on offer here.

Unleash your Rage, pummel opponents in Free-Fall, or smash them through walls.

Each fighter can pull off a number of unique special moves with simple button and directional inputs (back, back, X, for example, or left, down, B); while these can be stringed together with combos, they can’t be enhanced like in subsequent games as your “Rage Meter” only allows you to pull of the ever-annoying breakers to interrupt combos and attacks when filled to the first tier and activate the game’s “Rage Mode” by pressing RT and LT at the same time. This will put you into “Rage” mode, which powers up your attacks and coats you in a glowing armour that weakens the damage you receive, shrugs off projectiles, and keeps you from being stunned or knocked over. This doesn’t last for very long but it can easily make short work of your opponent, and activating it will even see you unleash a burst of energy that knocks your foe away, so properly timing the burning of your Rage Meter can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The game also features a few unique gameplay mechanics: if you grab your opponent with the Right Bumper , you’ll activate “Klose Combat” mode, which sees you pummelling or breaking your opponent’s limbs with successive presses of the face buttons. They (and you) can counter these attacks by pressing the right button at the right time, and these quasi-quick-time events (QTEs) also crop up in the “Free-Fall Kombat” and stage transition moments. In some stages, you can send your opponent plummeting down to a new part of the arena; while in free fall, you can mash different face buttons to deal damage and finish them off with RB, but they’ll turn the tide against you if they hit the right buttons. Similarly, some stages allow you to charge your opponent through a way, whereupon you’re asked to “Test Your Might!” in a tug-of-way style button mashing sequence that inflicts more damage the more of the bar you manage to fill. These mechanics can be fun ways to spice up the somewhat lacklustre in-game combat and definitely open up the otherwise bland and empty arenas a bit more since you can literally smash your opponent to new areas, but they’re a far cry from the stage transitions seen in the Injustice series (NetherRealm Studios, 2013 to present).

While you can get up close and personal with foes, the dull finishing moves will leave you disappointed.

Sadly, that’s about it for in-game options; some stages very destructible elements you can smash into, and all of the game’s characters sport special moves befitting of them (Sub-Zero’s ice blast, for example, and Bruce Wayne/Batman’s Batarangs) but, since the game is hampered by a lower rating, there is very little blood and none of the gore you’d expect from a Mortal Kombat. That’s not to say that Fatalities aren’t present, however, they’re just…what’s the word..?…oh yes! Shit. Unlike in subsequent games, you can’t view your character’s finisher inputs from the pause screen, which makes finishing your opponent a real chore, but very few of these moves are even worth your time pulling off. All of the Mortal Kombat characters can execute two Fatalities that will see them murder their opponent in the most PG way imaginable; while some leave the opponent an exceptionally dry and clean skeleton, most boil down to you simply stabbing, shooting, or crushing them with very little bloodshed. The more morally pure DC superheroes will opt to finish their opponent with one of two “Heroic Brutalities”, though many of these would no doubt leave the foe severely crippled or dead since we see the likes of Clark Kent/Superman driving them into the ground and Barry Allen/The Flash pummelling them at superspeed. Unlike in previous (and subsequent) Mortal Kombat videogames, there are no mini games to distract you and is no in-game currency to earn, no player profile or fighter card to customise, and no Krypt to explore to send your coins. There aren’t even alternate skins for the fighters beyond a very minor palette swap when choosing the same character, and the best the game offers is allowing you to view bios, character models, and endings in the “Extras” menu, all of which makes for a very stripped down title even compared to its predecessor, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Midway Games, 2006).

While there’s not much to the arcade mode, the story mode is decent enough, if limited and tedious.

This also means that there are no challenge towers or option combat modes like “Test Your Luck” or tag-team combat to spice up multi-player gameplay; you can play locally or online (well, I assume you can’t do this latter any more) in ranked and “King of the Hill” style matches but the arcade ladder is a standard, ten-fight challenge where the extent of the game’s variety is offering you the choice between facing all Mortal Kombat or all DC Universe opponents or a mixture of the two. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe does, however, feature a single-player story mode but, strangely, it only allows you to play as up to eight characters from either side. After picking either the Mortal Kombat or DC Universe story, you’ll take control of a specific character and battle anywhere from three to five opponents as part of the campaign. This remains a great way to familiarise players with the vast majority of the game’s fighters and their unique combos and special moves, but you cannot perform finishing moves when playing the story mode. Although you can’t skip any of the cutscenes, or jump to specific chapters and fights after completion, you can save and quit…which is definitely something, though the game’s difficulty can become frustrating as the computer-controlled characters love to block your attacks, uppercut you out of nowhere, and jump-kick you out of the air, and can seemingly juggle you in an inescapable combo at will! Unlike in later NetherRealm Studios games, the story mode is as basic as it gets; the only time it actually tries anything remotely different is during Major Jackson “Jax” Briggs’ chapter as you’re forced to battle Diana Prince/Wonder Woman without your machine gun, which means you’re robbed of on of your ranged attacks. If you’re defeated, you have ten in-game seconds to choose between continuing and quitting, which is true of the arcade and two-player bouts as well. Unfortunately, winning or losing in two-player mode simply dumps you back to the fighter select screen and, as far as I could tell, there isn’t even a way to select your stage let alone input Kombat Kodes or activate anything interesting to make the fights less of a chore.

Graphics and Sound:
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe looks pretty good, for the most part; the character models are very similar to those seen in Mortal Kombat (NetherRealm Studios, 2011), meaning they hold up about as well, but some suffer more than others. Women, for example, look particularly off; sure, it’s great seeing Selina Kyle/Catwoman’s amply cleavage and Lieutenant Sonya Blade’s nipples poking through her top, but they’re all impossibly sexualised and their hair is very blocky and static. Unlike later NetherRealm Studios offerings, character’s don’t have unique intros or dialogue with each other before a fight; the camera simply pans the arena and zooms in to find the combatants ready to go and, while they do have little animations between rounds, these don’t seem particularly unique to any fighter. Post-fight animations are a little more unique, but there’s a definite lack of variety and character in each fighter which reminds me of the cut-and-paste job seen in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (with the exception of the Joker, who dances and prances all over the place at every opportunity). On the plus side, characters do take battle damage; you’ll see their clothes rip, blood and bruises form on skin, and even uncover Scorpion’s skull as inflict damage on your opponent, which is fun, but the lack of any alternate attires or skins is a major tick in the “Con” column for this barebones title.

Stages are quite bland, but character models and cutscenes are okay, save for the poor endings.

There are some other notable little details on offer, however; when you toss Kano’s dagger at an opponent, it’ll stay stuck in their chest for a bit, you can sheath and unsheathe Baraka’s arm-claws with a press of B, you’ll see Sub-Zero’s icy breath, and there’s even a reference to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Meyer, 1982) thrown in for good measure. Another thing in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe’s favour, however, is that the CGI cutscenes are basically indistinguishable from the in-fight graphics; while the character models might be a little less detailed than in later games and have that action figure sheen that is common in this generation of games, it’s still impressive that there’s little distinction between the two, though the voice acting leaves a lot to be desired (the DC Animated Universe this is not!) and there’s very little to inspire you in the soundtrack, either. Similarly, stages are quite a let-down; the majority of them have this half-and-half theme going on where the DC Universe is split or merging with that of Outworld, NetherRealm, or Earthrealm but, even with that, there’s hardly anything to see or do and the stages are disappointingly bland and empty considering how big they are and the fat that you can navigate them in a 3D space. The likes of Oa, Themyscira, and the Fortress of Solitude probably stand out the most and have a few things to see in the background, but there’s a distinct and disappointing lack of Easter Eggs and visually interesting stages. Probably the most interesting one is the asteroid stage that sees you transitioning above and below thanks to the messed up gravity, but the game continues to bug me with presenting all these passable CGI cutscenes and relegating the arcade mode endings to a series of still pictures with narration.

Enemies and Bosses:
Since this is a fighting game, every character will inevitably be your enemy at some point so it can be useful to get an idea of what each one is capable of by playing through the story mode and completing their arcade ladders. However, there isn’t really too much to distinguish each character; you’ think the Flash would be faster and slippery to control compared to Liu Kang but he really isn’t and, while Jax and Billy Batson/Captain Marvel may utilise powerful grabs, they don’t feel any slower than someone like Kano or Hal Jordan/Green Lantern. Every character has a few simple combos that it’s best to learn so you can leap in, mash X three times or X, X, Y and then hit a special move or a throw to deal some decent damage, and they’re obviously made a bit more unique by their individual special moves. Characters will invariably have a projectile or some kind of range attack, a rush or grapple of some kind, and sometimes even disorientating gadgets like flash or smoke grenades. Some have more special moves on offer than others; Shang Tsung, for example, can toss flaming skulls across the screen and from above, suck his opponent’s health to fill his own, swap places (but not bodies) with them, and pull off a slide while other characters, like Batman, Sub-Zero, and the Joker, have parry moves in their arsenal that can interrupt attacks. Some characters are also a little more versatile than others; Superman can suck enemies in for a big punch, rush at them and smack them out of the air, fry them with his heat vision, freeze them with his breath, and perform flying attacks while Lex Luthor relies on his mech suit to fire missiles and blast away from danger. It’s when playing or fighting against the Mortal Kombat characters that long-time series fans will be at their most familiar: Liu Kang tosses his trademark fireballs and flying kicks, Jax grabs his foe and causes shockwaves, Kane launches himself like a cannonball, Scorpion throws his trademark spear, and Kitana uses her fans and dashes about in the air to be her usual annoying self.

Overcome the largely interchangeable fighters to chip away at the monstrous despots.

The lack of powered-up attacks, unique throws, and the generic effects of Rage Mode mean that you really don’t have to tailor your fighting style all that much against different opponents; Raiden’s abilities don’t really make him all that different from Slade Wilson/Deathstroke as both can be jumped over, ducked under, and attacked even if one has a dash and teleport and the other relies more on ranged attacks. You also won’t have to worry about any secret fighters cropping up in the arcade ladder; what you see is basically what you get but you do have to watch for characters like Sonya stringing together their multi-kick attacks in a cheap-ass combo. The exception to this comes in the form of the game’s big bad, Dark Kahn, who basically just looks like a slightly tweaked version of Blaze from Mortal Kombat: Armageddon and fights with a combination of moves from Shao Kahn and Darkseid. Dark Kahn awaits at the end of the story mode and arcade tower and is easily the biggest challenge you’ll face outside of the harder difficulties and opponents getting cheaper and more aggressive. A lumbering, monstrous foe, Dark Kahn can absorb a great deal of damage, gains armour and invincibility frames, and can drain your health bar to nothing in just a few basic swipes to say nothing of his energy barrier, shoulder charge, rising knee, and Warhammer attacks. Your best bet against him is to soften him up with ranged attacks and projectiles and stay moving; hop in, land a combo, and follow it up with a jump kick and then back away to avoid him stringing together his devastating moves in an inescapable barrage. The same is true of Shao Kahn and Darkseid, who act as sub-bosses in the arcade ladder; individually, they’re almost as formidable as their merged form, with both able to stun you with their hammer, fry you with their eye lasers, and smash you into the ground with a leaping attack. While you can’t play as Dark Kahn or perform your finishing moves on him, you can perform your finishing moves against Shao Kahn and Darkseid but, while both of these characters are unlocked after finishing the story mode (and, confusingly, pressing RB on the character select screen rather than adding them to the roster), neither of them have Fatalities of their own. Ultimately, while these three aren’t as impossible or as cheap as other Mortal Kombat bosses and sub-bosses, none of them really challenge your combat skills beyond relying on hit-and-run and spam tactics much like the previous two Mortal Kombat videogames that just ended with this hulking beast that could wreck you if given a chance rather than something that actually requires a bit more skill.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
There’s absolutely nothing on offer in this regard in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe beyond the individual character’s special moves; this game is severely lacking even for a one-on-one fighter as there are no codes or options to spice up gameplay, no weapons to grab, barely anything to interact with in stages, and characters don’t even get buffs or anything with their special moves the closest they get is teleporting, surrounding themselves in a damaging aura for a bit, or tossing bombs or grenades either close, mid-range, or far away.

Additional Features:
There are fifty Achievements on offer in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe; many of these are obtained simply by playing through the story mode, with Achievements popping after certain chapters and completing each (and both) stories. Simpler ones are acquired by performing a ten-hit combat, initiating Klose- and Free-Fall Kombat, and performing one Fatality or Heroic Brutality. Things get a little more complicated and frustrating when you try to perform all of these moments as a handful of them require you to press up, which makes you jump and interrupts the sequence, and in trying to get the 5G Achievements from completing each character’s Kombo Challenge otherwise, you’ll get Achievements for finishing the arcade ladder with all characters and competing in online fights, which are probably impossible to get these days. These involved standard fare that you might expect, as mentioned, and you can fight locally, but beyond unlocking every character’s ending and trying to finish their Kombo Challenges, there really isn’t anything else on offer here once you’ve finished the story mode and a few arcade ladders. There’s no concept art, character models, or extras to unlock, no gear or skins or arenas to unlock, and no downloadable fighters on offer, making for an extremely barebones and lacklustre fighting title that struggles to compete against others in the genre or even its predecessors.

The Summary:  
There was a lot of promise in the concept of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe; after the success that Capcom had with their ventures with Marvel Comics, this could’ve been a great springboard to a more mainstream audience. Sadly the game is let-down at almost every turn: everything from the music to the visuals and the depths of the combat is just lacking, to say nothing of the additional features and options for replayability. It’s interesting revisiting this after playing Mortal Kombat ’11 since that game was supposed to be the franchise’s back-to-basics approach but it’s hard to get more barebones than Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Even some of the 2D games had little extras, mini games or cheats or options to tweak the gameplay, but there’s absolutely nothing here, not even alternate skins for the fighters! The story mode is okay; it’s a paper thin excuse to mash these worlds together but it works, but I have no idea why it’s not a twenty-chapter mode that lets you play as each character from both sides. I’m actually a bit lenient on the lacklustre finishing moves; I get that the game couldn’t show spines being ripped out and flash being melted, but I think a little more effort could’ve gone into these and I really don’t like the term “Heroic Brutality”. The Free-Fall Kombat, Klose Kombat, and stage transitions are somewhat interesting, but the stages are so bland and empty that they’re completely wasted here. similarly, the lack of individuality to these colourful characters and the generic nature of their special moves and the Rage Mode really make this probably the most mediocre game in the entire franchise. Ultimately, this feels like a rushed, budget title that was hampered by pressing deadlines and financial pressure and a complete waste of the DC license. If you can get it cheap, give it a try and nab some easy Achievements, but otherwise you’re better off playing NetherRealm’s later games as this is just such a throwaway disappointment of a game.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

What did you think to Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe? Were you disappointed by its use of the DC license? What were your thoughts on the game’s story and its depiction of these worlds merging? Which of the game’s fighters was your favourite and why? What did you think to the Free-Fall and Klose Kombat features? Were you disappointed by the lack of special features and the Rage Mode mechanic? Which characters or features would you have liked to see added to the game? Which Mortal Kombat and/or DC Comics videogame, movie, comic, or other piece of media is your favourite? Are you a fan of multiverse stories and crossovers? Whatever you think about Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, sign up to leave a comment down below or leave your thoughts on my social media and be sure to check back in next Tuesday for more Crossover Crisis content!

Game Corner [JLA Day]: Justice League Heroes (PlayStation 2)

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To celebrate the release of Justice League (Snyder/Whedon, 2017), DC Comics named November 18 “Justice League Day”. Sadly, this clashes with something else I have planned for that date this year but, setting aside all the drama surrounding that movie, this still provides a perfect excuse to dedicating some time to talking about DC’s premier superhero team, which set the standard for super teams in comics by bringing together DC’s most powerful heroes.

Released: 22 November 2006
Developer: Snowblind Studios
Also Available For: Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, and Xbox

The Background:
After coming together in November 1959, the Justice League of America (JLA) quickly became one of DC Comic’s best-selling titles. This shouldn’t be entirely surprising considering the team came to be comprised of DC’s most popular characters: Clark Kent/Superman, Bruce Wayne/Batman, Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Arthur Curry/Aquaman, Barry Allan/The Flash, and J’onn J’onzz (also known as “John Jones”)/Martian Manhunter. The team saw many members come and go over the years but was a constant staple of DC’s library of comic books and soon expanded into other media. Interestingly, the Justice League’s success hasn’t always resulted in the best videogames, though, meaning developers Snowblind Studios faced a bit of an uphill battle right from the start when creating Justice League Heroes. Built out of a modified engine of their critically acclaimed title Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance (ibid, 2001), the developers ending up removing features from that game and engine to focus on extending the length of Justice League Heroes, which has more than a few similarities to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Raven Software/Barking Lizards Technologies, 2006), which released about a month earlier. Reviews of the game were mixed across platforms, though, and the game was generally regarded as a bit of a mediocre and mindless beat-‘em-up.

The Plot:
The Earth is under attack from the robot forces of Brainiac, who has coerced many of the world’s most notorious supervillains into helping him consolidate the power afforded to him by a mysterious box from the stars. In response, the world’s greatest heroes, the Justice League, leap into action and team up to oppose Brainiac’s plot in a globe-trotting adventure that requires all of their individual abilities and skills.

Gameplay:
Justice League Heroes is a top-down action brawler in which you (and either another player or a computer-controlled partner) battle through a number of recognisable locations from the DC universe as various members of the Justice League. The game’s story is split into a number of missions that see two members of the Justice League teaming up at any one time; a second, human player can join the game at any point from the pause menu, a solo player can freely switch between the two heroes at will by pressing up on the directional pad (D-pad), and you’ll also be tasked with assembling one or more custom teams of two characters later in the story but you’ll never get the opportunity to switch out characters completely or replay missions with different characters. Gameplay in Justice League Heroes revolves almost entirely around beating up endless hoards of robots and aliens and solving some very light puzzles; characters can jump with a press of the Triangle button (and double jump or fly/glide with subsequent presses depending on who you’re playing as), attack with strong and fast attacks with Circle and X, respectively, and can grab enemies or objects with Square and block incoming attacks by holding R1. By entering different button presses (X, X, O, for example), players can pull off simple combo attacks to take out enemies but there are, sadly, no team up attacks to be found here.

The Justice League’s various superpowers are at your disposal and can be upgraded to be more effective.

While every character controls the same except for their ability to fly or glide, each one is made slightly different from the other through their individual superpowers. By pressing L1 and either Triangle, Square, Circle, or X, players can pull off their character’s signature super moves as long as they have enough energy stored up. This allows you to blast enemies with Superman’s heat vision, for example, or turn them into rabbits with Zatanna Zatara’s magic, or smash them with John Stewart/Green Lantern’s massive sledgehammer. Pressing L1 and R1 will see each character (with some exceptions) pull off a more powerful  super special attack which, again, varies per character; Superman, for example, will become stronger while Batman unleashes a swarm of bats to damage foes and Martian Manhunter briefly becomes intangible and invisible. They’re all pretty useful and different enough in their own way, with most characters having a projectile of some sort, a move to boost their attack or speed, or being able to stun or otherwise incapacitate enemies and you’ll sometimes (very rarely) need to use a specific character’s superpowers to bypass obstacles in order to progress. When playing alone, you can also issue simple commands to your partner using the D-pad; this allows you to increase the aggressiveness of their attack or have them focus on defence, which can be useful when teamed with Zatanna as she’s able to heal all team members.

Rescue civilians, activate consoles, and destroy certain targets to progress amidst the mindless brawling.

Overall, I found the computer to be surprisingly useful and competent; if your partner gets downed, however, you’ll have to rush in to revive them but the game automatically revives any downed characters when you reach one of its numerous checkpoints and enemies will often drop health-restoring orbs to keep you ticking over. Furthermore, if you’re able to attack enemies without taking damage, you’ll build up your “Heroic Meter”, which will increase your damage output until you get hit, and you can alter the difficulty of the game and its enemies by selecting different difficulty settings from the main menu. Despite the game being extremely linear, the developers included a helpful mini map, which you can expand by pressing in the right analogue stick. This isn’t always necessary but, as many of the environments are rather drab, grey, similar, and somewhat labyrinthine at times, it’s a welcome addition to keep you on track even during the game’s shorter and more straightforward missions. Unfortunately, the top-down view can be rather restrictive at times; many areas are filled with debris or obstructions and it always seems like you can only see just enough of the area, which can lead to enemies catching you off guard or hiding behind parts of the environment with no way to see them as they don’t show up on the map. It’s not all mindless brawling, either; occasionally, you’ll be tasked with rescuing a number of civilians or hostages, faced with a time limit, or directed to activate consoles to lower barriers in order to progress. As alluded to earlier, these very rarely require you to use the Flash’s superspeed or the Martian Manhunter’s intangibility to get past obstacles and stop fans, lower energy barriers, or deactivate Kryptonite hazards so that you can progress further. Sometimes you’ll also need to destroy a wall or use a character’s flight to progress across rooftops and, in the final portion of the game, you’ll not only have to protect Superman as he smashes through Darkseid’s fortress but you’ll also be faced with an extremely frustrating and confusing teleport puzzle that was the only time I had to actively look up a solution online.

Graphics and Sound:
Thanks to its zoomed out, top-down perspective, Justice League Heroes is, largely, able to get away with hiding any inconsistencies and defects in its in-game character models. Since you never really see your characters up close, the developers can have them talk and drop hints and quips without really needing to animate their mouths and the simple beat-‘em-up action of the game means that characters just need to look somewhat decent when they throw punches, grab cars, or blast out energy beams. And, for the most part, they do; there’s some neat little touches here and there (like Martian Manhunter being able to transform into his true, more monstrous form and the Flash being accompanied by a speed force double and lightning) and characters are always talking so you know when you need to drop or combine Boosts or have a vague idea of how the story is progressing.

Sadly, the game’s environments and enemies tend to be quite dark, bland, and boring.

Sadly, enemies and environments don’t always live up to the colourful and eye-catching depiction of the titular Justice League. It takes a long time for you to battle anything other than Brainiac’s generic robots or explore areas beyond the wrecked streets of Metropolis or the cold, grey corridors of Scientific and Technological Advanced Research Laboratories (S.T.A.R. Labs) and the like. Eventually, though, you do venture into more visually unique environments like the subways, a honeycomb and sap-encrusted hive, the ruins of J’onn’s civilisation on Mars, Gorilla City, a Lovecraftian dimension populated by strange rock creatures and living tentacles, and a version of Apokolips created on Earth but there’s very little variety offered in terms of the enemies or puzzles and hazards you face as you progress. No matter where you are, it’s the same thing every time: defeat all enemies, maybe activate a console, and reach the end of the stage.

Even Ron Perlman can’t salvage the blurry, rubbery graphics of the game’s cinematics.

The bulk of the game’s story (which is about as generic as you can get for a Justice League videogame) is conveyed through CG cutscenes featuring the traditional rubbery-looking graphics you’d expect from a PlayStation 2 game. I did notice some slowdown when there was a lot happening onscreen and, in terms of music and sound, the game is very unimpressive; the voice cast isn’t even the same one as in the popular Justice League animated series (2001 to 2006) and, while I love me some Ron Perlman, he just sounds bored whenever his Batman speaks (I’m also not really a fan of how often Batman is shown in broad daylight).

Enemies and Bosses:
As I’ve mentioned a bit already, you’ll wade through numerous disposable enemies in your mission to stop Brainiac and his lieutenants but none of them are particularly interesting. You’ll battle robots of varying sizes, humanoid wasps, White Martians on the surface of Mars, Gorilla Grodd’s gorilla forces, and Parademons but, once you’ve fought one lot of enemies, you’ve fought them all as they all feature regular foot soldiers who shoot at you and both flying and bigger variants that can take a bit more punishment. Honestly, the only enemies I even remotely found interesting were the weird crab and toad-like enemies you face later in the game and the instances where you battle Brainiac’s skull robots and failed clones of Doomsday because they at least looked a little different.

Many of the game’s bosses require you to fend off minions or destroy or activate consoles to attack them.

Before you can defeat Brainiac, you’ll have to battle a number of bosses; some of these are simply bigger, more dangerous versions of enemies you’ve already fought or Brainiac’s more deadly robots and duplicates. You’ll battle a Brainiac duplicate in S.T.A.R. Labs, for example, but this fight isn’t just about throwing punches. Instead, you have to activate consoles to lower barriers and rescue the scientists against a time limit all while “Brainiac” fires lasers and energy blasts at you. You’ll also encounter some of the more obscure villains from DC Comics’ gallery; Queen Bee has established a hive in the Metropolis subway and is transforming civilians into monstrous insect hybrids and, when you confront her in her throne room, she shields herself from your attacks and rains missiles into the arena that make the floor sticky. She’s only vulnerable when she leaves her throne but your window of opportunity to attack her is hampered somewhat by her minions, her energy blasts, and her tendency to dart across the screen like a madwoman. You’ll also butt heads with the Key, of all people. Like with Brainiac’s duplicate, you have to rescue some scientists against a time limit during this battle but the Key proves to be a particularly elusive and versatile enemy as he teleports around the place and causes hazards to blast out from his dimensional portals.

Grodd and Brainiac use their powers, technology, and minions to keep you at bay.

Similarly, when fighting Doctor Louise Lincoln/Killer Frost, you’re given one minute and forty seconds to destroy three missiles (and five seconds to get away from each before they explode) in addition to battling her and her icy minions. Killer Frost can conjure grunts, form ice shields, and blast at you with ice and icicles, all of which can make battling her quite tricky and annoying as your attentions are constantly divided. After reaching the core of a pyramid-like structure on Mars, Superman and the Martian Manhunter have to battle the White Martian leader; this guy is also accompanied by disposable White Martian grunts and you’re tasked with activating four nearby power nodes to defeat him. Things get noticeably more interesting when the Justice League splits into teams; while one team flies through the upper atmosphere destroying generators on invading spacecraft, another destroys power turbines in Gorilla City and gets into a confrontation with Gorilla Grodd. Grodd primarily uses his staff to attack and is joined not only by an inexhaustible supply of gorilla minions but also a series of energy-firing turrets so it’s probably best to try and keep your distance and stay on the move to emerge victorious in this fight. After battling their own security system in their Watchtower space station, the Justice League then faces off with a larger, more powerful Doomsday clone that, unlike pretty much every other boss in the game, boils down to a question of who can attack hardest and fastest rather than distracting you with tricks and puzzles.

Of course Darkseid turns out to be the true final boss of the game!

Eventually, you’ll breach Brainiac’s main base and be forced to battle his three robot guardians before you confront him; Brainiac is completely protected by an energy shield and is only vulnerable when he rises from his throne and only for a brief window of time. He also likes to teleport you to the far end of the arena, where you’re forced to destroy the generators that power his barriers and take out some minions just to get back up to him, so it’s more a question of patience than anything. As you might have guessed, the moment you defeat Brainiac he is immediately usurped by Darkseid, who teleports you away to a hellish dimension and then converts Earth into a new Apokolips. You’ll need to assemble two teams of four to confront Darkseid, who stomps around his throne room creating shockwaves and plumes of fire along the ground and blasting at you with his powerful Omega Beams. Being an all-powerful New God, his health also regenerates over time, meaning you’ll have to keep pummelling him again and again in order to keep him down. This was, honestly, a bit of a confusing fight; you can grab the “Apokolips Hypercube” nearby, which seems to weaken him and make him vulnerable to your attacks but I also found myself running around with it in my hands and not doing any damage to Darkseid at all and then he just suddenly succumbed to my attacks and was defeated.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
In almost every area in the game, you’ll find objects that you can grab and use as weapons; some of these are limited to the specifics of your character, though, meaning that you won’t be lifting cars over your head as, say, Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, for example. Still, you can grab post boxes and parking meters and cars and such to bash over enemy’s heads, which adds a bit of variety to the otherwise relentless combat. You can also pick up temporary power-ups throughout each environment to give yourself and your team mate a bit of a power boost so it can be worth exploring a little bit and smashing destructible objects wherever you see them.

Level-up to increase your stats power-up your attacks with Skill Points and Boosts.

The game also features some light role-playing elements; as you defeat enemies, you’ll gain experience points (EXP) and level-up once you’ve earned enough EXP. This will increase your stats and abilities but you also earn Skill Points that you can spend upgrading your character’s superpowers up to five different ranks to increase their effectiveness and duration. Additionally, enemies will also drop various “Boosts” that you can equip at any time; you can also combine Boosts together to create new, more powerful Boosts and equipping these will also boost your superpowers, increase your damage output or defence, or increase the range and duration of your attacks.

Additional Features:
Although the game is extremely linear, there are often some rewards to be found through exploration; generally, these will just be stockpiles of health, energy, or Boosts but you’ll also find be civilians in danger who need rescuing who will drop “Justice League Shields”. Shields can also be found by destroying parts of the environment and you can spend these on skins and additional characters. While you can select any of the unlockable costumes at any time, they won’t actually load until you reach the next checkpoint/area and you can only select to play as the unlocked characters when the game allows you to pick a team of your own. The skins available are quite impressive, though; while not every character gets a skin, some offer bonus boosts to your stats and there’s some fan favourites available here, like Superman’s black suit, Batman’s traditional blue and grey suit, and the Jay Garrick version of the Flash. You can also unlock the likes of Green Arrow, Aquaman (sporting his water hand), Helena Bertinelli/The Huntress, and what I assume is the Kendra Saunders version of Hawkgirl.

Unlock additional characters, costumes, and modes by finding Shields and completing the game.

You’ll notice, however, that neither Huntress, Aquaman, or Hawkgirl have an L1+R1 special move, though I’m not entirely sure why. You can also unlock Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner but, despite these two being separate characters, they control exactly the same as John Stewart, which is a little disappointing; none of the unlockable characters have alternate costumes either, which is a bit of a missed opportunity in my book. Initially, you can select from Easy, Normal, or Hard difficulties but you’ll unlock two more difficulty levels (Elite and Superhero, on which most enemies will kill you in one hit) and be given the option of starting the game over from the beginning with all of the upgrades and EXP you amassed during your run upon completing the game. Sadly, there’s no option to free play any mission with any character, no versus mode, and no option to play online or with more than one other player but there are a number of cheats that you can activate from the pause menu to give yourself invincibility, infinite energy, all upgrades, and a bunch of Shields to quickly unlock all of the game’s skins and characters.

The Summary:
Justice League Heroes isn’t going to really offer you anything you can’t get from any other mindless beat-‘em-up; the stages and enemy designs can be very bland and boring and there really isn’t much asked of you other than to mash the same buttons over and over and activate a few consoles. Still, as a fan of beat-‘em-ups and brawlers, I found Justice League Heroes to be a pretty decent way of spending an afternoon; there’s a lot of characters available to you and I like that the story mixes the teams up quite often and allows you to put together your own teams, and the game is probably even more enjoyable with a friend to play with. There could have been more options and unlockables available (such as free play mode, maybe some challenges, and a boss rush), the music and graphics can stutter a bit, and the game is awash with dark, boring, grey locations, but, as a repetitive brawler featuring the Justice League, it’s decent enough, though probably not very appealing to those that aren’t fans of the source material and characters.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever played Justice League Heroes? If so, what did you think to it? Were you disappointed by the game’s presentation, selection of villains, and the inability to freely pick characters on the go? Which of the available characters was your favourite and preferred duo? What genre do you think would work for a future Justice League videogame? What version of the Justice League is your favourite and are there any DC superheroes you’d like to see added to the team someday? How are you celebrating Justice League Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on Justice League Heroes, and the Justice League in general, feel free to drop a comment below.

Game Corner [Bat-Month]: Batman: Arkham Knight (Xbox Series X)

Dr. K5 Comments

In the decades since his first dramatic appearance in the pages of Detective Comics, Bruce Wayne/Batman has become a mainstream, worldwide, pop culture icon. The brainchild of writer Bob Kane, Batman was brought to life by artist Bill Finger and has been a popular staple of DC Comics and countless movies, videogames, and cartoons over the years. Accordingly, September celebrates “Batman Day” and is just another perfect excuse to celebrate comic’s grim and broody vigilante and, this year, I’ve been dedicating every Wednesday to Gotham’s Dark Knight Detective.

Released: 23 June 2015
Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Also Available For: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S

The Background:
After a rocky relationship with videogame adaptations, Eidos Interactive and Rocksteady Studios turned the Dark Knight’s fortunes around with the critically and commercially successful Batman: Arkham Asylum (ibid, 2009) and the bigger and better sequel, Batman: Arkham City (ibid, 2011). Eager to capitalise on this success, and to allow Rocksteady Studios the time to craft a suitable third entry, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment turned to WB Games Montréal to develop a prequel set during Batman’s early days that, while criticised as somewhat derivative, still sold incredibly well and helped keep the franchise alive while Rocksteady worked on their next game.

Arkham Knight was the culmination of the largely-lauded Arkham series of Batman games.

Development of Batman: Arkham Knight began shortly after the completion of Arkham City and took four years to complete; utilising the greater graphical and processing power of then-current consoles, this new game would allow of five times the number of enemies to be present onscreen at any time, cutscenes to be rendered in real time, and have items like cloth react realistically to movement and wind. The game’s story was designed to be the concluding chapter in Rocksteady’s Arkham saga and the developers chose to expand upon the game world by implementing Batman’s famous Batmobile and redesigned the city to incorporate the car’s unique gameplay mechanics. Arkham Knight was met with generally favourable reviews; reviews praised the game’s puzzles and expansion of Batman’s gameplay and repertoire but also criticised the game’s big narrative twist and the over-reliance on Batmobile sections. Still, Arkham Knight was the fastest-selling game of 2015 and, as with its predecessors, was expanded upon through the release of downloadable content (DLC) that served as both pre- and post-game content that was met with mixed to negative reviews.

The Plot:
On Halloween, Doctor Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow forces everyone but the very worst of Gotham City’s inhabitants to leave the city when he threatens to swamp the streets with his fear toxin. With the city under lockdown and some of his worst rogues at large, Batman is faced with his greatest challenge yet when he encounters the mysterious “Arkham Knight”, who not only commands a well-armed militia but also has a personal vendetta against the Dark Knight.

Gameplay:
For Batman: Arkham Knight, the game developers once again returned to the formula that worked so well in Arkham City and, by expanding upon them exponentially and even infusing a few mechanics inspired by Arkham Origins, sought to create the biggest and most definitive Batman videogame to date. Consequently, the stakes are much higher, the city is larger than ever, and Batman’s repertoire has been refined, improved, and expanded upon but, most crucially, the game’s central control scheme remains as fluid and familiar as ever. The basic control mechanics remain largely unchanged from the previous games: you hold A to run and glide when running from a ledge or tap it to perform a dodge, press B to perform a stun with a swoosh of Batman’s iconic cape, and tap X to attack and counter incoming attacks (indicated by a helpful Bat symbol over their heads) with Y and string these moves together to build up a combo attack that increases your multiplier, speed, and damage output. Pressing the Right Trigger allows you to crouch to soften your steps and sneak up on enemies, and you can select a gadget by pressing down on the directional pad (D-Pad), aim it with the Left Trigger, and fire off Batman’s patented grapple with the Right Bumper.

Batman’s stealth options are bolstered by the new Fear Takedown mechanic.

Rocksteady’s trademark “freeflow combat” system remains as fluid and intuitive as ever; you can make use of any of Batman’s gadgets by holding LT and pressing buttons like X and Y to add to his combo multiplayer and must stun, evade, and utilise split-second timing to avoid, counter, and counterattack the game’s various distinct, yet familiar, enemies. You can, as before, also utilise Batman’s gliding mechanics to take out enemies by performing a dive bomb or even by firing off certain gadgets mid-flight and, as is also the standard by this point, stealth is just as important as Batman’s combat prowess. Consequently, you’ll still be grappling up to higher levels to scope out large groups of armed and unarmed enemies in order to pick them off undetected. Vents, smoke pellets, and various parts of the environment can also be used to disorientate or take out enemies and to allow you to get the drop on unsuspecting thugs, which allows you to silently choke them out or perform an instant “Knockout Smash” but at the cost of alerting other enemies. Arkham Knight introduces a new “Fear Takedown” mechanic that allows Batman to subdue up to five enemies in one move as long as he remains undetected, with time slowling down to allow you to easily focus on your next target.

Batman’s Detective Vision allows him to recreate crime scenes and navigation is as intuitive as ever.

Batman’s ever-useful “Detective Vision” is now mapped to the D-Pad; pressing up bathes the world in an x-ray-like filter that highlights nearby enemies, secrets, and points of interest. Similar to how this was a crucial part of progressing the story in Arkham Origins, Batman’s Detective Vision can be utilised to reconstruct crime scenes and review evidence from various angles by use of his Evidence Scanner. This allows you to hold X to scan in any evidence and then cycle through a holographic reconstruction of the incident to find clues, progress the story, and solve crimes. You’ll also once again find yourself using your Detective Vision to isolate Edward Nashton/Edward Nygma/The Riddler’s informants in order to get clues to track down the Riddler’s trophies and challenges; these tugs are highlighted in green and should be left until last so you can press Y to squeeze information out of them. The game map is noticeably larger than ever before, with many new and familiar areas of the city to explore, but thankfully Rocksteady’s ever-useful map and compass system remain intact to help you to navigate; you can place waymarkers on the main map to guide you to your destination and a Batsignal will shine into the sky to direct you towards your next objective, whether mandatory or otherwise.

Though a bit clunky, the Batmobile allows for fast, explosive travel and hard-hitting combat.

Unfortunately, there is no fast travel system like in Arkham Origins and still no way to fast exit interiors; Batman still has his gadgets (particularly his cape and grapnel gun) to help him traverse the city but, if you really want to get somewhere fast, you’re heavily encouraged to press the Left Bumper to summon the Batmobile! This armoured vehicle is very similar to the Tumbler and allows you to rocket through the grimy city streets, through destructible parts of the environments, and across rooftops by holding down RT. You can boost with Y, brake and reverse with X, dodge and slide with A and the control stick, and will conveniently and non-fatally automatically repel any nearby enemies with the car’s electrified defences. The Batmobile can even be remote piloted but, while its “Pursuit Mode” is extremely responsive (unless you’re attempting sharp turns or driving up tunnels without enough speed) and helpful arrows guide you towards your intended destination, the controls get a bit clunky when you hold down LT and enter “Battle Mode”. This transforms the Batmobile it into a mini tank and allows you to fire a missile barrage, send out a sonar signal to detect nearby enemies, and blast at the Arkham Knight’s automated tanks using a high-impact cannon or a rapid-fire gun. The Batmobile is absolutely essential to clearing the game’s main story and side missions, with many puzzles specifically tailored to have you flying over ramps, utilising a winch, or blasting at weakened walls in order to progress and complete side quests. The most notable of these sees you forced to take on the Riddler’s many hazard-filled race tracks hidden all over the city, which will test your skill as much as your patience, and the numerous instances where you must either pursue a foe at high speed or engage with wave upon wave of conveniently unmanned tanks.

You’ll get to tag in, or briefly play as, other supporting characters throughout the main campaign.

Gameplay in Arkham City is further mixed up through the return of similar puzzles from previous games that see you hacking or locating radio signals, activating machinery or crossing gaps with your various Bat-gadgets, making extensive use of the Batmobile’s versatile winch, and utilising the new (if brief) team-based mechanics. While you won’t get to switch to Selina Kyle/Catwoman this time around, you can control her during various Riddler challenges and there are instances where you’ll get to either tag in or briefly play as either Tim Drake/Robin, Dick Grayson/Nightwing, and even Commissioner Jim Gordon in a short flashback. Unfortunately, just like in Arkham City, there is no option to play as either of these characters on the main story outside of these instances, which I continue to find both confusing and disappointing. Similarly, there’s a section right at the end of the main story where you’ll take control of the Joker, who not only gets to wield a shotgun in a first-person sequence that sees him desperately trying to take control of Batman’s mind but also has his own “Jokermobile”. Despite being unequivocally dead, the Joker continues to play a pivotal role in the story; thanks to being infected with the Joker’s blood, Batman is continually haunted and tormented by visions of the Joker throughout the main campaign, which include a recreation of his crippling of Barbara Gordon and Joker’s torture of Jason Todd, and eventually leads to Robin questioning Batman’s sanity and stability.

You’ll need all of Batman’s upgrades to lock his villains up in the G.C.P.D. cells.

Although you can no longer travel to the Batcave, Batman has set up a makeshift laboratory in the city and you can enter the Gotham City Police Department to converse with non-playable characters (NPCs) and the cells will fill up with his various rogues as you defeat and capture them in the main story. As always, defeating enemies, scanning objects of interest, finding Riddler Trophies, and completing missions earns you experience points (XP) that allow you to not only level-up to upgrade Batman’s suit and gadgets but also augment the Batmobile’s capabilities. As the game gets progressively harder as you complete story objectives, with more and more varied enemies appearing all over the city and in larger numbers than ever before, you’ll definitely need to make the most of these upgrades if you want to increase your chances at succeeding. The game has different difficulty settings that can be changed at any time if you’re struggling but you’ll be forced to utilise all of Batman’s skills and gadgets as the story progresses; this means chaining combos using the Batmobile, taking on small encampments of enemies, and (as is also the standard) tackling the game’s “New Game +” mode that starts you off with all of your upgrades and XP but removes counter indicators and increases enemy aggressiveness.

Graphics and Sound:
You probably won’t be surprised to hear that Arkham Knight is the most graphically impressive of all the Batman: Arkham videogames; bathed in the perpetual blanket of a dark and ominous night, Gotham City has never looked better and is awash with filthy streets, high-rise industrial areas, and abandoned docks and dingy alleyways. Rain will occasionally wash over the city, giving everything a sleek and suitably menacing look, and it’s genuinely impressive how the game utilises these effects, lighting, and shadows to craft one of the most gorgeous looking titles I’ve ever played. Batman, in particular, looks spectacular; now sporting a far more futuristic suit that emphasis the “Knight” of the game’s title, he again accumulates battle damage as the game progresses and remains a fearsome and impressive character model. Unfortunately, while I have many positives to say about Rocksteady’s interpretation of Robin, I can’t say I care too much for Nightwing’s new suit, which includes an odd and uncomfortable looking headpiece.

Gotham is huge and full of large, detailed locations both old and new.

Gotham City is nothing short of spectacular; as I mentioned before, it’s super fun to see Batman’s enemies end up populating the cells at the G.C.P.D. and you can also revisit notable areas from the previous games and even Barbara Gordon/Oracle’s church tower. While it’s disappointing to find the city is once again abandoned and largely devoid of life except for criminal scum, Gotham City is almost too big this time around and it does baffle me a little bit that the developers didn’t include the Batwing fast travel system but there’s a great deal of fun to be had gliding or grappling through the air or blasting through the streets in the Batmobile. One of the game’s most prominent missions sees you infiltrating the blimp-like airship of industrialist Simon Stagg, which introduces a bit of an aggravating tilting mechanic to the game that can be a bit tricky to get past. Another mission that is a personal favourite of mine sees Batman willing to give his life when the ACE Chemicals reactor goes critical. This has you very carefully placing big tubes into slots to contain the reaction, which can be a bit finnicky but the section is made all the more poignant thanks to the dialogue between Batman and his butler and father-figure, Alfred Pennyworth, and the touching orchestral score.

Not only is the city bigger than ever, but the locations are large, detailed, and more dangerous and garish.

It’s actually pretty amazing how the developers tweaked the city to be both believable in its construction and also conveniently tailored to suit the new features offered by the Batmobile. All too often, this means forcing you to use the Batmobile to solve a puzzle to open up a new area or speed through a tunnel or race track but, while these can be aggravating moments, there’s an exhilaration to be had in using the Batmobile and there’s nothing stopping you not using it outside of mandatory sections. Gotham City is comprised of three large islands (Miagami, Founders’, and Bleake), each with their own distinctive areas that include Wayne Tower, a dilapidated sewer system, and large bridges connecting them to each other. The Riddler’s challenges are more elaborate than ever; bathed in a garish neon glow, you’ll race through massively impractical sewer tunnels avoiding his many hazards or use Batman and Catwoman’s various skills to solve the Riddler’s death traps. Many of the interiors you visit are pretty much the same fair from previous games an are comprised of industrial facilities, rundown buildings, and an abandoned movie theatre repurposed for the villain’s purposes but all of them are perfectly in keeping with this world and they’re so much bigger, more detailed, and more impressively realised than before; you rally feel it when buildings explode or you bomb around the city in the Batmobile.

There’s a lot to see in the city, including jump scares from Man-Bat and a flood of fear gas!

As in the other Batman: Arkham games, a number of Batman’s other rogues are at large in the city and must be taken down in side missions. One of the most prominent is Doctor Kurt Langstrom/Man-Bat, who will randomly pop up to give you the fright of your life when you’re casually traversing around the city. Thanks to the Scarecrow’s fear toxin, you can expect things to get a bit twisted here and there as well; indeed, the game begins with you controlling a Gotham cop using a first-person perspective and forced to watch as the city descends into chaos. Thanks to the Joker’s influence, Batman will see various hallucinations of his foe across the city, a PlayStation-exclusive piece of DLC sees you racing through a nightmarish version of Gotham City transformed by the Scarecrow’s fear gas, and the city is shrouded in this same gas thanks to the release of Cloudburst. This bathes the game world in a thick, copper-tinted fog, drives enemies intro a manic frenzy, and you’ll even find the city being torn to shreds when Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy helps you out in this section.

Arkham Knight features some powerful, poignant performances from series staples Hamill and Conroy.

Even now, Batman: Arkham Knight is one of the most impressive videogames I’ve ever played; the game runs so smoothly, with quick loading times and a consistent frame rate. Textures, assets, and parts of the environment are just there onscreen, with no pop-up or distortion, and the sheer amount and variety of enemies onscreen at any one time really helps to add to the stakes and pressure Batman feels in this final outing. While it is a bit disappointing that the developers felt the need to include the Joker again, even after he has been killed, I’ll never complain about hearing Mark Hamill in his iconic role and matching wits with the immortal Kevin Conroy one last time. As always, Gotham’s thugs are extremely chatty and full of amusing sound bites and exclamations; Batman stays in constant contact with Oracle, Alfred, Lucius Fox, and Gordon throughout the story (with Alfred basically telling you “Go do some side missions” when the main story takes an awkward break) and, as if the Scarecrow’s constant taunting threats aren’t bad enough, Batman also finds his communications hacked by the Arkham Knight.

Enemies and Bosses:
If you’ve played any of the previous Batman: Arkham games, you’ll know what to except from Arkham Knight’s goons; a slew of vagrants and scumbags can be found all over the city in various groups and they’ll rush at you with knives, baseball bats, and even grab car doors to use as rudimentary shields or wield stun batons. Gun-toting enemies remain an obvious threat since Batman won’t last long against sustained gunfire or sniper shots so you should either disable, disarm or take down these enemies first or as quickly as possible. Thanks to the Arkham Knight’s technology and knowledge of Batman’s methods, thugs will also place booby traps, destroy vantage points, and even jam Batman’s Detective Vision to make things more difficult. As you might expect, there are a number of different enemies on offer in Arkham Knight: Combat Experts resemble Arkham City’s ninjas and can teleport away from your attacks and attack with swords, medics revive their fallen comrades, and Brutes must be stunned and subjected to a beatdown or lured to environmental takedown points to dispatch (or, in the case of the minigun variants, snuck up on and taken down with a quick-time event ). You’ll also have to contend with the Arkham Knight’s more heavily armed and capable forces; in “Predator” sections, this means picking armed thugs off one at a time but, out in the city, you’ll battle against unmanned Drone Tanks that can either be quickly destroyed in one hit or with a well-timed shot to their turret. When battling the Drone Tanks, you must be careful not to leave the designated area and make use of the Batmobile’s turning circle and dodge mechanic to avoid damage, which can be a bit clunky thanks to the way the controls are implemented.

Though dead, the Joker continues to haunt Batman and must be fought in his mind and by proxy.

Although the Joker is not an actual, tangible threat in this game, he does have a consistent presence; notably, when Batman is exposed to the Scarecrow’s fear gas, he sees enemies as the Joker and even becomes briefly possessed by him, skewing his perception of reality at certain key points in the story. The Joker also infected five Gotham citizens with his blood (with one of them being Batman) and, as part of the story, you’ll have to try and find and rescue these victims in a bid to save them. Two of them, however, serve as boss battles; the first of these, Albert King, you’ll battle alongside Robin. It’s best to stay out of King’s reach, take out the goons that accompany him, and utilise team attacks and beatdowns to defeat the Jokerised boxer. When you track down Johnny Charisma, Batman hallucinates him as the Joker, who sings a mocking song while strapped to a bomb. Rather than fighting Charisma, you must take control of Robin and sneak around to disarm the bombs as Batman stares down his adversary on a rotating stage. Other Joker infected are also encountered, though they’re generally hidden behind standard combat and stealth sections; you’ll also encounter Doctor Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn during these sections of the game, but defeating her simply amounts to performing a Team Takedown with Batman and Robin and then fending off her goons.

The Batmobile is instrumental in dispatching the Arkham Knight’s militia.

The Arkham Knight’s forces extend to a number of Armoured Personnel Carrier (A.P.C.) vehicles that pose a significant threat; when these appear on the map, you’ll need to chase them down in the Batmobile, side-swiping their support vehicles as you desperately try to hack them with Batman’s tech. The Arkham Knight will battle you four times during the course of the story, with the first seeing him take the controls of an attack helicopter. The Arkham Knight will bombard you with missiles while his forces try to distract you, so be sure to take out his Drone Tanks first before blasting at it his helicopter with the Batmobile’s cannon. In the second encounter, the Arkham Knight roams the fear gas-covered city in the heavily-armed Cloudburst Tank while being flanked by a number of Cobra Tanks. Rather than tackling these tank-like vehicles head-on, you’ll need to utilise stealth (while in the Batmobile) to sneak around behind the tanks to damage their weak spot on the back until only the Cloudburst remains. You must then scan it to identity its weak spots and then creep up on the Cloudburst Tank to land a hit on one of its four cooling systems before blasting away as fast as possible to avoid being blasted to smithereens by the tank’s high-powered weaponry. Once its central core is exposed, position yourself into a wide open space so that you can avoid his missiles and finally put an end to this absolute bitch of a boss fight that dragged on way too long and was far too finnicky to be enjoyable.

While Deathstroke is reduced to a tank battle, Pyg and Firefly prove formidable, if repetitive, villains.

However, don’t think it’s over yet as, after clearing the main story, Slade Wilson/Deathstroke takes control of the remnants of the Arkham Knight’s militia and you basically get to do a variation of this tedious battle all over again! As many have mentioned, it’s a shame that Deathstroke is reduced to such an insignificant and tiresome boss fight; the battle against him in Arkham Origins was brutally tough, yes, but it was a far better representation of the mercenary’s skills and actually put your combat prowess to the test. Another notable boss encounter in the game is a side mission that sees you investigating mutilated corpses that culminates in a battle against the ruthless butcher Lazlo Valentin/Professor Pyg. This sees Pyg’s zombie-like patients attack you relentlessly and these can only be put down for good with a ground takedown. Pyg himself spends most of his time tossing meat cleavers at you, which you can send back at him with a well-timed press of Y; once his minions are finally disposed of, stun him by smacking a cleaver at him and perform a takedown to end his threat but be warned as I found it oddly difficult to get the game to trigger the takedown in this fight. Other notable Batman enemies also crop up in side missions; as mentioned, Man-Bat will randomly appear flying through the city skies. When you spot him, you must try and get to high ground in order to land on his back and retrieve a blood sample in order to synthesise a cure at Langstrom’s lab using a simple mini game. Afterwards, you’ll need to wait for Man-Bat to appear a couple more times in order to administer this cure. Similarly, you’ll often get notified of fire stations that have been set ablaze; when you reach one of these, you’ll need to use the Batmobile to extinguish the flames and then chase the man responsible, Garfield Lynns/Firefly, across the city until the fuel in his jetpack runs out, allowing you to blast out of the Batmobile and bring him down. Like many of the side missions in the game, these occur randomly and the main campaign often grinds to a halt as you’re left trying to seek one of them out in order to reach 100% completion.

After taking out his drill machine, Batman goes head-to-head with his former protégé.

Later in the story, you’ll encounter the Arkham Knight one last time in the city tunnels; this time, he’s in a massive drilling machine that cannot be damaged by any of the Batmobile’s arsenal. Instead, you must flee from it to avoid being chewed up into scrap, boosting through a tunnel to avoid various unbreakable obstacles and luring the drill to a series of explosives in order to damage it. Afterwards, you’ll confront the Arkham Knight (who, by this point, has obviously been revealed to be Jason Todd) using Batman’s more familiar skills; you must avoid being spotted by the Arkham Knight’s red targeting sight, stay out of sight of his drone while taking out his goons, and escape from a room filled with poison gas within thirty seconds in repeated phases in order to grapple up to his vantage point and damage, and ultimately defeat, him. Rather than actually get to fight against the Scarecrow, the finale of the game sees Batman overcoming the Joker’s influence and finally putting the Clown Prince of Crime to rest and, thanks to surprising assistance from Jason, defeating the Scarecrow once and for all (but at the cost of his true identity being revealed to the world).

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Just like the previous games, you’ll be able to use XP to upgrade Batman’s armour to improve his resistance to melee attacks and gunfire, add additional takedowns to his arsenal, and upgrade his many gadgets to improve their range and efficiency. If you’ve played the previous games then you’ll be immediately familiar with the vast majority of Batman’s gadgets: he’s got his patented Batarangs his Batclaws, explosive gel, smoke pellets, a tightrope-creating Line Launcher, a Remote Hacking Device to hack control panels, the Disruptor to render weapons inert, and the Remote Electrical Charge to activate certain electronic puzzles.

In addition to his many returning gadgets, Batman has some new toys and, of course, his tank car!

One of the most useful new gadgets is the Voice Synthesizer, which allows Batman to mimic the voices of his enemies and other NPCs to gain access to new areas and lure goons into a takedown. The Freeze Blast also makes a return, though it can be easily missed as it’s not necessary to finish the main campaign, but the most useful gadget in Batman’s arsenal is easily his Batmobile, whose weaponry can also be upgraded to increase your accuracy, reload speed, and weapon energy and efficiency as well as giving you the ability to hack the Drone Tanks to turn them against each other.

Additional Features:
Batman: Arkham Knight has sixty-nine Achievements for you to earn, many of which pop simply for playing through the main campaign and taking down Batman’s rogues. You’ll also get Achievements for using a hundred Quick Gadgets in combat, gliding four-hundred meters while less than twenty meters from the ground, landing fifty critical shots on Drone Tanks, for performing twenty Fear Takedowns. Some are a little more tricky, requiring you to glide under three bridges, completing a series of jumps in the Batmobile, and avoiding damage against Drone Tanks, all for a measly 5G each.

Riddler, Two-Face, Azrael, and other Batman villains offer various side quests of varying quality.

As is to be expected, there are a number of side missions to occupy your time away from the main campaign and net you additional Achievements; these include completing Augmented Reality trials, destroying militia watchtowers, disarming a series of mines using the Batmobile, and (of course) collecting Riddler Trophies. This time around, the Riddler forces Batman and Catwoman to work together to both save a number of hostages from his death traps and overcome his deadly racetracks and puzzles. This culminates in a battle that pits the two against the Riddler, who first sends a swarm of robots after you (which are colour-coded so that only Batman can destroy the blue ones and Catwoman the red) before attacking you in a massive, steampunk-like mech! Batman will also have to team up with Nightwing to locate and destroy Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin’s weapon caches, which culminates in Batman having to rescue Nightwing from the Penguin’s goons and subdue the mobster with a Team Takedown. Batman will also have to foil a series of robberies perpetrated by Harvey Dent/Two-Face, rescue firemen held hostage all over the city, and finally close the book on the case of Doctor Thomas Elliot/Hush and Michael Lane/Azrael. Both of these are quite anti-climatic considering that Arkham City seemed to be indicating that they would play a pivotal role in this game, though the Azrael side mission does result in some fun combat situations rather than simply culminating in a glorified quick-time event like the disappointing Hush side mission.

The DLC, while short, at least offers multiple different characters to play as.

Fans of the Arkham Challenge Mode will be glad to hear that it returns once more, again pitting you against a series of combat, stealth, and mini campaigns (many of which you can customise with different buffs and debuffs) to earn Medals, Achievements, and actually have an opportunity to play as other characters besides Batman. Arkham Knight was expanded upon with a decent amount of DLC, which added additional skins for Batman, his allies, and even his vehicles and brought the total Achievement count up to 113. While a lot of the DLC was comprised of yet more race tracks (with some based on the 1960s show and Tim Burton’s film), there were a few additional mini campaigns on offer. These included additional villains to encounter in the main campaign, a prelude in which you get to play as Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl, and post-game stories where you play as Nightwing, Catwoman, Harley Quinn and Jason Todd (now in the guise of the Red Hood). While none of these were as long as some of the additional DLC missions seen in Arkham City or Arkham Origins, they featured additional Achievements, new areas and villains, and it was nice to actually get to play as someone other than Batman if only for a short period of time and in an isolated narrative bubble.

The Summary:
I can totally understand why people would have been left a bit disappointed by Batman: Arkham Knight: the big twist regarding the titular character was incredibly predictable (especially for long-time Batman fans), the villains utilised in the story were a bit bland and uninspired (the game’s really missing those nightmarish Scarecrow sections from the first game), there was a certain amount of dismay inherent to the game since it was the last in the series, and the forced emphasis on the Batmobile definitely bogged down the usual combat and stealth-based mechanics of the previous games. Being as it was the third (well, fourth, technically) game in the series, a certain amount of predictability was to be expected; by this point, the series had done so much and included so many stories and side stories that it’s arguable that Rocksteady would have struggled to please everyone no matter how they told their finale.

Despite some clunky elements, Arkham Knight is a fantastic and impressive finale for the series.

For me, the primary glaring flaw in the game is how the main campaign literally stops dead in its tracks on multiple occasions and you’re told to do some side quests, which can be difficult to accomplish as many of them are only playable when the game randomly loads them in. This noticeably interrupted the flow and the lack of checkpoints in some of the harder Batmobile sections (particularly against the Cloudburst Tank) and the sheer abundance of annoying Riddler racetracks and death traps, relying too much on Batmobile combat for certain scenarios (especially battling Deathstroke), offering lacklustre conclusions to Arkham City’s loose threads, and a disappointing assortment of DLC do weigh heavily on the overall experience. Yet, despite all of this, it cannot be denied that Batman: Arkham Knight is an abolsutely phenomenal experience. While Batman: Arkham City may be my favourite in the series, with Arkham Origins close behind, I have to make room in the ranking for Arkham Knight for its sheer scale alone. This is a Batman at the absolute top of his game and, accordingly, Arkham Knight may very well be the quintessential Batman experience. With a host of new combat mechanics, detective skills, and gadgets at you disposal, never has a game encapsulated what it means to be Batman better than Arkham Knight; there’s still loads to see and do, the story is intense and engaging and feels very raw, personal, and like a true finale for this version of the character.

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fantastic

Were you a fan of Batman: Arkham Knight? How do you feel it holds up compared to the previous games in the series? What did you think to the larger, more open and varied game world? Were you a fan of the tag team mechanics and, like me, would you have liked to see these other characters actually playable in the open world this time around? Did you ever find all of the Riddler’s Trophies and what did you think to his racetracks? Were you a fan of the Batmobile? What did you think to the game’s DLC? How did you celebrate Batman Day this year and what is your favourite Batman videogame? Whatever you think about Batman: Arkham Knight, or Batman in general, drop a comment below!

Game Corner [Bat-Month]: Batman: Arkham Origins (Xbox 360)

Dr. K7 Comments

In the decades since his first dramatic appearance in the pages of Detective Comics, Bruce Wayne/Batman has become a mainstream, worldwide, pop culture icon. The brainchild of writer Bob Kane, Batman was brought to life by artist Bill Finger and has been a popular staple of DC Comics and countless movies, videogames, and cartoons over the years. Accordingly, September celebrates “Batman Day” and is just another perfect excuse to celebrate comic’s grim and broody vigilante and, this year, I’m dedicating every Wednesday to Gotham’s Dark Knight Detective.

Released: 25 October 2013
Developer: WB Games Montréal
Also Available For: PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 (via PlayStation Now) Wii U, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S (Backwards Compatible)

The Background:
Batman’s, shall we say “difficult” relationship with videogames was forever turned around when Eidos Interactive, Rocksteady Studios, and celebrated Batman scribe Paul Dini collaborated on the critically and commercially successful Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady Studios, 2009). They followed this success with the bigger and better sequel, Batman: Arkham City (ibid, 2011), that was even more well-received than its predecessor, ranking as one of the best videogames ever released. Arkham City’s monumental success meant that the bar was raised and expectations were even higher for another sequel after the developers left so many loose threads dangling in the game’s side missions. However, Rocksteady Studios required a lot of time to craft the sequel they had in mind and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment were in no mood to wait that long. So, they turned to WB Games Montréal to develop a prequel set during Batman’s early days and placed more emphasis on vertical movement and Batman’s detective skills. The result was a game that was met with mixed reviews; although the plot and certain mechanics drew praise, the game was seen as largely derivative thanks to copying and replicating, rather than properly expanding upon, Arkham City’s mechanics. Still, Arkham Origins was expanded upon with a fair amount of downloadable content (DLC) and I remember it being more of a good thing when I first played it on PlayStation 3 and particularly enjoying the new Christmas aesthetic and the game’s more challenging boss battles.

The Plot:
It’s Christmas Eve, some two years into Bruce Wayne’s crimefighting career as Batman. The city police, particularly Captain James Gordon, and public view Batman with scepticism and fear, feelings only exacerbated when Roman Sionis/Black Mask puts a $50 million bounty on the Batman’s head! These eight assassins spread terror, death, and destruction throughout Gotham City but they’re nothing compared to the appearance of a new, sadistic villain known as “The Joker” who begins a campaign of unrelenting, psychotic terror.

Gameplay:
Just like the last two games, Batman: Arkham Origins is a third-person, action/adventure game. This time around, rather than change the formula too much, the new developers simply took the gameplay mechanics and game world of Arkham City and tweaked them, expanding on a few areas here and there and basically coating the previous game with a slightly different coat of paint. The result is a game that is immediately (and, perhaps for some, disconcertingly) similar to the last Arkham title in numerous ways but still different enough, in my opinion, to stand alongside its predecessors and, as I always say, there’s no such thing as too much of a good thing.

Batman’s abilities and skills are almost unchanged from Arkham City.

In terms of controls, they remain exactly the same as before (which is interesting as I could have sworn that they were a little different when I first played it on PlayStation 3…). You still select one of Batman’s many gadgets and weapons (the majority of which return from Arkham City in some way, shape, or form even when they don’t make narrative sense) using the directional pad, ready a gadget or quick-fire with the Left Trigger and press the Right Trigger to use the gadget or crouch, and you can still use Batman’s cape to stun enemies, glide around the city, and dive bomb onto enemies or to gain extra height and distance. Similarly, the “freeflow combat” remains virtually identical to that seen in Arkham City; you strike with X, counter incoming attacks with Y, and build up combos by directing Batman towards different enemies, mixing up your attacks, and performing takedowns to disarm and/or knock out foes one at a time as gangs of thugs swarm over you. Stealth remains an important aspect of the game and, just like in the last game, Batman can crouch around undetected, grapple to vantage points (usually stone gargoyles) to observe groups of enemies, and perform double or even triple takedowns in certain situations. Batman can venture through vents to avoid detection and take down enemies, interact with his environment using his gadgets to take enemies down or disorientate them, smash enemies into walls and floors and other parts of the environment when he’s near them, interrogate certain enemies for information and to uncover secrets, and deliver a “Knockout Smash” when choking thugs out (though this will attract nearby enemies).

Batman’s detective skills get much more focus this time and allow him to reconstruct crime scenes.

As always, these tactics are best utilised during the “Predator” sections of the game and using Batman’s patented “Detective Vision”; tapping the Left Bumper allows Batman to see an x-ray-like layout of the game world and highlight nearby enemies, secrets, and points of interest, all of which are invaluable when going up against armed thugs. Detective Vision is greatly expanded upon in Arkham Origins, though, and the game goes to great lengths to emphasise the “detective” aspects of Batman’s character at numerous points and during side missions. When discovering a dead body or the scene of a crime, Batman can set up a crime scene with LB and you must hold the A button to scan in various pieces of evidence. As you do, Batman will piece together the crime not only through his monologue but also through the use of a holographic recreation, which you must advance and rewind to solve the crime or locate objects in order to progress. At the same time, though, the Detective Vision often feels a little neutered in some situations; like, I found myself stuck in rooms and locations with no real idea of where I was supposed to be going, which was very confusing. Although the map and onscreen compass return just as in Arkham City and it’s great for directing you to where you need to go in the overworld, it falters a bit inside buildings and locations at times, which can get annoying.

The game world is bigger than ever but, luckily, Batman can fast travel by using the Batwing.

As for the game world, while it contains the same locations and areas seen in Arkham City, it’s actually far bigger thanks to the addition of a (super long) bridge connecting the recognisable parts of the city to a new area down South. You’ll notice that the recognisable areas are in much better shape than in Arkham City since the area hasn’t been condemned or turned into a prison and some buildings that were only background elements or Easter Eggs in the last game can now be entered to complete story or side missions. The game world is so much bigger that the developers saw fit to include a fast travel mechanic; after hacking into various control towers across the city and liberating them from the control of Edward Nashton/Enigma, Batman can freely fast travel to every prominent area of the map via the Batwing. While this does result in more loading times than in the previous two games, and you cannot control the Batwing or fast exit areas, it is really handy for quickly getting from one end of the city to the other. Also included for the first time is the ability to visit the Batcave; from here, you can converse with Batman’s loyal butler and father-figure, Alfred Pennyworth, progress the story, acquire new gadgets and upgrades, switch to a different costume, or engage in some training by taking on various combat and stealth challenges. It’s not an especially big or well-implemented area, to be fair, and you’re only really forced to go there a handful of times in the main story but it’s a nice addition, at least.

Arkham Origins has some odd difficulty spikes that aren’t present in the previous two games.

There are, however, far less destructible elements dotted around the city this time around but you can still earn experience points (XP) and level-up to upgrade Batman’s suit and gadgets and stuff by taking out thugs, scanning points of interest with your Detective Vision, or finding Engima’s informants and Data Packs (which replace the usual Riddler Trophies). Batman: Arkham Origins is probably the hardest of the Arkham games so far; perhaps because of the developers assuming players would be familiar with the franchise and the gameplay, you quickly encounter armoured thugs, goons with knives, batons, and shields, and bigger, more formidable enemies during the opening part of the game. The city is, again, awash with thugs from different gangs (mostly Black Mask’s but also Oswald Cobblepott/The Penguin’s) and you’ll even have to fight against the Gotham City police, specifically their S.W.A.T. division, given that Batman is seen as a disruptive vigilante in this game. The game’s difficulty can, again, be set by the player to increase the challenge offered to you but the two hardest modes, “New Game Plus” and “I Am The Night”, will remove the counter indicators, increase enemy aggressiveness and mix up their placement, and give you only one try to finish the game in the latter mode. This can be extremely challenging when facing off with the game’s bosses, the majority of which will tear through you like paper or have you ripping your hair out trying to figure out how to beat them and counter their attacks as the counter indicators are basically useless.

While the menus can be difficult to navigate, the increased puzzles adds a new dimension to the game.

Although Arkham Origins is bigger than its predecessor and instantly familiar, there are some things that let it down in terms of its presentation. For one thing, the menus (particularly the upgrade trees) are much more cluttered and far less intuitive to navigate. It seems like the developers were running out of ideas for things for you to unlock and view from these menus, though you’ll get all the usuals (biographies, side stories, story synopses and the like) and be able to chart the progress of your side missions, set waypoints to travel to, and see secrets or points of interest on the comprehensive map but, again, I found it stupidly easy to get trapped in a room and unable to figure out where I was supposed to go. There are also far more quick-time event-like moments in this game where you must counter an attack during a cutscene or mash A to open a door or break free of an enemy’s grip or avoid an attack, which can actually be more laborious than fun. Finally, you’ll find that there is a far greater emphasis on vertical traversal and puzzle solving this time around; you’ll have to activate a lot more consoles to break through walls or open doors, for example, and when navigating through the Joker’s funhouse in the Gotham Royal Hotel you need to use Batman’s Batarangs and gadgets to free hostages from timed traps and scale up the outside of the buildings using his grapnel gun. Entering an area or hacking a device is also generally made much more annoying thanks to the inclusion of jamming devices that you’ll need to disable with the new Disruptor gadget, meaning that a lot of your traversal is hindered by “busy work” at times.

Graphics and Sound:
Fittingly, given that its basically just slapping some additions onto Arkham City, Arkham Origins continues to be an impressive feat in terms of rendering the gothic, crime-ridden, anachronistic streets of Gotham City. Yes, many of the areas will be familiar to you but they’re far less rundown and have been recontextualised thanks to the Christmas time setting. Snow falls constantly, covering the ground, and Christmas decorations, trees, lights, and presents are in abundance; some enemies even wear Father Christmas hats and even the score is punctuated by Christmassy bells and all of the dialogue you overhear makes constant reference to the Yuletide season. It’s just enough of an aesthetic reskin to make the game world look and feel new and different and it’s great seeing ice in the water, the Penguin’s ship, the Final Offer, moored up at the docks, and buildings like the police station and steel mill in full, working order rather than abandoned like in the last game.

Gotham is expanded to include new areas and territories alongside familiar regions.

All of the regions from Arkham City return but you’ll enter different buildings and explore different areas this time, such as the haberdashery in the Bowery and the courthouse, but you’ll also be traversing (or fast travelling) the Gotham Pioneers Bridge down to the new areas in the South of the game map. Here, you’ll explore a high-end apartment building to solve Black Mask’s apparent murder, battle and scale up the aforementioned Gotham Royal Hotel, and fight and sneak your way through the hallways of the Gotham City Police Department. Of course, it wouldn’t be an Arkham game without a load of dank sewers and catacombs to explore and it seems you venture down into these depths a bit more often this time around but they’re a little easier to navigate through. You’ll also fly over to Blackgate Prison to quell a riot there, where the game’s visual presentation closely emulates that of the penitentiary on Arkham Island thanks to its large, automated doors and prison aesthetic.

Nightmarish renditions of Wonderland and Batman’s worst fears twist the game world.

As is a tradition with the Arkham games, things also take a turn to the bizarre when you hunt down Jervis Tetch/The Mad Hatter, who drugs Batman and forces him to navigate through a twisted version of wonderland in sections very closely modelled after the nightmarish sequences that pitted him against Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow in the first game. Here, you’ll need to dodge electrified floors while using Batman’s gadgets to progress through sidescrolling sections, battle thugs in his mind-controlling rabbit masks who pour through a mirrored doorway, and scale up a twisted clock tower. It’s only one section, unlike the Scarecrow’s three, but it lasts quite a while and can get a bit annoying, especially the part where your vision is reduced to seeing through a keyhole and you must guide Batman through the correct doors to progress. Another standout moment comes late into the game and sees you taking control of the Joker as he recounts a version of his origin story to Doctor Harleen Quinzel; similar to how he played in the DLC for the first game, the Joker is a wild and crazed character who attacks in manic bursts, tosses razor sharp playing cards, and electrocutes enemies with his joy buzzer and you also get to guide him in his Red Hood persona past bursts of flames in a nightmarish funhouse of sorts. There’s also another opportunity to revisit the deaths of Bruce Wayne’s parents and suffer a bunch of unnerving hallucinations after Batman is poisoned by Copperhead, which distorts the screen and your controls at various points throughout the fight, and a pretty cool (if all-too-brief) moment where you must fight some thugs on a rooftop from the perspective of Vicki Vale’s helicopter.

Some shifts in perspective help to keep things interesting and add some variety.

The in-game graphics are just as impressive as the last two games; the game engine is tighter than ever, allowing for the biggest game world yet that is full of thugs and Easter Eggs and things to see and do, and character models still look really good. Batman’s suit, especially, is much better in this game, resembling military/riot armour and, in many ways, actually looks more durable and plausible than his suits from the previous games (which take place after this one). He still accumulates battle damage as the game progresses, which is always a nice touch and even though Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill aren’t present, their replacements (Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker) do an excellent job of filling in (even if they do seem emulating their predecessors a little too closely, which I guess is natural but keeps them from doing their own take on the characters). However, the game kind of drops the ball a little with its pre-rendered cutscenes, which look…a little more out of place compared to the in-game graphics and the previous Arkham games. Everything in these cinematics seems a little too plasticy and hyper-realised; it’s not a game-breaker, though, just something I happened to notice.

Enemies and Bosses:
All of the standard thugs and enemies you encountered in Arkham City are back this time around, but with a new coat of paint in many cases. Gangs of thugs roam the streets or patrol rooftops, often with sniper rifles; enemies will grab broken bottles or slash at you with knives, swing metal bars and baseball bats at your head, and even lay mines and booby-trap vantage points to reduce your manoeuvrability in Predator sections. The sword-wielding assassin enemies return from the last game, as do the bigger, more armoured enemies who require you to cape stun them and beat them down by mashing X, but there are a bunch of brand new enemies in this game, too. One of the most prominent are the martial artists you’ll encounter, who will test your countering ability with their quick kicks and shoves; another are the muscle-bound thugs juiced up on Venom who you must beat down and use takedowns to pull out the tubes feeding them the substance. Larger, more powerful enemies will rush at you and grab you or hold you in place so other enemies can beat on you and you’ll have to battle variations of these as the game progresses, which forces you to adapt your combat strategies on the fly.

While Killer Croc is similar to battles you’ve fought before, the Electrocutioner is a complete joke.

Of course, the main thrust of the story is that the Joker (under the guise of Black Mask) has hired eight assassins to take out Batman on Christmas Eve so, of course, that means you’ll encounter these assassins throughout the course of the game. The first of these is Waylon Jones/Killer Croc, which is a fight you should be well familiar with at this point as it’s the standard fare of stunning him three times with your cape and putting a beatdown on him. Things do get spiced up a little but when he grabs a gas canister to throw at you; at this point, you have to quick-fire a Batarang to explode it and whittle his health down. in a recurring theme, you’ll need to mash A to fend him off when he tries to bite you and also have to battle waves of thugs who jump into support him and distract you but, as first boss battles go, it’s pretty simple and basically the same as fighting the TITAN enemies and even Bane from the previous games. The next assassin you’ll battle is Lester Buchinsky/The Electrocutioner but this is played more for laughs as you take him out in one hit and then have to battle a gauntlet of the Penguin’s goons before he’s unceremoniously killed off by the Joker later on.

Deathstroke will truly test your mettle in one of the more frustrating boss battles.

The battle against Slade Wilson/Deathstroke, however, more than makes up for this. This is a complex and multi-stage fight that really comes out of left field and suddenly spikes the game’s difficulty in frustrating ways. Deathstroke has a counter for all of your attacks, many of which are nigh-impossible to defend or counterattack as the counter indicator window is next to useless in this fight. Without it, it’s damn near impossible but, by staying on the move, dodging over him, and utilising the quick-fire Batclaw, you can slowly (and I mean slowly) whittle his health down enough to trigger the next phase. Deathstroke tosses a smoke grenade to sneak attack you with his bo staff, forcing you to mash Y to counter his attacks and then mash X to beat him down, similar to the fight against Rā’s al Ghūl in Arkham City, but he also fires his Remote Claw at your chest to send an explosive barrel flying at you. You need to quickly counter this and throw it at him to keep him from shooting you and, eventually, you’ll snap his bo staff and the fight continues with Deathstroke now attacking with a sword! This doesn’t make things any easier as it’s hard to build up your combos and strikes or get a rhythm going since he counters you so quickly and hits so hard that you can only afford to make a couple of mistakes throughout the fight (which has no checkpoints). This fight is easily the most challenging in the series so far and it would be fun if the counter window wasn’t so damn small but, as it is, it can be one of the most aggravating boss battles in any of the Arkham games because of how brutally unfair it gets.

Lady Shiva and Copperhead recall previous battles against Rā’s al Ghūl and his assassins.

One of the other assassins is Lady Shiva, who is relegated more to a side mission and who challenges you to rescue an innocent man from a death trap. In doing so, you have to battle her sword-wielding ninjas and, similar to when you tracked the assassin’s blood in Arkham City, track her down by following a blood trail to the bottom of Wonder Tower using your Detective Vision. This leads to a fight against her, her ninjas, some martial artists, and a bigger martial artist variant in what is, essentially, a scaled down version of the sword fight with Rā’s al Ghūl (or, alternatively, a more troublesome version of the fights against the assassins in Arkham City). Basically, your standard striking, counter, and combat skills are more than enough to win the day here but watch out for Shiva’s random attacks in the city as you’ll need to be quick to counter these. The fight against Copperhead also recalls the Rā’s al Ghūl fight; she poisons Batman and causes him to hallucinate being attacked by multiple versions of herself, dashing at him from the darkness much like Rā’s al Ghūl but attacking with agility and claws similar to Selina Kyle/Catwoman. She also leaps onto you, requiring you to mash A to throw her off, and it can be quite a headache dealing with the distorted camera and trying to land a decisive hit on the real Copperhead (though, once Batman is cured, she goes down in one hit).

Bane is your most recurring foe and requires both agility, brute force, and stealth to defeat.

One of the more recurring antagonists in the game is Bane, who you’ll battle multiple times throughout the story. In the first instance, he charges at you very much like a TITAN enemy and will deal massive damage if he hits you or grabs a hold of you. Simply cape stun him three times and beat him down and then perform a takedown, however, and he’s not too difficult to overcome. However, he then overdoses on Venom and takes the fight out onto the rooftop; when full of Venom, he charges at you like a rhino and is very hard to dodge out of the way of, and he also leaps at you, causes shockwaves to ripple across the ground, and can easily spam-charge you to death if you’re not careful. You also have to be wary of the never-ending supply of goons who join the fight to distract you but, again, your cape stun and beatdown will do the trick, as will the Shock Gloves, but it can get very aggravating trying to avoid his charges. Later, in the finale, you have to go through it all again but this time, Bane also powers himself up with TN-01 and becomes a hulking, mindless brute who rips you out of floor grates and stomps around a small enclosed area looking for you. Similar to the fight against Doctor Victor Fries/Mister Freeze in Arkham City, you must sneak around behind Bane and use the vents to your advantage to surprise him from behind and then ram him into electrified walls before finally subduing him in a QTE with your Remote Claw.

While Firefly requires your projectile-based gadgets, the Joker fight is basically a QTE.

Another of the game’s more troublesome and complex boss battles is the encounter with Garfield Lynns/Firefly, who is raining destruction down on the bridge. Before you can even reach him, you need to take out his goons and disarm three bombs while forging a practical relationship with Gordon and then battle Firefly amidst the wreckage on the bridge. Firefly hovers out of reach of your strikes, blasting at you with his flamethrower, so you need to dive out of harm’s way and toss Batarangs, Concussion Detonators, and Glue Grenades at him until he’s stunned. Then you can quick-fire your Batclaw, mash A to haul him down, and put a beating on him and damage one of his wings. In the second phase, after chasing you around the twisted underside of the bridge, you have even less opportunities for cover and Firefly now tosses grenades at you but the tactic remains the same. It can be tricky to dodge and quick-fire your gadgets at him but by far the hardest part is firing your Batclaw and countering his final attack when he flies off with you attached to him via your line so be sure to keep your wits about you. The final moments of the game finally see you track down and get your hands on the Joker, the mysterious anarchist who has been causing death and destruction across the city and who causes a full-blown riot at Blackgate Prison that more than recalls the tense, claustrophobic moments of the first game where the Joker would taunt you constantly. This fight is little more than a QTE, really, requiring you to hit Y to counter the Joker’s attacks and then pummel him into submission with presses of X. It’s a satisfying conclusion given all the chaos the Joker has wrought and how quickly the animosity between him and Batman escalates and, fittingly, is in no way a physical challenge for Batman (there’s enough of that with the likes of Deathstroke and Bane).

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Like its predecessors, Arkham Origins features a level-up progression system; every time you defeat enemies, pick up Data Packs, scan parts of the environment, and such, you’ll gain XP and, eventually, level-up. This allows you to upgrade Batman’s armour (again, into two blocks to improve damage from melee attacks and gunfire, respectively), add more elaborate takedowns to his repertoire (all of which return from Arkham City), and upgrade his various gadgets to improve their range and efficiency. Upgrading can be tricky this time around, though, as the menus aren’t as easy to navigate; you can still view tutorials and such and you’ll actually receive a grade and additional XP depending on how dangerous a combat or Predator scenario was and how versatile you were in beating it, which will net you more XP if you happen to meet certain criteria in movement, combat, or Predator scenarios and you can get more by talking to Alfred in the Batcave and hearing his wisdom. All of Batman’s gadgets from Arkham City make a return, with many looking and acting a little differently or being expanded upon in new ways. The main exception to this is the Line Launcher, which is entirely absent and replaced with the Remote Claw; this fires a line between two specific points that you can grapple up to, crouch-walk across, or speed along on a zip wire to effectively fulfil the same function but in a way that ties into the game’s more vertical layout.

Batman has a few new gadgets, most of them repurposed variants of those from Arkham City.

There are some other new gadgets here, too. The Disruptor is now a gun-like device that disables enemy weapons, speakers, and jamming devices from a distance (which is super useful when facing armed goons), and the Freeze Blast is eventually evoked in Batman’s Glue Grenades, which can trap enemies in glue and allow him to form rafts. The Remote Electrical Charge gun is gone but Batman acquires the Electrocutioner’s Shock Gloves, which charge up as he deals damage and can dish out extra hurt to enemies (even punching through shields and negating the need to cape stun) once activated by pressing in the analogue sticks (they also come in handy for charging electrical panels and opening doors and for resuscitating characters). The Concussion Detonator is a bit like the R.E.C. blast in that it goes of and disorientates and confuses enemies after a short time and, if you purchase the ‘Cold, Cold Heart’ DLC, you’ll gain access to a new Batsuit and thermal gloves to dethaw Mr. Freeze’s victims and heat up your Batarangs.

Additional Features:
Batman: Arkham Origins has fifty Achievements to earn, the vast majority of which will pop as you play through the story, taking down the assassins, and completing side missions. There are specific Achievements for taking out thugs in certain ways (such as not being seen), stopping twenty random assaults in the city as they pop up on your radar, gliding a certain distance, and fast travelling to every point on the map but you’ll also get them for collecting all of Enigma’s Data Packs and finishing the game on New Game Plus. Doing this unlocks the one-life, “I Am The Night” mode that sounds gruelling, at best, though all of your XP and upgrades do carry over to each of these save files.

Batman encounters some of his most infamous rouges for the first time in side missions.

As in Arkham City, there are numerous side missions to fill up your time with: Enigma’s data collectors need to be interrogated and his Data Packs found to bring him to justice, Black Mask’s drug stashes need to be destroyed (similar to the Bane side mission in Arkham City), and Barbara Gordon tasks you with destroying the Penguin’s weapons caches across the city. You’ll also have to find and deactivate three bombs placed around the city by Lonnie Machin/Anarky (and you’ll find his tags spray painted all over, too) before confronting him at the courthouse (where you’ll have to fight a wave of goons and Anarky himself, who is armed with stun batons). One of Bane’s henchmen, Bird, is also at large and inspiring gang fights all over the city, as is Floyd Lawton/Deadshot, and the chaos doesn’t end after the main story is cleared as Gordon tasks you with hunting down a number of escapees from Blackgate. Challenge Mode appears once again, now accessible from the main menu and from the Batcave in the main game world. Just like in Arkham City, you can take on self-contained combat and stealth challenges based on encounters in the game that see you battling waves of increasingly difficult enemies and racking up points by sustaining and varying your combos, or picking off goons from the shadows while handicapped by a number of modifiers (such as enemies having access to gun racks and weapons or Batman’s gadgets or combos being disabled).

Replayability is bolstered by a variety of DLC and a team-based multiplayer mode.

There is also a series of “Campaign” maps that mix up the two challenges to present a sort of adjacent side story to the main game and you can compare your high scores against friends and other using the online leaderboards. As before, all of this can be further expanded by purchasing a range of DLC. This includes a whole bunch of new skins for Batman (including Jean-Paul Valley’s “AzBats” armour), additional challenge packs that see you playing as Bruce Wayne during his training years, and even the ability to play as Deathstroke in the Challenge Mode, which is pretty cool. The “Cold, Cold Heart” story pack adds a whole extra story-based mission that takes place after the main campaign and features an encounter with Mr. Freeze; it even includes additional Achievements, gadgets, and things to scan and find (though they are limited only to this story mode). The biggest additional mode to Arkham Origin, though, was the inclusion of an online multiplayer that sees players battling as a member of the Joker’s gang, Bane’s gang, or Batman and Dick Grayson/Robin. Unfortunately, though, I never experienced this mode even when I played on the PlayStation 3 so I can’t really comment too much on it but it sounds like a standard, team-based deathmatch kind of mode; my only real grip is that the developers didn’t incorporate Robin into the main game or even as a playable character in the Challenge Mode this time around, and that the DLC can no longer be purchased.

The Summary:
Even now, Batman: Arkham City remains one of my favourite videogames and a standout in the Arkham series; it expanded upon all of the mechanics and features of the first game and truly defined the standard for Batman videogames. For me, then, Batman: Arkham Origins is a lot of fun; it’s (literally) everything Arkham City was but more; it’s not like they just slapped on a reskin or opened up the map a little bit either like some glorified DLC, there is a lot of story and additional features at work here that expand the game world considerably. The Christmas setting is inspired and seeing Batman nearer to the beginning of his career and encountering some of his famous villains for the first time is a blast, as is the intricate development of Batman’s character from a wanted vigilante to a trusted ally of the city and, especially, Jim Gordon. The Batwing, additional gadgets, bigger emphasis on Batman’s detective skills, and the unique, challenging boss battles are all really solid additions and help to make the game very unique. What lets Arkham Origins down a bit, especially compared to its predecessor, is undoubtedly how derivative it can be and how needlessly frustrating many of these boss fights can be. The lack of inspiration in the game’s Enigma puzzles, simple reuse of many of Batman’s gadgets (when this would have been a great opportunity to strip him of many of them to really evoke the gritty feel of the first game), and reskinning of areas we’d explored to death in the last game do take it down a notch but I still maintain that there’s plenty to like about Arkham Origins. I’m not sure if it was worth developing the multiplayer component and it would have been nice to see some of these elements incorporated into the single player story but, overall, I feel if you enjoyed Arkham City then you kind of have to enjoy Arkham Origins as it’s the same game but with a new coat of paint.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

What did you think to Batman: Arkham Origins? How do you feel it compares to the other Arkham games, particularly Arkham City? Did you think the game was too derivative or did you enjoy the additions it made to the gameplay mechanics and revisiting the world in a new, expanded way? Which of the game’s assassins was your your favourite, and how did you fare against the likes of Deathstroke and Bane? Did you ever play the online multiplayer mode and, if so, what did you think to it? Did you enjoy the game’s DLC and the side missions? How are you celebrating Batman Day and what is your favourite Batman videogame? Whatever you think about Batman: Arkham Origins, or Batman in general, please leave a comment below and check back in next Wednesday for one more Arkham review!

Game Corner [Bat-Month]: Batman: Arkham City (Xbox 360)

Dr. K8 Comments

In the decades since his first dramatic appearance in the pages of Detective Comics, Bruce Wayne/Batman has become a mainstream, worldwide, pop culture icon. The brainchild of writer Bob Kane, Batman was brought to life by artist Bill Finger and has been a popular staple of DC Comics and countless movies, videogames, and cartoons over the years. Accordingly, September celebrates “Batman Day” and is just another perfect excuse to celebrate comic’s grim and broody vigilante and, this year, I’m dedicating every Wednesday of September to Gotham’s Dark Knight Detective.

Released: 18 October 2011
Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Also Available For: PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X

The Background:
Batman quickly became a successful and dynamic character after his 1939 debut in DC Comics; over the years, the character’s world and mythos has grown considerably to include numerous spin-off comics and adaptations into not just cartoons and movies but also videogames. While Batman has fared rather well in that department, it can’t be denied that there were a few stinkers as well before Eidos Interactive acquired the rights to make a Batman game and brought in both Rocksteady Studios and celebrated Batman scribe writer Paul Dini to create the critically and commercially successful Batman: Arkham Asylum (ibid, 2009) at a time when the character was hot off a resurgence thanks to the recent success of The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008).

Batman: Arkham Asylum was a celebrated triumph that perfectly captured Batman’s essence.

Development of a sequel began work before Arkham Asylum had even been completed; despite apprehensions about system limitations, Rocksteady had big ideas for the sequel, which would move away from the claustrophobic trappings of Arkham Island and into more open world territory. Having learned from their mistakes and feedback from the first game, the developers greatly expanded Batman’s arsenal, animations, and gadgets to make him a more capable character and significantly expanded the range of exploration and side missions available to players in the much-larger game world. All of that hard work paid off as Arkham City became one of the fastest selling videogames in history. Critically, the response was universally positive; critics lauded the voice acting and additional features and the high quality of the game’s mechanics and content. The game was so successful that it was released in multiple editions with access to different downloadable content (DLC) and won numerous awards for the sheer expansiveness of its included, and additional, content.

The Plot:
Some time after the events of Arkham Asylum, the city’s criminals and maniacs have been locked up inside a walled off section of Gotham City known as Arkham City, from which there is no escape and both supervillains and TYGER mercenaries under the command of Doctor Hugo Strange enforce martial law. Infiltrating the prison to investigate Strange’s unlawful incarceration of those who spoke out against him, the odds against Batman increase when the Joker shows up, apparently dying from TITAN poisoning, and infects Batman with his blood, forcing him to delve into the city’s underworld to find a cure.

Gameplay:
Like its predecessor, Batman: Arkham City is a third-person, action/adventure game but, this time, you’re prowling the streets and rooftops of “Old Gotham”, a dilapidated and rundown area of Gotham that has been encased in high perimeter walls sporting gun turrets to house the city’s undesirables. Arkham City’s game world is five times the size of the one seen in Arkham Asylum and features even more recognisable landmarks from Batman’s famous city and areas to explore, as well as an endless supply of inmates and lowlifes to get your fists on. One of the best things about Arkham City is how the control scheme and core mechanics remain exactly as in the first game, just expanded considerably. Once again, Batman’s main method of traversal is his operatic cape and grapnel gun, which can now be used in conjunction and upgraded to allow him to effortlessly zip across the city. You can also dive bomb while gliding to take out enemies or pull up and gain additional height and length on your glide, allowing you to traverse the city prison in no time at all.

Combat and stealth are more fluid and satisfying than ever thanks to additional animations and options.

This more than makes up for Batman’s continued inability to jump and allows him to easily dart out of danger when spotted; Batman can still crouch with the Right Trigger and toss a quick Batarang with the Left Trigger, but now he can also quick-fire other gadgets, which is incredibly useful in combat and for solving the myriad of brain-teasing puzzles scattered around the city by Edward Nashton/Edward Nygma/The Riddler. The “freeflow combat” mechanic of the previous game returns intact but greatly expanded thanks to the addition of more attack animations and combos; X allows you to strike in quick succession while a well-timed press of Y (indicated when the “counter” indicator appears) will allow you to block and counter incoming attacks and rack up a bigger and more fluid combo. The higher your combo, the more damage you’ll deal and the more dynamic the perfectly-placed fight camera will move to allow you to lunge at other enemies before they can land a blow. Since the streets are crawling with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of thugs this time around, there are far more opportunities to sneak up on them and perform a “Silent Takedown”, but this time you can perform a “Knockout Smash” (though this will attract nearby enemies) and you can even perform takedowns from floor grates, double or even triple counters and takedowns when in combat, attack parts of the environment (like fire extinguishers and electrical boxes) to disorientate or disarm opponents, and even slam inmates into walls or dangle them over ledges during combat or interrogations.

New additions to the Predator sections increase the threat to Batman and his takedown options.

Also returning is the stealth-based “Predator” mechanic; in addition to sneaking up on enemies, Batman can grapple up to stone gargoyles and other high ledges to review rooms of armed thugs using the x-ray and thermal vision offered by his “Detective Mode”. A simple press of the Left Bumper and you’ll be able to see enemies by their body heat, their current condition, and any interactable parts of the environment. Batman’s new array of gadgets (easily accessed using the directional pad) can also be used in new ways to lure enemies into traps or take them down and, while traversing the city, you’ll need to make liberal use of these (and Batman’s new smoke pellets) to dart away from gunfire and dispatch gun-toting enemies. Again, Batman is tough but can’t take sustained gunfire or explosions; however, his health will replenish after you clear out all nearby enemies, solve riddles, or find the many Riddler Trophies. These same criteria will earn you experience points (XP) to improve Batman’s armour, abilities, and weaponry once more but the game definitely mixes things up by having enemies be able to jam your Detective Vision and electronics and lay traps of their own.

Navigation is easier than ever thanks to a comprehensive map, waypoint, and compass system.

If you thought Arkham Asylum had a lot of riddles and Riddler Trophies, then Arkham City will blow your mind! The Riddler has placed his trophies not just out in the open but hidden behind walls, in cages, and a myriad of pressure pads and context-sensitive puzzles that will require all of Batman’s skills and gadgets to acquire. Similarly, there are riddles to find across the city and you can solve them by tapped LB to scan the environment when you spot glowing green question marks or the answer to the riddle. This time, there are also far more destructible elements to snag you some XP; the chattering Joker teeth return but you’ll also be destroying TYGER security cameras, balloons, and massive bobbleheads of Doctor Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn, which all adds to the fun, as well as more opportunities to use your gadgets to open vents or shut off steam from pipes. The map screen returns, far more expansive and user friendly (as are all of the menus) than before; you can now set waypoints to your next mission or any other location on the map and a very useful onscreen compass and Bat-Signal will direct you towards your location with a minimum of fuss. Take note, though, that these features are suppressed when you have Detective Mode activated but, again, there are some opportunities to track targets using this vision mode.

The streets are crawling with more baddies than ever and they’ll repopulate areas as you progress.

Like the first game, Batman: Arkham City gets progressively difficult as you play but this is expanded upon greatly. You might come across a gang of Harvey Dent/Two-Face’s minions and engage them in combat, only for more and more nearby inmates to hear the fight and join in, for one thing. These enemies will, eventually, repopulate areas after you’ve cleared them out so you constantly have to be aware of enemies on the streets and rooftops and, like in the last game, enemies will increase in their aggressiveness and capabilities as you progress through the story. Also, like before, you can select different difficulty levels to play the game on from the start, with “Hard” mode including counter indicators this time but increasing the damage enemies will put out, but there are no Achievements tied to playing on Hard mode so you may as well play on “Easy” or “Normal” since “New Game Plus” offers an even tougher challenge than the game’s Hard mode. Where Arkham City excels, though, is in its sheer size; Arkham City is full of buildings to enter, Easter Eggs and references, riddles to solve, and side quests to keep you busy. For a returning player like me, it’s really easy to get distracted with side quests on your way to the main story objective and you can keep track of all outstanding missions from the main menu. From here, you can also view stories and character biographies, review Batman’s moves and abilities (and even view a tutorial if you need a refresher), and check up on any outstanding riddles and such. In fact, the only real downside to Arkham City is, again, the inability to quickly exit an area, which can be particularly bothersome when deep in the bowels of the city subway or the forgotten steampunk city, Wonder City, as it can still be a tad laborious to find your way back out sometimes.

Graphics and Sound:
Batman: Arkham Asylum managed to hold up impressively well over time and Arkham City holds up even better; it was already a big step up in terms of graphical quality and visual presentation so it’s only natural that it’s aged even better. As before, it’s a very dark game and takes place in one night so you might be relying on your Detective Vision or brightness settings to navigate in some areas but, thanks to many of the game’s locations taking place in indoor, more suburban (if equally dilapidated) areas, there are far more opportunities to bask in the impressive art direction of the game. Arkham City is split into different regions, with each one being primarily controlled by gangs of thugs affiliated with a different supervillain (Oswald Cobblepott/The Penguin, Two-Face, and the Joker) and having a distinctive feel to them.

Each region of Arkham City is controlled by a different villain and has a different look to it.

Because the game takes place within a walled off cityscape, it must be said that it’s not immediately as visually distinctive compared to its predecessor as you’re surrounded by skyscrapers but I can forgive this as there are far more opportunities to see and explore the wider mythos of Batman’s world. You’ll stumble across Crime Alley, explore the remains of the old Gotham City Police Department (complete with Bat-Signal on the roof), fight through the museum and into the Penguin’s Iceberg Lounge, and take on the Joker’s gang at the dilapidated remains of the Sionis steel mill over on Amusement Mile. Similar to Arkham Island (which you can still see lingering in the misty distance), the city prison is a rundown, desolate place full of graffiti, burned out cars, litter, and chaos and there’s a real sense that the dogs have been literally let loose within its high walls and have turned the city into a veritable war zone. As you might expect, there are some more intricate and elaborate areas of the city, too. You can venture down into the abandoned subway and, of course, navigate through some stony catacombs and sewers beneath the city but, luckily, the game is far bigger and makes much better use of these environments when it comes to utilising Batman’s abilities so there’s far less awkward jumping and climbing and much more emphasis on the Line Launcher and grapnel boost, though you will need to get used to the new dive bomb mechanic in order to swoop in through some tight areas and get 100% completion.

Some nightmarish sequences, jump scares, and chilling encounters add to the world’s mythos.

Things definitely start to take a more visually interesting turn once you venture into the abandoned Wonder City, a town populated by deactivated robots and lost to the midst of times, and scale Wonder Tower to confront Hugo Strange. Sadly, there aren’t the same dynamic sections as those involving Doctor Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow from the last game but Arkham City does go to some lengths to recreate these sections when the plot demands that Batman suffer the effects of his poisoning. Later, during a side quest involving Jervis Tetch/The Mad Hatter, you’ll experience a much more similar, twisted nightmare world but the game does include far more elaborate and layered areas to explore that change as the story progresses. The GCPD will freeze over because of Doctor Victor Fries/Mister Freeze, the steel mill needs to be cooled down and then you have to enter through a different entrance that involves navigating past giant machinery and drills, Julian Day/Calendar Man is imprisoned beneath the courthouse, and the museum contains a gigantic frozen pool with a very large and unfriendly denizen awaiting you.

The attention to detail, new villains, and cameos are even better than ever this time around.

Thanks to the diversity in the game’s inmates, enemies have a lot more visual variety this time around as they wear different colourings and outfits. There is also a lot more chatter as Batman picks up on his enemy’s radio signals and broadcasts, with both Joker and villains like Penguin taunting you and issuing commands to their underlings. Batman’s suit, while visually very similar to the last one, still takes on battle damage as the story progresses and, as you’d expect, both Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill knock it out of the park with their stellar work as Batman and Joker, respectively. Like before, Batman stops to converse with Barbara Gordon/Oracle but he also talks with his faithful butler and father-figure, Alfred Pennyworth, who sends additional equipment and offers council. The game also features far more references to Batman’s cast of characters and the wider DC universe and there’s even a much-appreciated cameo from a really well-designed version of Tim Drake/Robin for good measure. Cutscenes still make liberal use of the in-game graphics, which are even closer to the higher quality cinematics, and you’ll now see a helpful little recap of the story and your current outstanding missions when reloading a save.

Enemies and Bosses:
With Arkham Asylum gone, its inmates and the rest of Gotham’s criminals have been tossed into Arkham City instead; for the most part, the bulk of the game’s enemies are the same scumbags you fought in the last game but in different clothing and with more jeers to throw your way. Inmates will throw punches, grab weapons, toss items at you, and attack with both knives, guns, grenades (in a new twist), electrical batons, and will even pick up car doors to use as shields and ram you. Eventually, you’ll also have to contend with snipers, enemies wearing collars that will attract their allies when they’re downed, enemies that can jam your technology, ones that take hostages, and thugs will even use thermal vision to spot you and start destroying the ledges you’re hiding on if you linger too long or fail to stay hidden. While the crazed lunatics from the last game are gone, the TITAN monsters make a return and some inmates with be decked out in protective armour. A simple Batarang to the face is no longer enough to dispatch these goons; this time, you must use three cape swipes to stun them and mash X to beat them into submission while also countering incoming attacks. You’ll also have to contend with the one-armed Abramovici twins a number of times; these big bastards swing huge sledgehammers or scythes and must be blasted with a bolt from Batman’s Remote Electrical Charge gun to inflict damage on nearby enemies and pummelled with your attacks as they can’t be stunned so you have to strike, hop over to avoid their swings, and strike again to defeat them.

Solomon Grundy more than makes up for Two-Face and Penguin’s lack of physical challenge.

Arkham City is populated by a number of Batman’s most notorious rogues, basically all of them being new additions to the roster of bosses. The first you’ll encounter is Two-Face, who has taken over the courthouse and held Selina Kyle/Catwoman hostage. This is more of a tutorial for the basics of combat and Dent is dispatched by Catwoman in a cutscene rather than in an actual boss fight, and the following encounter with the Penguin is quite similar. This is basically the culmination of a side mission that sees you rescuing frozen police officers, freeing Mr. Freeze, and acquiring tech from his suit to deactivate his freezing gun (which the Penguin is using to keep you at bay). In fact, the first real physical challenge you have (aside from gladiatorial bouts against swarms of inmates or fights against one of the Abramovici twins) follows this encounter with the Penguin, which sees you facing off against the hulking zombie Solomon Grundy. You fight Grundy in a kind of gothic laboratory and must use your quick-fire explosive gel to close up three holes on the floor that regenerate Grundy’s health with lightning (while dodging said lightning) and allow you to put a beating on Grundy. This continues into the next phase, where Grundy tries to crush you with leaping attacks and two giant wrecking balls and sends weird little mice-things scuttling towards you. The third phase is more of the same but Grundy has one arm trapped in a machine; this time, the floor holes open sporadically for even shorter bursts and you need to avoid the shockwaves Grundy produces. Once he’s finally defeated, you have to dodge out of the way of the Penguin’s missile to punch him out once and for all, all of which is more interesting and engaging than the final boss of the last game.

While Rā’s tests your reflexes, you’ll need to use all of Batman’s skills and gadgets to bring down Mr. Freeze.

The next main story boss you’ll battle is Rā’s al Ghūl but, before this, you must first track down one of his ninja assassins by her blood trail, get past more of them in Wonder City (they can dodge your strikes and teleport in puffs of smoke before attacking with sword swipes), and endure the “Demon Trials” (gliding sections through a twisted hellscape where you can’t touch anything but the highlighted areas). You’ll face Rā’s in a desert that is part delusion, part reality, and have to take out hoards of sand men while he dashes at you from out of nowhere. Once you get past them, you must dodge the shurikens and blades he sends your way while blasting at him through his human shield with your Disruptor, and then mash Y to counter his attacks. The speed and aggressiveness of his attacks increases as the fight goes on but the final blow comes down to a well-timed toss of the reverse Batarang and Rā’ later meets a very gruesome end for his part in the game’s events. Next, you’ll have to take on easily the most intricate and complex boss of the game (or most games, for that matter) as Mr. Freeze betrays you and forces you into a confrontation. Depending on the difficulty you’re playing on, you may be forced to use every single one of Batman’s gadgets and abilities to deal damage and leave him vulnerable for a beatdown as Mr. Freeze learns and adapts his strategy as the fight progresses. Mr. Freeze will plod around the laboratory searching for you and sending heat-seeking globes to seek you out; you can use Batman’s glide attack, takedowns, and gadgets (like the explosive gel and Remote Electrical Charge gun) to deal damage but he’ll take action to ensure that you can’t do this twice (he freezes the ledges, grapple points, and vents, destroys parts of the environment, erects a shield, among other defensive measures), which forces you to think on your feet and explore options you might not normally use.

After stopping Strange and defeating Clayface, you’ll find some other villains to take down.

In the game’s finale, Strange activates the mysterious “Protocol 10” and commences a strategic bombardment of Arkham City; this briefly forces you to hack into circling helicopters in order to get inside of Wonder Tower and shut Strange down but, after you do, you’re forced into a confrontation with the Joker, who seems revitalised and has taken Talia al Ghūl hostage. Earlier in the game, you actually fight the Joker in his base form while his goons and out of control dodgem cars fill the arena but, when you confront him at the end, it’s revealed to have been Basil Karlo/Clayface in disguise; thus, the finale is, again, a battle against a hulking enemy. This time, you have to dodge Clayface’s cannonball attack and swinging arms while repeatedly spamming Freeze Blasts to whittle his health down. In the second phase, you grab a sword and slice up the mud men he spawns while repeating these tactics and avoiding his big sledgehammer shot in order to take him down. In between each of these main mission boss fights, you’ll come across a number of side missions that will draw you into confrontations with more of Batman’s rogues gallery: Floyd Lawton/Deadshot has been killing targets all over the city but Batman eventually tracks him down and must sneak past his one-shot rifle-arm to take him down; Victor Zsasz/Mister Zsasz has been killing people by luring them to ringing phones so Batman has to listen to his macabre life story to triangulate his location and then sneak around him in a partially flooded area to rescue his hostages; the Mad Hatter abducts you and forces you to battle waves of demonic rabbits; and the Riddler has also taken five hostages and placed them in Saw (Wan, 2004)-like traps. These hostages can only be saved by finding the Riddler’s Trophies, solving riddles, and interrogating his informants (highlighted in green) to gain access to his “Enigma Device” and locate each one in turn using the Cryptographic Sequencer.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As before, Arkham City features a level-up progression system; every time you defeat enemies, solve riddles, or pick up Riddler Trophies and destroy cameras and such, you’ll gain XP. Upon levelling-up, you can again upgrade Batman’s armour (now separated into one that improves damage from melee attacks and one from gunfire) to gain additional health, add more elaborate takedowns to his repertoire (including a swarm of disorientating bats, bone-breaking takedowns, and weapon disarmaments), and upgrade his various gadgets to improve their range and efficiency. Again, it’s pretty easy to fully upgrade all of Batman’s abilities if you engage with enemies and search out riddles on a regular basis, and it’s best to mix and match your upgrades for a balanced playthrough but you can choose to focus on making Batman more durable if you so wish.

Batman’s new toys let him charge power points and create temporary platforms, among other things.

Batman begins the game with many of the gadgets he had at the end of the last one, making him far more equipped for the rigours of Arkham City; many of his weapons, such as the grapnel gun and explosive gel, can now be used as quick-fire attacks to mix up your combos to allow for more diverse combat. Although Batman can no longer rip down walls with his grapnel gun, the Line Launcher can be upgraded to fire a second line and allow Batman to walk along it like a tightrope and he also has access to some new toys. The smoke pellets allow him to disorientate enemies and make an escape if needed, the Remote Electrical Charge gun allows him to power up electrical appliances, the Disruptor deactivates mines and renders up to two enemy guns useless, and the Freeze Blast (and upgraded Freeze Cluster) can plug up steam pipes and form ice floats on bodies or water to allow Batman to float around by grappling onto conveniently-placed hooks around the environment.

Additional Features:
Batman: Arkham City has fifty Achievements to earn, with the bulk of these popping simply by playing through the story, meeting certain objectives, and defeating bosses. One has you fiddling with the Xbox’s internal date and time in order to hear Calendar Man ’s chilling acts while most of the others are tied specifically towards starting or completing the game’s many side missions rather than solving or finding riddles (although this is a factor since you need to do this to rescue the Riddler’s hostages). No matter what difficulty you complete the game on, you’ll unlock a New Game Plus mode that offers and additional difficult challenge, mixes up the enemy placements, allows you to play the story with any additional DLC costumes, and carries over all of your gadgets and upgrades to a new game file. You’ll also be able to return to your original save file in a post-game world where the inmates will comment on the dramatic conclusion of the game and be freely able to switch to Catwoman at certain points on the map.

Alongside the Riddler challenges, there are a number of additional side quests to occupy your time.

This is super useful if you have any outstanding side missions to complete; not only are there some diving simulations to complete and a bunch of Riddler challenges tied to performing combat and gameplay manoeuvres, there are many other mysteries and villains out there to confront, such as tracking down Thomas Elliot/Hush (who has been mutilating victims to impersonate Bruce Wayne), figuring out the motives of the mysterious Michael Lane/Azrael, saving a number of political prisoners from random acts of violence, locating and reunited Nora Fries’ cryogenically frozen body with Mr. Freeze, and destroying TITAN containers in a fragile alliance with Bane. Additionally, there are way more Riddler Trophies hidden throughout Arkham City, many of which require precision gliding, pressing pressure pads, and using a variety of Batman’s gadgets to pick them up. Catwoman also has her own Riddler Trophies to pick up and, while there are no audio tapes to find this time, you can still unlock biographies, news stories, and audio clips by solving and finding riddles. As before, the game features a Challenge Mode, now rebranded as “Riddler’s Revenge”, which allows you to take on self-contained combat and predator challenges based on encounters in the game. You’ll battle a few waves of increasingly difficult enemies and rack up points by sustaining and varying your combos and pick off goons from the shadows while handicapped by a number of modifiers (such as disabling your Detective Mode, shielding enemies from damage, or having reduced health).

Arkham City makes up for the last game with a whole bunch DLC skins, characters, and challenge maps.

There is also a new series of “Campaign” maps that mix up the two challenges to present a sort of adjacent side story to the main game and you can compare your high scores against friends and other using the online leaderboards. These challenge maps, and the main game itself, can be expanded by purchasing the many different DLC packs for the game. As mentioned, Catwoman was a big selling point of the game and those who pre-ordered Arkham City or purchased her DLC can switch to playing as Catwoman during the story to follow a side mission involving Poison Ivy and stealing from Hugo Strange. The DLC for Arkham City is such a massive step up compared to the last game, adding twenty Achievements to collect and numerous costumes for Batman to use in New Game Plus and on challenge maps, and, best of all, the ability to play as Robin and Dick Grayson/Nightwing in the challenge maps. Each of the four playable characters plays a little differently (Catwoman is faster but weaker, slashes with her claws and tosses bolas; Robin uses his bo staff, riot shield, and faster (but shorter) version of the Batclaw; and Nightwing batters thugs with batons and utilises his acrobatic skill to take out enemies) and has their own gadgets but, sadly, only Catwoman is available to play as in the main game. Robin does take centre stage in a post-game DLC story, “Harley Quinn’s Revenge”, that sees him infiltrating the steel mill to rescue Batman; I had all of this DLC on the PlayStation 3 and greatly enjoyed the variety offered by the skins and each character but I do wish that the studio had allowed these additional characters to be used in the actual main game.

The Summary:
I was massively impressed with Batman: Arkham City when I first played it on the PlayStation 3; the game was just so much bigger and better than the original thanks to expanding the scope of the game world and the range of Batman’s abilities and gadgets. Everything that worked in the original game is back and improved upon, making combat even more fluid and diverse and truly defining the essence of Batman to set the standard for the remainder of the series. Rather than being confined to a claustrophobic, gothic prison, Batman is freely able to roam and fight around a dilapidated, walled off section of the city full of Easter Eggs, references, inmates to fight, secrets to find, and side missions to keep you busy for far longer than the first game. Best of all, the game is packed full of post-game and additional content thanks to these side missions, the New Game Plus mode, the expanded Challenge Mode, and the impressive abundance of DLC. Including additional skins, a short post-game story, and two of my favourite Batman characters in Robin and Nightwing really helps to expand the lore of this interpretation of Batman’s world and offers far more replay value. For me, Arkham City is still the gold standard for the Batman: Arkham series (Various, 2009 to 2015) and, while Arkham Asylum finally offered all of Batman’s abilities in a fun and engaging way, Arkham City expanded on them to the nth degree and truly defined what it means to play as Batman in an open world environment and it definitely deserves all of the praise it earned upon release and even to this day.

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fantastic

What did you think about Batman: Arkham City? How do you feel it holds up compared to the original games and its sequels? Did you enjoy that the game world was expanded into a city-sized open world or did you prefer to more claustrophobic aesthetic of the first game? Which of Batman’s new gadgets and rogues were your favourite to use or fight against and why? Did you ever track down all of the Riddler’s trophies and secrets? Which of the side missions was your favourite to complete? What did you think to the game’s DLC and would you have liked to see Robin and Nightwing playable in the main game? How are you planning on celebrating Batman Day this year and what is your favourite Batman videogame? Whatever you think about Batman: Arkham City, or Batman in general, please leave a comment below and check back in next Wednesday for my review of the next Arkham videogame!