Is it wrong to be impressed with the numerous improvements of a sequel, yet simultaneously find one’s self a little disappointed?
A couple years (and apartments) ago, I gushed in praise over Batman: Arkham Asylum. It was, and still is, a phenomenal superhero game which hit virtually every note correctly. In fact, it was so well conceived that the real mystery lay in how its developers planned to one-up themselves. Part of the reason Arkham Asylum functioned so well as a game is because it was able to effectively create and trap Batman in a confined-yet-simultaneously open arena.
This brings us to Arkham City, expanding the game to a prison district walled off from the rest of Gotham City. The expansion to this zone is both clever and well executed, upping the ante while avoiding the level of demand that would be required to truly build a full Gotham City, and undertaking which I would not envy any developer for.
Arkham City, as a game on its own terms and as a sequel, is really quite an accomplishment.
As a sequel, the arena is greatly expanded and the ways to maneuver Batman through (both in terms of combat and otherwise) are equally compounded in order to hold up, and yet do so without compromising the structure of the game or its difficulty.
As a game on its own terms, Arkham City offers a rich and highly detailed sandbox environment with an incredible sense of personality and attention that sandbox titles tend to lack, while filling many of its side quests with numerous members of Batman’s rogue’s gallery.
On paper, Batman: Arkham City is an incredible game that functionally improves on its predecessor in virtually every way. On paper.
So why do I come out feeling dismayed?
Arkham Asylum had a memorable opening, to say the least. Batman, escorting the Arkham guards as the Joker is delivered into the heart of the prison. A little plodding, but remarkably effective for setting the tone as things go wrong.
City takes a similar approach, dropping not Batman, but Bruce Wayne into the recently christened Arkham City. Why he’s delivered into the clutches of this place is painfully absent from the main campaign, and perhaps the first of a few subtle shortcomings. The opening, nevertheless, is exciting, showing that Batman isn’t defined solely by his suit or gadget, and allows the player to feel rather badass, beating up thugs of various hierarchy while one’s hand and feet are shackled.
Becoming Batman properly only adds to the excitement, and gives this game something the original did lack: the sense that there’s a man beneath the mask. It doesn’t come up often, but one is better reminded in Arkham City that Batman is also Bruce Wayne, and it does something swell for the atmosphere.
By all rights, the opening of the game is compelling and sets forth much promise. The number of Batman villains appearing in this game is expanded over the original, with a few from the previous game returning as well (Joker being among the foremost).
More, a flattering deal of thought has been placed into how these various villains behave. No longer are they hopped up on steroids in their respective battles, but rather are allowed to play to their strengths. Batman may be able to beat them down in a straight on fight (and inevitably, he will), but his adversaries make effectively sure he can’t get close enough to do so easily.
Even regular enemies are more dangerous, finding a few new ways to fight back than fists and guns. For all the new perks that Batman enjoys, his attackers are given just enough to keep the fight fair, but only as fair as the player’s observation and reflexes allow.
As if having Batman weren’t enough, Catwoman has been added into the mix, taking the spotlight intermittently during the story and shaking up the gameplay just enough to be refreshing while keeping it just consistent enough to remain comfortable. Her function in the story seems non-sequitur at first, but proves to have just enough relevance to allow it to culminate at just the right time.
The game, in short, is fun. If you’re looking for fun, you’ll get what you want.
But what if you want something more? Here’s where things get tricky.
Batman: Arkham City, does a lot. The many villains are locked in a power struggle of sorts, and there are players that many of the mare not even aware of. Joker, Two-Face and Penguin have thugs warring for control of the prison city, while Hugo Strange has his own agenda brewing.
For a while, the story seems to pull the player in various directions, to and fro. Joker is particularly distinct, given his needed place in the spotlight and allowed to shine as demanded; despite the limits that plot and circumstance allows for his presence, he is simultaneously the most omnipresent of the villains, and is played well.
Numerous other foes rear their heads throughout the story- some whom you invariably expect to fight, some you may not but turn out to be pleasant surprises (at least if you’re versed in your bat-lore).
Yet when the story climaxes, it does so abruptly and without warning (would a premature ejaculation joke be too easy here?). A sort of countdown exists in the story, yet it builds up so quickly that one would almost expect a greater degree of story afterward. Greater plot is promised, yet the build-up is cast aside in favor of sudden (and potentially unsurprising) twists, causing the story to almost unceremoniously end.
Think back to the previous game. Remember the Joker’s warm reception? Fighting off that last batch of his thugs, coupled with him getting hopped up on Titan and turning into some muscle-bound freak? It was stupid, but you got a sense of finality, a sense of knowing you were at the end and that you were facing a final boss who was in some sense relevant.
Not in Arkham City. The final boss fight is a great fight, yet it is simultaneously not a final boss fight. Who you fight and how it happens makes sense for what’s going on at the time, but the game isn’t supposed to end where and on the note that it does. The game just… concludes. The consequences are surprising and enjoyable to watch (and this is all terribly abstract, but since the game isn’t even a week old, I don’t want to be the douche with the spoilers), but when all is said and done, one is left expecting more.
I feel like Arkham City has the plot of half a game in the setting of a full one. The city-scape was touted to by five times the size of Asylum’s, but I start to wonder if the development of plot and cutscene wasn’t compromised to achieve this scale, or if the planning was simply that poor that no one realized how quickly the end of the game was going to come.
There are other problems as well.
A common misgiving I have with sandbox games (which this has becomes) are the collectables scattered around. Arkham Asylum was one of the few games in years where I collected everything, because the Riddler puzzles were so effectively and deliberately laid out that it didn’t feel like a chore to find them all.
A number of Riddler puzzlers permeate Arkham City, and while some mechanics facilitate the player in order to reduce the tedium, many cannot be snatched easily and the amount of searching demanded of the player is greatly taxed. Unlike the original, I don’t think I’m going to go back and find them all.
Also, a week ago, I wrote up some thoughts about the handling of new-buyer DLC and how this game applied it to the Catwoman material. In short, the application stinks. Although one can revisit her scenarios which are otherwise meant to play out through the story (a feature I highly suspect was added as a result of this decision), her absence takes just enough away that it hurts the game—especially considering a portion of the Riddler trophies are only available to her. It’s a low and dirty trick on the single player campaign as a whole and an insult to what the game is and the people who are buying it.
…obviously knowing about this wasn’t enough to stop me from buying it, but I’m greatly concerned what implications excising this type of content could hold, especially from WB Games, a publisher with far less experience in the industry whose sole interest seems to be in following and exploiting DLC trends.
Aside from all things though, this title is (supposedly) Mark Hamill’s swan song as the Joker. I grew up on Batman: The Animated Series, and Hamill’s Joker was iconic for me. I have no clue what the developers have planned (if they have any plans at all), but if this is the closure to Hamill’s Joker, it’s closure I’m content with. Perhaps the Joker hijacked the show, and this may owe to the rushed final hours of the game, but the closing sequences between Batman and one of his greatest foes are really very satisfying in their own right.
Other than that, I’m not sure what else to so. Arkham City is a good game—a REALLY good game—but it’s not as perfect as I’d like it to be. Despite all the labor and love that was clearly put into it, I still feel like it comes up short, and I feel bad saying that. Perhaps it’s just because the environment expanded so much that I was hoping the story would too, and it didn’t.
It’s hard to guess what Rocksteady will do next. Moving into Gotham City itself seems like the only choice left to them, unless they want to do something crazy like go to the future (hint: I’d love a Batman Beyond game by them).
I have my misgivings, to be sure, but I enjoyed my time in Arkham City. Whatever they do next, I’ll buy it.
