Arkham City

[Bubba69]

http://www.giantbomb...-29443/reviews/

 

"Gaming's greatest melee combat system gets even better with a few key improvements, while the rest of Arkham City gives the existing Batman formula some extra size and scope to keep things interesting."

 

greatest melee system? You mash one button and batman strings things together for you, sometimes you have to counter by pressing another button. Sometimes you have to stun guys first. I mean it is smooth and fluid and it works well for the game but it is hardly anything revolutionary or amazing. I found it a bit shallow to be honest.

[Squee]

Ah okay. That's a shame.

 

[Squee]

[Guest Gary C]

lol, are they really doing calendar man? worst fucking batman bad guy ever by a country mile. interesting.

 

It might be interesting if when you play the game on July 4th or Halloween or Christmas Day he has a different mission.

I'd reckon he'll be a bit-part early boss like Zsasz from AA though.

 

Seems I guessed correctly.

 

Apparently there's an achievement called Storyteller, which reads 'have 12 murderous dates with Calendar Man'. To earn it you have to talk to him on 12 holidays between New Year's and Christmas. Are there even 12 holidays a year? Maybe it's just once a month.

 

Anyway, it seems that you can cheat by going offline and changing your consoles clock. Time-consuming, but good for completists.

 

I'd love to go for 100%, but with so many subgames, characters and DLC I think it'll be almost impossible. I didn't put enough time into the ranked-brawls in Asylum, but maybe I'll be bothered with alternate skins in City.

 

Anyway, UK gets the game tomorrow. Anyone in the US already playing it?

[747Music]

I've been playing it lots today. It's really quite good. Actually I would go as far to say that it's awesome. The extra maneuvers in gliding are great. There are lots of things to do either than the main story. The riddles are certainly more difficult than AA. It's gonna take a loooong time to platinum this.

 

Also, Catwoman plays quite well. The combat and gameplay are pretty much the same, minus the Catwoman exclusive gadgets, and she doesn't glide.

[Guest Gary C]

Epic adventuring. There's so much to do and so many characters and places for Batman fans. It's pretty much my perfect game.

Having 12+ gadgets is a bit confusing and navigating at ground level (some side missions involve searching a target area for evidence) is almost impossible. But yeah, it's crazy how much is packed into this game. Just so much, and there were still big surprises even after all the hype.

 

But if you're not a Batman fan then I'm not sure if it's a better game than Arkham Asylum. It's bigger, more refined and with some good new features. But there's simply so much to do that a non-Batman fan might feel it's an overload. It's down to the script to pull in those fans and it seems pretty solid to me, but again, if you're not a fan then it might not be worth it.

 

Still though, every individual game mechanic and style is polished perfectly. Puzzles, stealth and brawl-combat combine seamlessly. Some physics puzzles are genuinely tricky (although the first half of the game had a lot of annoying 'maybe do this'-type clues). Navigating the map from the sky is a joy. I can't measure how fun it is to grapple-boost across rooftops and then take a sniper off a rooftop at full speed. Characters are well realised and introduced effectively. The detail of the city is dense and lush and the elements of an ultra-dangerous city are notched up as the game progresses. At first it's not too much trouble getting from A to B, but later, when everyone's got guns, it's just as dangerous as a boss fight.

 

Catwoman's not that interesting, but it seem as though she has even less than 10% of total gameplay. With loads of DLC to come, I don't think I'll need to play another game for at least a year.