The Caped Crusader makes his videogame return to help rid Gotham City
of scum (again). Alex Wharton checks out the latest installment
I
’m Batman! Well, if only – I’m
actually kinda skinny and pale. I’m
also not a ninja, a fact I learned
many years ago when I nearly
broke myself trying to flying kick
my brother off a chair after watching Power
Rangers.
But Batman: Arkham City allows you
all the Batmanning goodness without
the worrying side effects (namely various
psychopaths attempting to remove parts of
your anatomy like a kid with a spider).
Batman: Arkham City takes what Arkham
Asylum did and runs with it, stretching it
out to a much larger and more open form.
Arkham Asylum has now been expanded to
a large section of the city, walled off from
the rest of Gotham, where all of the villains
and criminals can run riot to their hearts’
content. Not the most original of stories, but
cast your mind back to the various movies
and they’re all based around this same
premise.
This time you get to play Batman though,
the world’s greatest detective (and of course
the badass-est of all badass superheroes).
And now he’s got a whole playground in
which to kick 10 levels of the proverbial
out of anything that moves.
Right from the beginning of
the game you can go
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anywhere – soar from the highest buildings
to the deepest of sewers. But even so
the city doesn’t seem quite as large as it
was hyped up to be. It takes around three
minutes to fly from one side to the other –
but that space is packed with a whole heap
of stuff to do and explore including some
relatively linear inside areas that take you
through parts of the story.
And what an awesome little story it is:
thrown into Arkham City by Dr Strange, the
overseer and prison warden of the city, you
come face to face with most of the great
names from Batman’s history. The Joker is
of course here, along with Two-Face, Bane,
Poison Ivy, The Penguin and The Riddler – to
name a few. You get to play as Catwoman as
well in a semi-altruistic role which changes
the setup slightly.
The game is part stealth, part exploration
and part beat-em-up. A lot of time is spent
in the rafters of rooms, picking grunts off
one by one, a well-executed element of the
gameplay that heightens the predatorial
feeling. Watching from the shadows as that
last guy in the room runs around in a panic
before you finish him is just great, sadistic
fun. Sometimes though you simply have to
pick a fight and take them all down.
The combat in Batman is best described
as a rhythm game. When surrounded by