Batman: Arkham City Critique - Breaking the Bat

foreign [Music] Commissioner James Gordon stands outside the gates of Arkham City he's tired too tired for any more bad news reports have warbled in over the past hour the names the bodies the dead he stopped keeping count as the rain thrashes the police cars around him he peers through the Gloom and the silhouette bleeds into view the Batman broken wordlessly holding the limp body of the clown in his arms in 2011 a 16 year old boy stared at the screen as it faded to Black left with one clear thought Batman Arkham City is a tragedy and twelve years later that feeling Still Remains when I described the game that way I mean it in the most literal of Senses it has the structure the tone and the sadism of a tragedy proved so confidently that you could argue that it's Shakespearean and in fact that is exactly what I'm going to make the case for I'm not going to claim that it's a 21st century Hamlet but we are going to look at how it uses the six elements of a classical Shakespearean tragedy the tragic hero a struggle between good and evil the Fatal flaw a tragic waste Supernatural elements and the hero's failure it was good enough for The Bard so it's good enough for the bat while Rocksteady clearly have a deep love and Adoration of The Dark Knight they've designed three full games to torture and test him Arkham City is when things start to get serious Rock said he didn't strike gold by accident when they made Arkham Asylum they mined deep and hard into the history of the bat to unearth everything that makes him so powerful captivating and goddamn cool the Batman is so cool I want to feel like Batman so when the time came to begin working on a sequel the development team were pumped but naturally a little apprehensive about the challenges ahead in a 2011 interview with Gamespot the Studio's marketing manager Dax gin said quote we knew that we could deliver a game that nailed Batman's personality and all those interesting character traits that he has but as a studio we wanted to reset the challenge for ourselves we could have just set the game in the Asylum again but where's the fun in that so we brought everyone back to a starting point said we have a mountain to climb and that mountain is going to be five times bigger Arkham City is what happens when a developer listens to feedback there's a whole chunk of stuff in here that was left in The Cutting Room floor when Rocksteady made the first title deciding to master the core pillars of the Batman experience rather than spread themselves too thin feeling like him was the cast iron mold that the rest of the game poured into that philosophy paid off when the bat was locked in one small location but this time Arkham was going to be bigger badder and more brutal dishing out a story that's multi-layered and all the more engaging for it to me that's the most astonishing thing about Arkham City the fact that there is so much going on in this game every villain physically fights for their voice to be heard but almost every member of his colorful cast feels like they get their time to shine I do say almost it's not perfect but it raises the bar at every turn um or we really yeah go read everything that the other forums and the community have said about the game I mean we have to say we started Arkham City kind of a few months before the main the last game came out so the story was pretty much fixed I think when we started but we got to sort of see what people liked about the game and that's how we've evolved you know what the different characters are doing within Arkham City when I returned to Arkham Asylum and borrowed into its design and story I fell in love with this world all over again I do recommend you watch my critique of that game first because I will be building off of the analysis I made there the link should be on screen now and if it isn't it's in the description underneath the like button however my praise of Asylum was distorted by some of the game's hiccups the gadgets lacked depth so it's metroidvania mechanics felt a little modeled the Riddler trophies were repetitive making 100 completion a chore over half of his boss fights were major disappointments but my biggest problem with the game was how it built up the insipid Corruption of the Asylum showing how its very heart was rotten and diseased just for Batman to shrug his shoulders send the inmates back to their cells and fly off into the night without condemning any of it as a sequel if Arkham City could answer even one of these complaints I'd start popping the champagne but interestingly it tries to answer them all with varying degrees of success the tldr is it as my favorite Arkham game Rocksteady did not Coast on the Acclaim of the first title if asylum's Batman is the mold City takes every opportunity to break it so hook up your utility belt and get the batarangs ready this is a comitarian critique of Batman Arkham City foreign to close Arkham City and make Gotham safe again City's opening is Grand a lesson in effective economic game storytelling we start with Bruce Wayne the man not the myth holding a press conference in front of huge concrete walls barbed wire and watchtowers Behind These Walls is Arkham City a part of Gotham has been converted into a massive city-sized prison all of Gotham's criminals are here Rehabilitation is no longer an option treatment for the insane has been taken off the table instead mayor Quincy sharp has opted to transform a quarter of Gotham City into a ghetto and given Professor Hugo Strange control of it this version of Bruce Wayne doesn't get involved in Gotham's politics choosing instead to focus his attention on being Batman but the construction of Arkham City has forced his hand it's been 18 months since his night of Madness and Arkham Asylum and in the time since he's become determined to try and Tackle Gotham's corruption from the top down there is a reason why this is is how City opens it feels like a direct response to Batman's lack of care when he saw the corruption of Arkham Asylum in the first game it's a brand new Bruce and a brand new Batman with Lessons Learned and a series shift in Focus barely a minute in our overarching objective is made clear shut down Arkham City for the good of Gotham and for the good of the inmates the thing about a Batman story is you need to convince your audience that the system is to blame not just the criminals it's easy to look at two face and see a monstrous Thug locked behind bars what's interesting is when Batman reunites him with his coin after almost dying all of the villains can be fixed can be treated can be redeemed even the truly cruel ones as what Batman believes and so it's what we've got to believe too the criminals are just a symptom of the true disease Gotham's systematic corruption so when Arkham City puts us in the shoes of someone wrongfully arrested beaten and tormented by fascistic guards it reinforces that corruption is the focus of Arkham City it's a poetic rule reversal Arkham Asylum opened with the Joker's part walk Arkham City opens with Batman's Asylum gave us a cuckoo clock ticking down to Joker Breaking Free and everything going wrong city gives us the pounding drums until Bruce Wayne breaks three of his cuffs and transforms into the Batman as the saying goes he's not locked in here with them they're locked in here with him wakey wakey Wayne oh what's up do you need me to call you Butler cobblepot oh you remember me I'm touched at the start of this video I played you a clip from Comic-Con 2011. at that same Comic-Con there's an awkward but easily missable moment where Mark Hamill throws praise at his fellow voice actors for their astounding performances in The game everyone is just amazing he says clearly just so happy to be in a room of talented people who also love Batman everyone when I heard um who's the actor that does the voice of the penguin despite everyone nodding stoically that yes the Penguin's voice actor was brilliant nobody on the panel could remember Nolan North's name two games had released that year where Norse played the main character a third was on the way he was on a panel just two rooms over for Uncharted 3. it's a cringe-worthy moment but it's kind of a testament to just how much is going on in Arkham City even now before Bruce puts the bloody bat suit on of course Nolan nor slipped their mind we see Hugo Strange a black mass Cameo and penguin in the first six minutes of the game by the 20th we've got Alfred in our ear Catwoman two-faced Joker and Harley Quinn tearing at the screen it's entirely up to you which opening you prefer Asylum is beautifully indulgent but this is mine because it's got momentum from the offset it all feels more dangerous we're fighting almost immediately a Combat tutorial to let us knock thugs to the floor like Butters so we get that immediate empowerment fantasy Rocksteady don't want to bum us out too much but it's to the backdrop of sincere consistent threats the Cavalcade of muscle goons the bray and yell for the wireling fence are intimidating watching Bruce Wayne Bruce Wayne without his gadgets his armor his Shadows be ambushed and thrown into handcuffs is unnerving the concept of climbing to the roof of a building without our gear is daunting seeing the penguin look so confident in the presence of Batman is gut churning walking past powerful Mobsters like black mask as he's knocked To The Ground by Hugo Strange's militia feels Disturbed like watching a Hitler beat up playground buoy but the most dangerous presence of all is Hugo Strange himself because Professor strange knows who the Batman is up until this point you have shown total disregard for the law for society and yourself from this moment on you are no longer part of the society that you have shown no respect for strange is such an interesting choice because of how Niche he is none of the really big Batman stories include him he's rarely a true harbinger of Doom regular people who don't collect dark knight Comics what nerds am I right simply don't know who he is my dad knows who the Joker is who the Riddler is hell he even knows who Killer Croc is but not in a million years would he be able to describe the old Egghead that is a shame because strange has been around for 83 years appearing first in Detective Comics number 36. Arkham City is arguably his most famous story and he slips into the Arkham verse incredibly naturally despite evidence to schizophrenia he doesn't think he's insane in fact he believes he has some kind of super sanity that makes him more valuable than Gotham's protector he wants to replace Batman thinking that Bruce Wayne simply isn't worthy of the cow we learned that he experimented on the Arkham patients and eventually transformed them into the lunatics that roamed the Asylum he interviews Mad Hatter Catwoman Penguin Joker Riddler Two-Face and freeze in an attempt to understand and manipulate them he cruelly took two-faces coin from him just like the doctors and Grant Morrisons a serious house on Sirius Earth and listening to that tape is legitimately harrowing assume that you feel the need to toss your coin in order to decide whether to answer my questions you ready to find out well sorry not a problem God take Mr dense coin off of him no so all you need is this coin and everything is simple give me it uh what about this coin or this or these what are you doing proving a point his greatest power isn't the blackmail the connections the bribery it's his ability to psychoanalyze anyone who comes across him he figures out Batman's true identity and refuses to share that knowledge believing his fellow Psychopaths simply aren't worthy of it he gets under the skin of villains that up until now have appeared psychologically bulletproof because they're so wrapped up in their own Insanity because of how in control he is and because he's a coward who never leaves his protective Tower he is immediately beautifully hateable there's no Camp here no jokes just clinical stoic authoritarianism he's perfect as a figurehead for a story about corruption and a sequel that piggybacks off of the rot seen in Arkham Asylum because he's a senior official who oversaw that rot over the course of the game strange will count down to something called protocol 10. we hear it mentioned as Bruce suits up preparing for the long night ahead and Protocol 10 represents the second thing that City prioritizes cultivating an honest-to-god mystery the Batman is referred to as detective much more in City Catwoman calls him it Riddler calls him it Rachel ghoul calls him it hell even Joker uses the term albeit sardonically that is strung along from question to question across cities 15 hours in Asylum The Joker had a pretty simple bold-faced plan takeover Arkham Drive the Batman and if that fails pump the chemical Titan into Gotham's water supply it was a solid plot that gave us a creative introduction to these characters but mysterious no of course not that wasn't the point but in just 30 minutes Arkham City toss is a whole host of questions into the driving seat what is Protocol 10 what is the nature of Arkham City is the Joker really sick but momentum is the name of the game with this opening so we don't have much time to sit and Ponder what the answers might be Catwoman is in trouble over at the courthouse and we can't keep a girl waiting you certainly know how to keep a girl hanging harv I'm sorry I've been a bad kitty overruled time to die I vote for a stay of execution two guns [ __ ] oh my God the puns I can't on repeat playthroughs Arkham City's opening feels calibrated totally structurally patient Wise It's fine-tuned we've had this brutal crunch of Bruce Wayne being so disempowered and Arkham City being such a Bedrock of Cruelty that what comes next when we rush to Selena Kyle's rescue isn't just entertaining its downright necessary everything about the setup screams comic book and Pulp the same way asylum's opening did the cat is strung upside down of ravatov presumably the Titan formula barrels of which have made it into Arkham City the jibs and jibes she tosses it to a face bounce with that same camp melodramatic language we have come to expect from pauldini's writing the player is invited to have fun in this world you're going to be tense you're going to be disgusted but cat and Two-Face remind us that the game will have heart and Stakes we're in good hands because just like Asylum it's not going to take itself too seriously all you need to know about the tone of the Arkham verse could be wrapped up in two-faces visual design the blue face of the animated show is gone Tommy Lee Jones has been cast into the bin it's closer to Christopher Nolan's version with the face sizzled away in the suit torn and frayed but the design the color work it's all more Stark and saturated than what we got on the big screen but saying all of that the most important thing about City's gang leaders is how scared they are in 2011 daxkin told Digital Spy quote Arkham City is an urban prison where there are no rules and there is a simmering turf war between all of these horrible nasty criminals and we have really interpreted them in the most horrible nasty way that is what Arkham City does to these villains that is what Arkham City does to these villains what a cracking nine words they're worse than ever because they're terrified The Riddler has kidnapped people and set up death traps across the city he's not just leaving silly puzzles for Batman this time the Joker is in hiding penguin is hunkered down in a Fortress and Two-Face considers not using his coin so he can just kill Catwoman and gain the fear of the city it's a hot box of Terror under the Jack boot of strangers militia our first impression of Arkham City is that it's a breeding ground for villainy if Arkham Asylum stopped our bodies from getting better City makes them worse what makes Catwoman Stand Out is that she keeps up the tempo of this introduction with waves and waves of puns and a wry sense of humor when Batman rescues her their time alone highlights just how much the bat and the cat care about each other this place is dangerous I like it you're expecting a kiss it was Joker he speaks to her the same way he speaks to Oracle or Alfred with affection it's a tiny shift in his approach but most of the time this version of Batman will talk through people he won't respond to what they say or bounce off of equip he'll get straight down to business but when Catwoman Muses I might have chipped a nail back there this Batman spares a second to respond funny he never told the Joker he's funny and speaking of the Joker his jealousy pumps into the scene without hesitation seeing Batman interested in someone other than him he decides to remind us that hey he's here too why don't we come visit so taking aim at Catwoman through a scope he tries to gun her down forcing bats to save her twice in a row as our tutorial begins to fade out and the main game fades in our hero and the player come to the same conclusion you're not safe here no one is and the bat has no idea how true that is tracing the trajectory of Joker's bullet Batman soars across the city to find its source a church that was being used as a medical center by the Arkham staff Aaron cash is here no longer supervising the Asylum but roped into guarding City's Medical Teams while the treat injured inmates we even learned that he tried to pull some strings to keep certain inmates out of city but strange overruled him time and time again this offers up a distinct contrast to strangers Thugs who don't differentiate between violent criminals and non-violent criminals to Hugo Strange they're all the same locked in a Perpetual state of absolutism he and his men aren't trying to keep anyone safe there are good people in City not just criminals so even if you can't empathize with a terrified Two-Face cash and his crew are here to give another reason why Batman can't fly out of here without him they won't survive the night but he's not the only familiar face waiting for us in the church and no I'm not talking about Thomas Elliot lying on this Gurney with his face cut off right now he's not feeling himself well actually he was earlier but that's not what I'm Harley Quinn is returned now dressed in a brand new outfit to tempt cosplayers out of hiding I guess Rock City just really loved all the free press Jessica Nigri gave them the new threads are badass but they don't stop Batman from decking her regardless she's captured one of the doctors Stacy Baker claiming that joker is mysteriously sick and hoping that her hostage can treat him what this means is Batman immediately has a new stop after securing the church Jokers Hideout hideout don't believe this attack Batman in your incessant quest for just Justice you forget you bother some bat every time you overcome my puzzles I learned that little bit more about you I don't think you'll be solving this one oh this guy okay fine if we Flash Forward a couple of hours a distress signal will go up from the church cash and friends have gone missing in a carefully placed projector screen has taken their place I wonder what vile villain has the Venom to be so villainous where's my dictionary yes the Riddler makes his triumphant return in this church he's kidnapped the medical team upping the stakes to try and prove once again that he's smarter than the world's greatest detective he's a truly present character this time not just a voice occasionally in our ear and just like in the Asylum his inclusion is full of life color and a perfectly hateable egomania that drives our collect-a-thon hell his voice actor Wally wingert even embodies the Riddler's arrogance and interviews quote while villains like the Joker and Two-Face are fraught with evil intent they are sorely lacking in quality Showmanship and precise presentation he said in an interview with game luster in 2022 it's all a wicked game show to Eddie with the head of Batman as the Ultimate Prize say that to the Joker's face Wally City's Riddler embodies the game's biggest upgrade this is almost a perfect Riddler almost he's like 75 there but he's unfortunately a victim of Rocksteady trying to go bigger so because I hate myself and have decided to 100 complete each of these games as I critique them we're gonna send bats out into the world to hunt for Riddler trophies deep undercover are people working to ensure that I am informed of what the other so-called super criminals are planning it hi diddle diddle how does the middle of my fist taste you little nerd good stuff first The Riddles have returned as a confident guiding hand for Easter egg hunters because Arkham City is so much larger than the Asylum these aren't just cute treasure hunts anymore there are tangible means of leading the player to City's finer details that let's face it I probably wouldn't have found on my own in the Arkham Asylum video I talked about extrinsic and intrinsic motivation extrinsic is when you're focused on the external reward of doing something and intrinsic is when the ACT is rewarding in itself Rocksteady have approached the riddles within if it ain't broke don't fix it mentality that intrinsic motivation is back because they're entertainingly written and because the act of solving them means we get to bask in all the little elements that contribute to City's World building whether it's Harvey dents old campaign office or a poster of the flying graysons that confirms Nightwing's existence in this iteration of Batman we are hunting for flavor text and there's something really powerful about that whilst Rocksteady kept the framework of the riddles the same they also made them much more specific especially in the open world in Asylum we could just walk around scanning to our hearts content and eventually the riddle would be solved the game was incredibly lenient that way arguably too lenient in City you do need to use your brain a little more because often the answer is a small object that you have to zoom in on the parameters of what is an answer and what isn't are simply smaller the perspective riddles where we need to rely on detective Vision to find question marks painted around the world are back as well to add variety and Challenge and in direct contrast to how Rock City of finessed to the regular riddles the parameters of what is an answer and what isn't are much larger you won't see this frustrating message telling you the solution isn't aligned when it definitely is as much as you did in the Asylum but the most diabolical change comes from the Riddler trophies detective fails to complete my challenge that's cheating though I am hardly surprised there's nothing that screams Riddler 2.0 like the way his trophies have been fused into the DNA of Arkham City's exploration they're everywhere clocking in at a whopping 282 if you include the ones that are specific to Catwoman but it's not just the quantity of his peanut it's the quality too Batman soars down from on high Landing with a swirl of his black cape a green glinting question mark sits inside a metal cage the only way to get it out is by magnetically pulling it using a built-in generator that requires the remote electrical charge Gadget but the only suitable angle is across an Alleyway of water so you need to toss a freeze grenade up that alley how are you going to get there now well thankfully you have the line launcher to zap you over for a comfortable drop down that's three gadgets necessary for just one Trophy and I'm not even gonna try and quantify the brain power needed to figure this [ __ ] out the Riddler trophies finally require the world's greatest detective tube detect a situation to deduce the best way forward and to use his world-renowned preparation to figure out the solution asylum's Riddler dared us to prove we're smarter than him by pulling vents off of walls and picking up random trophies lying on the floor cities Riddler is more meticulous he finally lets us feel smart and that means they finally give us an intrinsic motivation to find the trophies well most of them do because while we get trophies that lures into death traps trophies that test our gliding abilities and trophies that need multiple gadgets to grab there's a fourth type of trophy the ones that just sit there some of them hide in Vents and ovens some of them are literally lying on the ground like the Riddler felt sorry for us and wanted to give Batman some quick wins it's hard not to feel like the game is overstuffed with Riddler trophies when you're absolutely grabbing one sitting on a table like Rock City set up some dumb joke and we're the punchline that's not the only problem if you hate a collecting Joker teeth and Asylum boy are you in for a night of fun with City because they are back and they brought some irritating boring friends like that guy to New Year's party who thought it was totally cool to bring Kevin when absolutely nobody wanted him to what Joker teeth demon seals cameras Penguins balloons for Christ's sake Batman needs to destroy dozens of these if you want to get your hands on the Riddler somehow someway Rocksteady didn't make these better they just made more they're broken up into rows in your menu and if you complete each row you get the extrinsic reward of an interview tape documenting Hugo Strange's sessions with the many villains of Arkham City we don't just find the tapes lying around anymore meaning there's a real incentive for finding all of the game's Secrets but bafflingly bizarrely frustratingly pick your favorite adverb we can't listen to the bloody tapes outside of the menu anymore good evening Hugo I believe it is time for our one-on-one no it is time for you to stop this and give up my tiger gun what is this the Callisto protocol but even with these gripes this new approach to the Riddler does something really special it finally lets me compare Batman to Spyro the Dragon no really Stay With Me the first two spiral games are my favorite mascot Platformers and my favorite collect-a-thons year of the Dragons good yeah ground fine whatever I have no critique that explains why it's not as good links below but one of the reasons why I think they're so engaging to play is because everything Spyro does is connected to collecting stuff the gameplay of that series can be wrapped up into three core pillars fighting baddies exploring levels and platforming every one of these pillars including combat rewards us with gems so Along Comes Arkham City with a similar philosophy Batman's Three core pillars combat exploration and using gadgets all play a part in finding the Riddler trophies exploration or gadgets are pretty self-explanatory but combat is a whole new addition Two-Face penguin strange and the Joker aren't the only shielding themselves with gangs of henchmen The Riddler is too they bleed green while we wipe the concrete with their friends and if they're The Last Man Standing we can interrogate them for the locations of trophies or riddles this adds an extra layer of strategy to combat because you need to keep Batman angled away from the informants so you don't accidentally knock them out too early tell me everything you know about Riddler Riddler problem ladies gents the Emperors I present to you the Batman fantasy and Arkham City isn't done one of the best parts of Asylum was how some of the villains would play games with Batman Joker would arm a bomb and count down while we desperately searched for a way to deactivate it Harley held two hostages over electrified water and dared us to save them the Riddler clearly decided to take a leaf out of their book and has created saw-like challenge rooms where he puts one of the medical team in danger and we need to solve a volatile obstacle course to rescue them these are incredibly fun because of the Riddler Showmanship and the sincere challenge that they offer pitting the great detective against the rubbish riddle boy with Pizzazz and Flair the way to unlock these is twofold were rewarded with one for every series of Riddler secrets we collect and then need to crack a riddle to figure out the location of the hostages if we zip ahead 15 hours to the end game collecting all of Riddler's Secrets offers up one final challenge Edward enigma's most depraved game yet that's right worms keep walking you remember don't you Riddler when I get out of here I'm gonna hurt you for this you hear me come now Mr Cash in order to hurt me you would have to break free from the predicament you currently find yourself in and attack me in such a way that does not cause me to press this remote Detonator Distributing your primitive DNA all over the walls he's forced the guards and doctors including our pal Aaron Kash into callers that force them to keep walking if they stop their heads go pop so we need to sneak through a mechanical Labyrinth to reach him and take him down once and for all it feels like a direct response to those of us who are disappointed that we didn't even get to see Enigma in Arkham Asylum this whole sequence feels ripped right out of a comic book and it shows just how demented Arkham City has made the Riddler in the space of just one game he's gone from a nuisance that sticks trophies and vents to a maniacal psychopath who tortures innocent people and I have no sympathy for the Little Nerd who's black and blue and green all over you Riddler that's who Arkham City gives Batman so many gadgets that he shouldn't be called the world's greatest detective he should be called the world's greatest inspector Gadget after his quick stop at the church Batman decides to confront the Joker directly for trying to shoot his girlfriend he's hauled up at the sionist steel mills once the base of operations for Roman Sionis AKA black mask that guy we saw getting the spit beat out of him during the opening Joker has transformed it into a technical or fun house that belches fire and smoke the front door is locked so Batman needs to think outside of the box going in through the chimney instead and working his way up from the bowels of Joker's new Lair what the hell are you doing here you're supposed to be well there's no way you're getting to Mr J We're safe and sound up here you can just stay down there and burn Harley it seems is in control the speaker for a joker who is mysteriously absent but even with her Newfound leadership role she's unable to find her own voice just a poor echo of the clown Prince for now she's not terrifying enough to be taken seriously by Gotham's criminals the steel mill is the true obstacle here with steam vents and Lava Pits for Batman to outmaneuver with the help of his gadgets which makes this the perfect opportunity to look at the game's approach to metroidvania mechanics and Batman's Arsenal because this too is a step forward in almost every single way some of the gadgets have come on in Leaps and Bounds others looking at you cryptographic sequencer are still a dozy lackluster fart in the wind but all of them have been put under rocksteady's microscope the most substantial changes how they operate in combat the batarang batclaw remote electrical charge electric gel and freeze grenades can be brought out with just a couple of TAPS when surrounded what's especially cool about this is that there's a variance in when they're useful the electric gel is an area of effect attack that can give Batman some Breathing Room a freeze grenade will incapacitate a gun so if you're careful about where you're aiming it you can disable some of the tougher enemies nice and early to come back to later bat claws can rip away weapons like guns and the batarangs well the batarangs do what they did in Asylum but hey it's always good to have a ranged weapon on hand the line launcher isn't useful for combat but it is useful for stealth receiving a major upgrade that lets bats use it as a tightrope to get the drop on enemies physically transforming an arena to suit his needs in the steel mill Harley tosses Mr abramovichi at us to slow Batman down affectionately known as Mr Hammer she's desperate for The Dark Knight not to see Joker while he looks so weak luckily we have a brand new toy the rec that can Electrify brutes and force them to spin around offering up some collateral damage on our behalf with just one exception all of the gadgets build a better hero in Batman fighting with all of them in the end game is a decidedly different feeling from fighting with none of them in two-face's Courthouse the wealth of options strengthens the sense of preparedness and deductibility that makes controlling Batman well if you like Batman so great 99 of the gadgets build a better hero and transform Batman Into The Dark Knight but do they open up the world and if so how substantially in the campaign of Arkham Asylum the gadget's usefulness felt relegated to finding Riddler trophies because their ability to chart the main path through each level was pretty one note the pacing of new gear was so quick that you would barely finish placing explosive gel on a wall before he'd been given the line launcher and then the line launcher would be the only way you'd overcome obstacles in the hour that followed it Arkham City avoids this problem altogether with varied obstacles that Force us to swap between gadgets and seeing as we're in the steel mill let's use it as an example in the last third when we come back here bats will find a cooling system with Rushing Water that winds through the dungeon it's expected that we'll use freeze grenades that create a block of ice to float on but that's just option one if we want to experiment there's always option two the line launcher which now can change direction mid-zip if there's a decent surface to latch onto it's faster but with that speed comes difficulty so there's a risk reward to consider with those options City's gadgets give us the ability to think outside of the box however the level design especially in the late game starts to let these improvements down because of the odd way shortcuts and backtracking are handled let's go back to that cooling system as an example we can't exit through it if we enter the steel mill through the front entrance because of the way that the water is running and trust me when your last Riddler trophies on the other side of this wall it is almost enough to make me call this whole thing off the same goes for the Iceberg Lounge the original entrance has blocked off in the end game some Rubble fell on top of it so we can only get in Via The West Wing just stick a vent in here so I don't need to go all the way back outside but even if the gadgets didn't give us the ability to think outside of the box then there's something to be said for the variety on show remote batarangs Electrify shutters to open them freeze grenades close off steam vents so we can get past and give us floating platforms the line launcher helps us cross chasms the explosive gel knocks down walls the cryptographic sequencer opens doors and disables electric fences the remote electrical charge opens doors or can magnetically move objects out of the way in fact in a couple of minutes Batman is going to use it to smash open the entrance to where Joker is hiding they unlock shortcuts of debatable quality in the game's various buildings so getting back through them later is generally less of a ball leak and in that tight suit I think bats would take all the relief he can get the gadgets do open up the world but this time they make navigating it less single-minded and more interesting as well but it's not perfect there is one Gadget in particular that keeps seeping into these games killing off any potential for capital F fun and replacing it with my that flies in the face of feeling like the Batman this gadget breaks down each minute of its screen time into seconds of box ticking that would even rival Gotham Knight's monotonous gameplay I think I was too easy on it to my Arkham Asylum critique and after rolling credits on City the gloves are off but first we've got a date with Harley sausage Dr Stacy Baker what's wrong with these people that crazy woman thinks I can fix the Joker what's wrong with him there's something in his blood some kind of toxin it's killing him Baker tells us that she was forced to treat the Joker he's sick she says Titan is coursing through his blood but because it's pumping into his heart it's starting to kill him the clock is ticking when Arkham City released a series of comic books came out alongside it a five issue miniseries filled in the gap between the first game and the second showing us Hugo Strange's plotting Bruce Wayne's attempts to shut down the City prison and the callousness of the villains as they prepared to be transferred the Joker was the first criminal in Arkham City he and Harley escaped the Asylum together and set up shop in the steel mill before the gates opened but in these Pages Paul dini gives us a real insight to the Joker's state of mind and he's scared his fear doesn't just come from the prospect of dying it mainly comes from how he'll die coughing up blood in a hospital bed he wants the fire in the fury a city Ablaze as the Batman breaks losing a piece of himself as the Joker dies in his arms reeling from the sting of a knife instead what he's facing is something mundane and unmemorable you are looking a little better yes well I had my good days and bad days but I do try and start each one with a smile the interview tapes with you were strange document a bloodbath The Joker kills every doctor that tries to treat him and he demands more be sent they can't cure him but his fear is eclipsed by legitimate violent Rage with a rap sheet like that it's no wonder Stacey Baker is shaken up but not as shaken up as I am every time I have to use the cryptographic sequencer I am the king of lazy transition it's better than it was in Arkham Asylum but none of the core issues are fixed gone are the days of syncing up sound waves Hugo Strange is a big fan of Wardle so all of his digital locks are password protected and we need to decipher that word what that really means is you're spinning the analog sticks until a word appears later these increase in difficulty so a few words pop up and we need to combine the two halves that make the most sense that does require a little bit of problem solving but not much who made these the hangman That's The Hangman's a Batman villain who kills people and leaves behind hangman puzzles for Batman to solve it doesn't matter look the cryptographic sequencer opens doors and gives Batman the incredibly useful ability to trace radio signals in Arkham City we can pick up stuff like Gotham City radio and the chatter of the Penguins thugs frequencies that offer nothing that we don't already gain from just flying around enjoying the sights it also helps us track down the Riddler's hostages but really there are so many steps involved with finding them including the fun part of solving literal riddles that this could be removed altogether and nothing would be lost haven't made my point yet no you want me to keep going well okay then the sequencer can't be used in stealth or combat which means that not only is it mechanically boring to engage with it doesn't build a better hero either later we get the master code that lets us crack digital locks specific to Hugo Strange's militia meaning it serves the same purpose as a red key card and a blue key card and at the risk of beating a dead horse this is the complete opposite of interesting metroidvania mechanics attempts have been made to make the sequencer more enticing but there's got to be a point where you call it a day and call this crummy computer from the series we simply hack too many panels across the main campaign never mind if you're collecting the bloody Riddler trophies at the two-thirds Mark bats owns a new gadget called a disrupter and that should have been the focus instead this baby lets us deactivate guns in combat and that is slicker introduces a level of resource management to engaging enemies and doesn't soar the game to an agonizing crawl while our superhero is hunched over a hologram have I made my point yet good let's get back to the story it was all a lie there's nothing wrong with you nice of you to say but you of all people should know there's plenty wrong with me take my blood for example I wish somebody would this stuff is killing me the Joker makes his husky return with Mind Games his dead body lies rotting on a throne and it's the first time we see fear come from this version of Batman he wasn't even this rattled when he thought Jim Gordon had died in the Asylum but he's so desperate to get to his Nemesis that he barks at Harley and knocks her to the ground without a second thought he doesn't need to worry though Joker's Not Dead the corpse is a ruse leaving Batman disarmed and distracted long enough for the Joker to knock him out and tie him to a chair there's a great throwaway line where he lays out his Plot In Plain Sight cackling that we fell for the old fake Joker gag nothing like a bit of fun foreshadowing The Joker is sick and he needs Batman's help to find a cure to make sure we cooperate he even injects some of his poisonous blood into us for now it seems our goals are aligned Joker doesn't know what the hell Protocol 10 is but he's not interested in Hugo Strange and thinks we shouldn't be either our focus should be on Titan and the samples of poisoned blood he sent out to emerge agency rooms all over the city the race is on to find a cure once again we have a sincere Batman story that's focused on saving people whether they're a criminal or not when Arkham City when we started Arkham City our goal was to create the most richly designed and gameplay um intense open world game ever made but we looked at that and we thought well how do we create that what sort of structure do we need to create that and internally we kind of had a bit of a joke with it internally we called it the world's smallest open world came and really the idea behind that was everyone was going bigger people wanted to create a more and more expansive world and we figured that by going smaller we could create something more unique by kind of embracing that concession it enabled us to deliver something more special as developers around the world started to find ways to make their games bigger opting for scale over substance rocksteady's philosophy was a little bit different they didn't want to go open world for open world's sake they just wanted to give us Arkham Asylum 2.0 this time with flying their focus was substance over scale the game's creative director Sefton Hill said saw himself in a 2011 Guardian interview quote when we started the game we didn't sit down and say let's make an open world game we looked at what would be a fun game to make and a fun game to play that's what drove the open world decision so many open worlds especially nowadays feel like they were built first and stuffed with superficial content later let's give Sonic some grassy planes and then stick random floating platforms all over the shop we don't need to think critically about this design because we'll just tell people that it's a 60 beta test which is a perfectly reasonable thing to say let's make a city with districts so generic that they could be some up with one or two words this is the desert bit this is the skyscraper bit don't worry if people complain will just accuse them of being haters that's a Surefire way to win people over Arkham City feels shockingly small when returning to it and that's not a bad thing sure its footprint is five times the size of Arkham Asylum sure Rock Steady were nervous about how big the game was going to be but in the early stages of development I think size is a very good thing to worry about Rocksteady were worried that Arkham City would feel vast and empty so they pulled out every stop to make the City prison feel like a character in its own right the next hour of gameplay catapults Batman across the map Joker sends him to the old gcpd building to track down Mr Freeze believing he'll be the key to a Titan cure but freeze isn't at the gcpd someone else has got to him first he's in the museum penguins got him he made me tell him so while bats heads over to the Gotham Museum to confront the penguin let's look at the open world a little more closely standing on any Rooftop at any point facing almost any direction you'll be able to point out landmarks that catch your eye just here you can see the gcpd Ivy's Hideout the church and Joker's lair all in one shot Arkham City is not just Gotham light the blood that pumps through its heart comes from its villains and we are constantly reminded of how colorful and Darkly Whimsical Batman's world can be while flying through it for example it's snowing not because it's winter but because of frieza's experiments poison ivy has taken over a whole corner of the map with twisting Vines shooting out of the ground and growing around the hotel she's now made her home two-faces courthouse is split in two it's not just another building and a sea of buildings it's a monument to his personality one half is dilapidated and one half is clean and shiny and that's reflected in the interior Decor too you can't say he doesn't commit and all of this is contrasted by stranger's clear controlling presence that punctuates the dark Knight's crime fighting the walls are high and oppressive concealing strangers tiger guards that are ready to shoot Batman down without a second thought if he tries to escape back to Gotham posters and billboards of strange ingraining his iconic glasses watches from the sides of buildings or watchtowers his orders his instructions his countdown to Protocol 10 feels never ending his helicopters Circle the city just watching not intervening with the mass bouts of violence that we see Batman won't battle a single tiger guard until the game's final couple of hours and even though it would give us another faction to face off against this Choice feels purposeful Strange's militia isn't here to protect anyone or to get involved they're just here to watch and wait for protocol 10. let me explain to you what's going on the Joker is winning you and your boss are losing now we want the Joker to keep winning so you're gonna tell us everything we need to know about two faces plans you probably don't want to I get that so we're gonna have to convince you you City isn't a static open world it evolves and grows as the main campaign evolves and grows we hear the inmates talk to each other discussing current events that link into our objectives right now Batman and the Joker are looking for freeze so we pick up broadcasts of the Clown's henchmen interrogating other prisoners for his location thugs will Muse over whether or not Joker is sick will question each other's Allegiance as the power Dynamic of the city shifts and as we near the Fateful hour when strange executes Protocol 10 we will pick up that as tiger guards are watching Batman reporting back on his every move as they gear up for the end game Catwoman's home and two-faces Courthouse are both eventually destroyed and we can see the smoke billowing from both for the rest of the game marking how dangerous things are getting once freeze Journeys into the industrial district to look for his wife you can trace a path of ice from the gcpd and in just a couple of hours penguin will blow the bridge connecting his territory to Jokers any threat of invasion lost to the cold Icy waves Arkham City is built on the bones of old Gotham so City gets to continue his focus on the old versus new just like Arkham Asylum did only with a different angle in the first game every inch of the level design reinforced the ancientness of the Asylum and how ill-equipped it was to treat its patients Arkham City gives us an old derelict part of Gotham that crumbles while Hugo Strange and the gang leaders build on top of it not fixing the rot just trying to wipe it away with thick concrete walls and high-tech military technology the bridges are Falling Away due to the earthquakes that have spawned from the mechanical mystery of Wonder City a dungeon the Batman will venture into in our next chapter it's a glorified shanty town with a mini Shanty Town carved into the Southwest the subway tunnels that rumble under the concrete aren't fit for purpose with remains of trains Gathering dust and the Gloom of the tunnels offering up the perfect hunting spots for the bat and his enemies City presents itself as an organic Hub world with a handful of dungeons to beat the steel mill the gcpd the sewers in Wonder City all have their own identity mainly because of the way that colors are used the tiles of the gcpd have an icy blue and white because its frieza's lab the steel mills full of flashing lights and the definitive greens and purples that bring Joker's amusement park to life Wonder city has the ill line colored lighting of the Lazarus Pit coursing through it the one dungeon that doesn't have a focused color scheme is the Gotham Museum penguin's headquarters so Batman you here for the cops The Iceman oh me I was only here for freeze in the hostages but now I'm taking you down to oh aren't you scary Oswald cobblepot was sold to the Iceberg Lounge and the museum at before Arkham City was built around it he's the victim of a cruel joke played by Hugo Strange and Quincy sharp the Arkham versus insistence on diagnosing its villains means we get a penguin who's a kleptomaniac and a hoarder which meant that if he wanted to keep his property he'd have to voluntarily move into Arkham City it was Strange's clever way of trapping penguin in the prison despite the fact penguin wasn't in Blackgate or Arkham the color scheme of the museum doesn't have a distinct voice because the penguin has transformed it into a treasure Trove representing all of Gotham's criminal Elite his thirst for stuff has led him to collect not just memorabilia from various super villains but people as well corpses of henchmen sit in carefully placed exhibitions A peculiar assassin's sits meditating behind bulletproof glass penguin has set up exhibits for Batman Joker zaz Harley Quinn planning to turn the museum into a human Zoo it's sick and fantastic and shows off how creative Rock City can still be with this interpretation of the bats villains Jim Gordon had sent some undercover cops to work for penguin feeding intelligence out of the city and into the commissioner's radio but penguin mysteriously seems to be working with Hugo Strange the professor has been selling weapons to Penguins men Fanning the Flames of a gang war and has also leaked the names of those undercover cops penguin is executing them and bats needs to hold off on finding freeze until he saved Gordon's men so let's leave him to it and jump back out into the open world only two parts of the Batman were missing from Arkham Asylum driving the Batmobile which Arkham Knight would later cover and gliding through the night Arkham City's Focus the uneven Gothic landscape of Arkham City's architecture means getting around comes with its own set of trials and tribulations making traversal more interesting than it might first appear but there are a few problems the rocks that he had to overcome to make this work bats is a big hunkering shape of a man so how do you translate that to satisfying Speedy movement he's not Spider-Man so he's not going to use two grapples to sling himself between buildings he's not Superman so can't just fly up at a moment's notice with full control over how he moves through the air rocksteady's answer is momentum the grapple boost will Propel him into the air for an immediate speed boost so you get the rush of Disappearing into the night and staying Airborne I just wish that we wouldn't change direction when we reached the top of a building you might be hoping to go straight using a building to fly north but instead Batman will Veer off to the left or right depending on the angle of the building forcing a course correction as soon as the cape unfurls in the air while we're gliding that speed vanishes replaced instead with a steady looming shadow in the name of Simplicity all the player needs to do is hold down X and steer so once we're soaring through the night sky how do you keep it interesting rocksteady's answer again is momentum we unlock a soaring dive rocketing Batman down to earth to give him spurts of speed season extend his time in the air because of the architecture of City's landscape Bridges chimneys and gargoyles are our hazards meaning the path forward is rarely as simple as it first seems this means Choice plays a part in how we get around where's the best vantage point where should we launch our grapple when should we dive when should we pull up how do we get around that building that's blocking our path is it better to go over it or fly around it Arkham City is designed to be conquered not to be breezed through okay but while you're flying around what exactly are you looking for what does Arkham City give us to do when we're not solving its mystery we've already covered the Riddler trophies but it's worth noting that a good chunk of enigma's challenges focus on gliding needing us to Glide down and hop from platform to platform giving an extra level of difficulty for those of us who want it the AR missions are here too rewarding us with upgrades and hot damn I thought I was pretty good at gliding but I think I heard this reality training a hundred bloody times before I cracked the case the terrified voices of political prisoners imprisoned here by strange for speaking out against his plans give us innocence for Batman to save as he explores Gotham's underworld on their own these are fine but when compared to the depth elsewhere in the game it's easy to see them as pretty one note the scenario is always the same some Thug has a guy pinned up against a wall and we need to knock him out it's simple it's quick it's queen and the whole thing feels a little bit clinical because a percentage meter ticks up assigned to the side quest assault in progress I don't need a percentage counter to tell me saving people is the Batman is a good thing speaking of saving people Batman's rescued the last of the cops and finally found Victor freeze locked in one of the Penguins exhibits so let's see what the iceman has to say for himself I want cobblepot suit my weapons I'll end him for what he's done to me penguin's mine you need to stay focused on that cure or innocent people will die yeah who don't understand I cannot complete my work without it I must have it everything depends on it everything penguin has locked himself in the Iceberg Lounge using frieza's gun to become temporarily Invincible freeze reluctantly gives us a way to disable the freeze ray so we can finish penguin off the encounter with penguin isn't exactly a boss fight it's a breezy puzzle to solve needing to get close to him for a quick take time but the whole build up to him is so effective and the Penguin has never been much of a physical threat so the final fight is washed away in a sea of memories where we leap across robotic dinosaurs punch a shark in the face work across a crumbling icy lake fight penguin's henchmen in a gladiator Arena and what comes after penguin is defeated is the highlight of the whole dungeon there's anger here that we didn't see in Asylum from the second Batman thought Joker had died until his final confrontation at the end of the game the stress of the night plagues how the bat treats those around him Copper Pot begs Batman not to hurt him and our hero rumbles I can't guarantee that Kevin Conroy has barely three lines in that earlier scene where Batman confronts the penguin but every word bristles Rock City's Batman has never been one to speak his feelings so the player needs to work if they want to find The Man Behind the Mask but the voice acting does a lot of the heavy lifting rest in peace your talented Legend penguin still has one trick left up his sleeve he stored a slumbering monster under the museum and just as it looks like we've won the day a harrowing Roar echoes in the Batman's ear Solomon Grundy born on a Monday is a really solid boss fight in a game that only gives us four traditional boss encounters it's clear that rock city took the feedback from the first game and ran with it while some bosses will summon regular enemies for bats to pow and whack this is treated as a specific attack rather than a crutch for the whole battle to lean on with three phases Grundy's focuses on gadgets specifically the explosive gel he introduces the concept of Resurrection to us nice and early before all the weird Lazarus Pit stuff perks up we're using the electricity of this machine against him trashing the room in the process and hey wait a minute Batman doesn't kill eh he's a zombie I'll allow it Batman Returns freeze to his spacesuit and we put Cobble one of his exhibits I love the smell of poetic justice in the morning freeze tells us that he can't cure us of the Titan poisoning the antidote breaks down too quickly and unless we add some magical chemical that could help with that all hope is lost luckily Batman has an idea but holy tension killer Batman there's one part of the open world we still got to discuss the Case Files their side quests and all but name and while we scanned over a couple of them already there's a whole comics worth left to look at so as eager as Batman is to find a cure is going to need to hunker down in the museum for a while Arkham City's map isn't Awash with question marks instead scenarios will pop up naturally as the night goes on that doesn't mean icons and waypoints don't beckon us the Riddler's challenge is kicked off with a bat signal lighting up the night sky for example but do you know what's worse than a million waypoints flying around for 15 minutes waiting for a bloody phone to ring while it is clear that Rocksteady still understands that the greatest reward they can give us is some face time with Batman's fantastic villains not all of the case files are made equal so to make sure that good stuff gets the praise and the crap stuff gets the ire we're going to break down each one individually I'm in no mood for a fight what are you doing here Dr Young's Titan formula the play also managed to send some off Arkham Island before you stopped him how much more did Joker manage to get off the island too much that is why I am here Bane has survived the first game washing ashore in Arkham City and determined to destroy the gallons of Titan that followed thematically I love all of this by the time the credits roll bats has had to Ally himself with Four villains Joker Talia al Ghul Mr Freeze and Bane showing how desperate Arkham City has made him we need to help Bane destroy the Titan containers across the city and while the physical Mission isn't hugely interesting the task itself isn't to distract him because we'll run into the last of the Titan just by following the main campaign the true reward is in what follows we get to battle alongside Bane avoiding his wide sweeps as he crushes the goons sent to stop us what's going on what a question shall I tell him oh he looks so confused maybe I should well it's simple really I planted a teeny tiny little idea in your head the unfortunately named Jarvis touch aka the Mad Hatter gives us a one-off Trippy fight while under the control of his brainwashing technology he doesn't just trick Batman he tricks the player too by making us think we're just picking up a care package from Alfred there's something to be said for a short and sweet encounter some players might miss this but Rocksteady still give us a unique look for Batman with the rabbit helmet and jaw-dropping scene dressing that has us fighting on a clock face the hatter is one of Batman's sickest villains with a history of kidnapping young girls and calling them Alice so it's great to see him pop up and wave his hands in Arkham City especially because it's his technology that Hugo Strange has used to brainwash the tiger guards and mayor sharp it's just juicy flavor attacks with a fist to the face I love it thank you Batman I am sorry I doubted you just fix her and quit this life you're better than this freeze agrees to eventually make a Titan cure so long as Batman promises to track down his wife Nora she's lost somewhere in Joker's district and we need to do some solid detective work by listening in on the criminals to get a hint at her location reuniting the Iceman with his wife is a reminder that not every criminal in Arkham City is a monster some of them are trapped in a seemingly impossible situation vocal empathy has never been this version of Batman's greatest strength but that makes the moments when it does breathe out from behind his mask all the more powerful I start his throat and gave him the gift of salvation it happened so fast but I felt every joyous sensation the Bloods prayed over my face and I saw what little life was left in his eyes Victor zaz is on the loose once again engaged in a city-wide slaying to lure in the Batman he's taken hostages and will ring random pay phones across Arkham hoping Batman will take the bait these are fantastic they test our travel skills with real Stakes because if we can't make it to our goal in time zazz will murder an innocent person adding another tally to his skin with each one solved a reward is an insight to zaz describing the moment when he found his calling in life wiping the disease from Gotham streets we even get to play detective by tracing his phone signal back to his Hideout for a tense stealth Ambush Deadshot struck again just killed someone else listen I know you don't want to hear this but the people in there are all bad guys right some of the prisoners in here are not your typical bad guys Barbara there are a number of political prisoners people who crossed strange others who were tied into the mayor somehow there's a pattern here I just need to figure out what it is mysteriously it seems like a contract killer is murdering political prisoners around the city we find his victims scanned for the trajectory of a bullet and follow the breadcrumbs until we find our assassin Deadshot the slow conspiracy that unfolds tells us the Deadshot is working for Hugo Strange murdering people who knew too much about Arkham City and protocol 10. just like zaz our reward is a final confrontation Batman and Deadshot are armed to the one hit kill so the trick is getting close to him undetected the mystery is solid and adding bullet trajectories to detective mode gives it a new angle but finding the corpses is just a little too hard with no real means of deducing where they are unless we trip over them are they triggered randomly or by progressing through the story nobody seems to know and when you're fumbling around the city desperately looking for victim number two you start to wish the cryptographic sequencer would do its bloody job and just give us a frequency to track most of the Case Files range from great to middling but the last two left in our list their crap look I love this game despite his flaws but hush and azrael's quests are my biggest gripe with the game why are you watching me we have been given many names but you will come to know me as Azria loyal servant to the Order of Saint Dumas just what I need another secret society it's pretty apt that asriel represents one of Arkham City's law points because he sucks in the comics too sorry for any asriel Fanboys that might be watching I only know him from the Nightfall storyline but I mean look at this costume when he eventually takes up the mantle he doesn't look like a vigilante he looks like a Transformer and I don't want Optimus Prime's in cell cousin in a Batman story Arkham City's Azrael is no better he will just appear standing on rooftops watching us like a creep and if we're lucky enough to spot him he'll spout some mumbo jumble before Vanishing leaving behind the Obscure symbol of the Order of Saint Dumas at best this is dull but the ending is even worse because all it gives us is a cryptic hint for Arkham Knight and then bye-bye asriel off you go into the night with your dissatisfying conclusion prick I couldn't have put it better myself I take it you're here to stop me what do you think I think you're too late you're a killer a psychopath I will stop you really but you look just like Bruce Wayne Thomas Elliott known commonly as the villain hush unfortunately has a side quest that is cloaked in the worst bits of every other case File it's obtuse for a start we need to find some victims lying in Alleyways across Arkham who have had their faces cut off it's an effective setup but just like Deadshot and asriel there's no real deduction going on to find each victim you just need to hope you'll stumble across each one finding them leads to a detective Vision sequence where we stare at the victim and let Oracle explain what's going on and after trudging through all of this the case File has no resolution we find hush's headquarters which to give credit where it's due carries all of the detailed environmental storytelling I love in these games and learned that Elliot has been surgically recreating the face of Bruce Wayne his planning to impersonate Bruce to destroy his reputation and Batman just lets him get away scurrying off to wait for us in the sequel our Shucks I'll go and get him tomorrow bats mumbles he'll go on to wait nine months before seeing Elliot again in Arkham Knight this has been a long section I know there's a lot to discuss when it comes to City's World design I'm also well aware that with a bunch of these side quests we are starting to bleed into talking about detective Visions so for the sake of my sanity and Batman's let's pick back up with him and see how the game simulates being the great Detective is dead the new and the Clown are doomed not exactly I need someone to tell me where the body is with the Titan cure so close and Batman running out of time he immediately thinks of racial ghoul if he could find Rachel's body they might be able to use his blood to make an antidote because it's got the Lazarus Pit's dionysium swirling around in there thankfully the assassinate penguin had locked up takes this chance to break out for exhibit and flee from the museum giving us a trail that might lead us to the leader of the League of Assassins detective mode engaged we follow a blood trail across Arkham City leading deep into the subway system deep into the sewers and even deeper still cities approach to detective mode is dramatically different to how it approaches improvements in other areas where given more gadgets with more use more Collectibles with more variety in how to collect them but with Detective mode less is more seems to be the strategy rocksteadys Dax gin told CVG that detective mode reached an almost exploitative status in Arkham Asylum Gamers constantly used it in order to ensure no enemies were around Arkham City will use it as a tool for progression just like the bat claw or the bat around detective Mode's use will be required for specific situations but shouldn't be as readily available as it was in Asylum Asylum gave us a detective mode very similar to what Batman is doing right now we'd pick up a trail like a blood sample or fingerprints and Follow The Yellow Brick Road this happened far too much and by the eighth time the experience of being a detective felt samey and diluted Rocksteady doesn't necessarily improve detective mode in city but it does try to give it flavor Riddler henchmen flash up a distinct color if we use it helping us assess each combat situation before swooping down we don't just follow Trails now we follow bullet trajectories or radio frequencies or temperature gauges most of these are available to us without Transforming Our view into a screen of blue and orange so we can bask in City's colors in its comic bookisms so much more that applies to stealth as well like dark skin said detective mode isn't as readily available as it was in Asylum in the final third of the game enemies will wander around Arenas with disruptors that disable it and momentarily weakens Batman taking away his most useful Gadget the ability to see through walls and without it we can feel a little blind it completely changes the playing field of Predator mode because we now have an obvious enemy to prioritize but we don't know if some of his friends are creeping nearby in direct contrast dropping a smoke Pelt into combat and then flashing to detective mode is the ultimate power fantasy just when I thought Rocksteady had peaked they tossed this simple little gem in to simulate that awesome moment of Batman stories where he drops down into darkness surrounded by guns who can't see him and Cleaves them out before the dust settles the basic principles of using detective Vision to progress remain but at least now there's some variety on offer we follow a breadcrumb trail at most three times in the main story a testament to rocksteady's emphasis on freedom and how we navigate the world Batman's not the only one following the blood of this assassin Tim Drake is as well he's the third Robin or Red Robin I guess if we have to adhere to new Comics continuity whatever he's been shadowing Bruce since the beginning of the game and is here to offer his help but classic Batman we refuse the detective knows how dangerous Arkham City is now he's seen it first hand he feels it pumping through his veins I didn't need your help really it's not what it looked like from where I was standing I had it under control why did Alfred send you he was worried about you anyone who read the Arkham City Comics will know that before today bats was supportive of Robin's evolvement he knewed him he'd been breaking into Arkham City during his construction to keep tabs on the gang war his only instruction was to be careful they didn't want strange to know Robin was in his prison but here he brushes Robin off with a mission that takes him out of Arkham City and back into Gotham ordered to investigate the Joker's disease blood that's now on its way to Gotham's hospitals bats doesn't want to show weakness to his Protege but the heightened aggression in this scene shows that he's scared the paranoia is beginning to creep in he's worried that he might die here and more importantly he's worried Tim will get hurt in the crossfire like Barbara Gordon or Jason Todd did over the next hour we will see why this was a mistake at his weakest bats won't rely on allies like Catwoman or Robin instead he thinks he's forced to trust criminals because frankly he cares less if they get hurt the Assassin's Trail eventually brings us to the gates of Wonder City a centuries-old Gotham Fair lost to time it's a City Beneath a city with a pleasant smog recording of an old showman describing a world Beyond Gotham's corruption a world that never was swad is Mankind's chance for survival a glimpse of the future based on an amazing Discovery it's a full pivot into the weird and Fantastical elements of the Batman Universe sure we battled a zombie in Solomon Grundy earlier but this is a whole new level prior to this the weirdest parts of the level design were the bulbous televisions in Gotham Museum the Wonder City goes a step further the sickly luminescent green of dionysium passes through glass pipes the space reminding us just how ill Batman is becoming mechanical Guardians sit in disrepair watching forlornely as we search for an entrance to Rich Al ghoul's Lair years ago this was the source of a great fire that turned Gotham to Ash without the Batman with something like that happen again down here there's a section where we watch old CCTV footage to find the secret entrance to the league of Assassin's Hideout Secrets within Secrets within secrets and this actively requires the player to think it's hardly mind-blowing stuff but more moments like this would give detectivision further gravitas can you imagine a world where it would let us recreate crime scenes and use our knowledge of the past to progress what a crazy idea it'll never be done definitely not by another development team in 2013. as Batman descends deeper into this mechanical Wonderland he feels the Joker's blood burn into his heart Oracle panics telling us that he doesn't have much time so whatever he was going to do down here he better do it fast City's attention to detail even hovers up to Batman's health bar we watch helplessly as it drops when he collapses the game hammers home its point the Batman is dying you didn't need to get yourself arrested to see me Bruce after that night we spent in Metropolis you could have just called I'm not here for you where's rash if he's dead again I need you to wake him up this is a Bruce Wayne who has history with Talia and race earlier in the story when Oracle realizes that Batman is following a trail that will lead him to Talia al Ghul she asks sincerely and exasperatedly what is it about that woman that makes her instantly the most important person in the world and to that I say [ __ ] preach Barbara she's so boring This Is My Line in the Sand and I know some of you might not be able to follow me Beyond it so if you've got some Talia al Ghul stories you think might change my mind drop them below but I am yet to come across a single tale that's remotely interesting and yet for some reason her and the League of Assassins keep being shoved into big Batman Tales like Nolan's Batman the Arkham games Gotham Knights she's the worst part of The Dark Knight Rises not just because of this ridiculous death scene but also because she undermines Bane's gravitas entirely she's dull in the Green Arrow TV show even the anime animated series couldn't save her and to date the only thing she's done that's worthy of note is give birth to the latest Robin Damian Wayne that's not necessarily her fault it's the fault of the writers to keep drudging her up for the same old plotlines oh Batman I'm so sexy let's be together and Lead this Army of killers that's totally your bag right no oh okay let's get our shag on so I can leave this Arc and come back in a couple of years for a do-over her most famous Story the one that you are likely to know is the son of the demon a tale that sees the Dark Knight rash and Talia working together to bring an international terrorist to Justice it's an uneasy Alliance but race agrees to let Batman train his people in non-lethal combat and in the end they save the world Talia Falls pregnant then lies to Bruce about losing the baby and eventually gives it away to an orphanage because reasons cutter loose Batman She's Not Just toxic she's basic I know we're getting away from the game here but my biggest beef with her honestly is I've never understood what exactly makes her soul captivating to Bruce when Selena Kyle is right there look at her she is the one for you Bruce why didn't the two of you just get married like you were supposed to her introduction in Arkham City gives us Italia that tries to seduce Bruce almost immediately only to pull away when she sees how sick he is the way the game handles her does nothing to address any of my bias we're expected to immediately understand why she's important to Batman but unless you know who this character is she can just as easily be summed up in two words an X and I don't think city does enough to make us care about her are you prepared to take the demon trials you must show you are willing to take a life to save the world I'm ready I've got more to say about Talia but narratively she served her purpose for now bats lies to her stating that he's finally decided to take his place by her side to lead the league of Assassins but if he's going to do that she needs to let him drink the dionysium and that means it's time for the demon trials when the blood of the demon takes hold you will be on your own like always then may the spirits be kind sipping the blood of the demon Batman's strength returns temporarily healed in body but not in mind Rachel Ghul's blood has a side effect transporting Batman's Consciousness to a fantasy world where his fears become reality an apocalyptic Wasteland Fades into view Gotham's future if he fails tonight and under the guidance of the demon's voice the bat faces the demon trials the trials themselves are pretty simple you fly to a platform fight a couple of Assassins rinse and repeat but honestly to criticize the mechanics of this section is to miss the point racism testing Batman's ability to Glide or punch he's testing his fortitude his spirit so while he does that let's return to the bread and butter of the Arkham series let's put City's combat system to the test it's only been 18 months since bats was locked in Arkham but you'd be forgiven for thinking there is a 10-year gap between that Batman and this Batman he's more proficient more capable than he was in the asylum's walls and with every crunch of his knuckles or kick of his boot we are reminded of his desperation tonight and his discipline the ability to quickfire gadgets is a major contribution to this but it's only half of the story the other half is the Newfound complexity the free flow system was what made Arkham asylum's Arena fights offering up a Batman who could crack between foes like an unfurled Whip and that system slips into Arkham City with ease Batman's control is still his superpower carefully timed attacks give them more power more ferocity and helps to slowly build that all-important momentum but the way enemies are used here makes each battle multi-layered by the final error you have got to be hyper aware of the battlefield to make it through unscathed after all of my praise of the first game's combat even I've got to admit comparing Arkham Asylum to Arkham City is like comparing a Forza course to a Mario Kart one the combat race track that flows through this battle system is completely different from the first games right now I know that sentence doesn't make sense but it will I promise in Arkham Asylum there are three enemies who could interrupt free flow when you're in the zone the knife-wielding enemies needed to be stunned the stumboton enemies needed you to Vault over them so their back was turned Titans blundered around the battlefield constantly getting in the way he couldn't just crash into any of these guys and expect you to contribute to your combo they weren't just fools to defeat they were potential obstacles to attaining free flow and everybody wanted to attain free flow because it felt cool witness the future Arkham City gives us seven obstacles knifers stumbotones and Titans are all still here but they've now been joined by Shield enemies assassins body armor goons and the abramovichi twins all of which could drop into a combat Arena at a moment's notice whether we're fighting in Joker's steel mill or Penguins Museum you can't just crash into any of these guys special strategies are needed the big Shield boys need to be vaulted or we can quick fire the bat claw to rip their Shield away assassins can Dodge out of the way during free flow body armor goons need to be stunned and taken on with a flurry of attacks that if uninterrupted rapidly pop up our combo meter and the hammer twins are huge brutes so need to be stunned if free-flow and Arkham Asylum had a couple of hazards that slowed you down like dirt traps tricky Corners a combat arena in Arkham City has so much more going on than dodging and countering and stunning and vaulting recognizing which henchmen need which strategy can sometimes feel like dodging a green shell while a bullet bills on your sale when the dust settles and we're straightening our Cape it's tough not to feel like Batman more than ever before memes be damned welcome detective it is time for your final challenge replace me is that of the demon it is your destiny completing the trials Rachel ghoul steps Out of the Shadows he's alive presumably moved from Arkham's morgue and resurrected with the Lazarus Pit he's sick a husk of a man like Solomon Grundy the skin peeling away like Joker on the verge of death like Batman but it's not Titan coursing through his veins it's decades centuries even of dionysium the Lazarus Pit is beginning to take its toll and ratio is prepared to die so long as Batman agrees to kill him and take control of the League of Assassins clearly he didn't get the memo that Batman doesn't kill we reveal that it's all been a con we'll never kill not even for the woman we love or a demented new father figure Talia is distraught but she's not as pissed off as reishes he throws his body into the Lazarus Pit Reviving his old muscle and sinew and ready for a fight to the death it's boss fight time if Solomon Grundy was a boss that just concentrated on agility and gadgets Rich al Ghul continues this concentration while adding in direct combat the demon and blood still beats in the bat's big heart so we flash sideways into that apocalyptic dream world from before ninjas ooze out of the sand distracting us while race trice's lock with an ambush each phase resets to this huge golden sand god that whips up a howling wind and tosses swords at us and shuriken's Addis and pressure at us and tension at us and the only way we can hurt him is with an electric shock this is a race ripped straight from the pages of son of the demon while his plans to purge Gotham of crime whenever my sort of Justice we get a sense that there is at least a level of honorability to them in the past today his mind has been warped through oversaturation of dionysium as we defeat him taking his blood he tries to convince The Dark Knight once and for all to slay him where he stands threatening to murder his own daughter if we refuse despite his bloodthirsty nature despite the cruelty he's planning he's just another in a long line of mentally ill criminals that need help too bad the Batman's prepared for every eventuality while one quick reverse bats rang later and we're out of there saying goodbye to Rish and a very angry ex-girlfriend and you you lied to me I thought you loved me Bruce I thought you were ready to join our Crusade don't you two deserve each other so as bats leaves behind the League of Assassins and returns to the cold of Arkham City let's jump back to talking about combat quick firing gadgets and increasing the free flow hazards isn't the only way complexity is added everything has been tweaked in some way take the Titans for example they were a royal pain in the ass and Arkham Asylum because you couldn't be proactive with them you needed to wait until they charged in City three quick stuns will put them under our control and then as we ride them we can alternate between different attacks like a charge and a Shockwave the counter system has been given a flurry of new animations including a double takedown but the most substantial change can be seen during the demon trials all enemies with knives and swords especially the Assassins now come with a brand new counter that requires us to time our counters if we want to fight back one [ __ ] up here means being sliced up infusing the counter system with the deliberateness that makes Batman Batman gliding now plays into our combat strategy if a group of thugs are standing out in the street minding their own business wondering where they're going to get their next meal bats can thump down from the sky and detonate a Shockwave for an area of effect attack in your typical combat Arena this doesn't play much of a role but it adds a bit of spice to exploring Arkham City the same goes for the glide kick and the Glide Boost attack it's a shame that again the only active crimes happening in Arkham City is one guy choking another guy there's never a moment in the main campaign where a Shockwave or Glide Boost is remotely useful because none of the big battles happen in the open and speaking of being in the open this is a teeny little nitpick but some of City's indoor Arenas are too tight does this up the challenge yes does it add to your frustration when you get hit absolutely is it one of the things people think of when the assess Arkham city's place in the series no it is super rare barely an inconvenience in the grand scheme of the game but considering how carefully sized Asylum spaces were it does bear comment what people do think of is Arkham City's astonishing number of factions penguin Two-Face Joker and strange all have their own henchmen with their own unique look and their own dialogue we hear them complaining about the other factions wondering what to do when their boss gets locked inside a museum exhibit Rocksteady sure got their money's worth from the like two voice actors that give life to the entire population of the prison just like how the game highlights the passage of time it's in the details that we fall in love with the Arkham verse and while I know we're concentrating on the bam pow crack stuff here feel like I'll be doing the game a disservice if I didn't flag these wee aesthetic touches anyway bats is preparing to give the dionysian blood to freeze hoping he can finally make a cure and put an end to oh wait look who it is Quincy sharp my old pal I'll tell you everything strange came to me back at the Asylum he told me he had friends powerful friends the sort of people who could make things happen all I had to do was turn a blind eye to his experiments and work on my campaign Hugo Strange proves his untrustworthiness by sending his tiger guards to arrest mayor Sharp the two colluded to bring Arkham City to life strange bride sharp with mayoral Victory and when that didn't seem like enough he Brainwashed the blubbering bastard into thinking he was possessed by the spirit of Amadeus Arkham for this Batman the gloves are finally off before he refused to comment on Sharp's corruption and how it warped Arkham Asylum making it even worse with each passing year but now the former Warden is at our Mercy Hugo Strange may have brainwashed sharp he may have given him a split personality but Quincy was always a tyrant we can't blame strange for Sharp's murder of patience but the responsibility for the electroshock therapy the beatings the torture all of that lies squarely on the new mayor's shoulders so dangling him off the edge of a roof is the least that scumbag deserves sharp screams the strange isn't working alone someone in the shadows has funded Arkham City helped him with his preparations who that someone is is a mystery for now but the plot thickens things have just gotten a little more complicated and if Batman's going to make it through the night he'll need to gear up so let's talk about upgrades Rocksteady smartly gives us a bunch of Arkham asylums upgrades free of charge nobody wanted to spend a whole game building a better Batman who's barely better than what we've played before try saying that five times fast all of those abilities sit snugly in the upgrade menu making it look like it's fit to burst you might think that this is part of an effort to conceal that there aren't that many upgrades but the complete opposite is true including eight health boosts now split into standard defense and Ballistic defense there are 27 updates to unlock for Batman it's treated like the world's cleanest skill tree split into branches the batsuit stealth gadgets and combat primarily because of how many upgrades there are and the consistent flow of XP the bats gets for saving people finding Collectibles or just crunching a henchman into the pavement agency is given to the player to curate what type of Dark Knight they want to play as is your priority being a predator in the shadows using gadgets to change the full of right or do you want to beat the stuffing out of bad guys the disarm and Destroy ability lets us wreck enemy weapons effectively demoting some Grunts from a free-flow obstacle to a free-flow speed boost the bat swarm summons a flock of bats to stun a group meaning you can reset the Rhythm and tension of a fight while also keeping free flows momentum the multi-ground takedown tosses out some batarangs to coat the arena incapacitating baddies to give us a chance to ground pound the trickier enemies before they become a real nuisance all of these are useful and all of them rely on building up free flow as quickly as possible to make a real Dent sounds pretty cool right it rewards careful play spatial awareness and targeting you're probably having a lot of fun well let me introduce you to free flow Focus an upgrade that undermines all of that if a player gets a combo of 12 or above they'll automatically enter free flow Focus mode this increases movement speed and reaction times but if you use any of the cool special combo moves or quickfire gadgets you've spent 10 hours of game time unlocking then free flow Focus resets in a game full of careful calibrations and meticulous player conditioning free flow Focus feels like it was dropped into the game as an afterthought I understand the risk reward system in place here if you want the additional speed you've got to sacrifice the combo moves and the gadgets but who wants to lose options specifically set up to tackle the new complex enemies just for the sake of turning into a human Pinball it's simply less interesting play if you're thinking of replaying City anytime soon my sincere recommendation is you ignore this upgrade because you cannot turn it off it's treated as some sort of ultimate form by the game Batman goes Super Saiyan if that is the case I think a quick fix would be to up the combo threshold to 20 and let free flow Focus continue no matter what the player does unless they took a hit I just had a chat with our old friend Quincy Sharp he confirmed that strange is working with someone else I'm going to find out who what are you talking if you need to get that blood to freeze now I will I just need to no you don't Oracle practically has to beg Batman to start thinking about himself he's running out of time and he can't shut down Arkham City if he's dead in a ditch despite his reservations the bat decides to return to Mr Freeze in the gcpd an antidote is just around the corner but if you've been paying attention you'll know by now that things are never that simple I sit and I watch and I count the men from the dark six in total anxious but their heart rates are steady they think they're safe I wait for them to split up drop down windpipe crushed he'll survive his friends will see him no I'm here I prepare a message Retreat to the dark wait send it pacify two more I hear them scream pulse's Spike they fear me fear each other fear the dark but they stay together I isolate I fire I neutralize tomorrow they'll wonder if they were beaten by a monster I'll let them believe it I don't just call our hero the bat because it flows nicely with sentences and stops me from saying Batman like is my safe word I say it because Arkham's stealth system transformed Bruce Wayne into an agile terrifying creature of the night back in Asylum when Predator mode was so early in its conception the sense of power of the hunt was palpable the bat might be a brutal brawler during combat but he's at his strongest when he's hiding in the shadows Mr frieza's Boss fight flips the script completely in the gcp d-lab we are the prey bonding process appears to have been successful how are you feeling you'll look unwell give it to me I'm afraid I cannot do that Batman you have given me your last order using the dionysium Victor freeze finally synthesizes an antidote but refuses to give it to us unless we set out to find his wife Nora wary of how little time he has left and sick of everyone telling him how awful he looks Batman tries to take the antidote anyway freeze doesn't like that and attacks us forcing an end to our temporary truce not much can be said about the Mr Freeze boss that hasn't already been covered extensively in the decade of analysis Arkham City has been put through he's the best boss in the entire series and while Rocksteady will try to repeat his success again in Arkham Knight Nothing Compares stealth and a big helping of cunning is what's tested here freeze patrols the lab hunting for us a straight-up fight won't work and the Gargoyles have been shattered so we're down low on the ground with a Snowman in a mech suit that can wipe the floor with us if we're caught how exactly we take down freeze is up to us we can use the vents explosive gel Electrify the water dropping him using the line launcher shock him with one of the generators the disrupter a glide kick alleged take down a window takedown and even the good old-fashioned strategy of sneaking up behind him and decking him on normal difficulty you need to knock him down a total of five times to defeat him and each strategy only works once if you use the vents he'll freeze them over if you sneak behind him he'll activate a camera on his back so he can see you coming next time your creativity and your awareness of Batman's full potential is on the line that doesn't mean you can Scurry around in the dark like a rodent Batman might be prey in frieza's lab but he's still got to think like a predator if you dither And Delay freeze will send out heat-seeking drones that do a solid amount of damage and alert our boss to where we are if we rely on detectivision too much he'll use a disrupter to jam the signal meaning we can't seem coming through walls anymore really the only criticism I have of the Mr Freeze boss is that we don't get to do it again he's one and done he's not in the challenge Maps even though it would be really neat to test myself against him after the story concludes as we defeat him the stress of the Knight and the Titan in Batman's blood takes its toll for a second time we don't collapse not like we did back in Wonder City instead bat sees the Joker laughing at him taunting him he reached Breaking Point a couple of hours back but staying in control is beginning to fracture his psyche and worst of all Harley Quinn has stolen the antidote Jokers now got the only cure frieza's rage passes and does he collects himself he sadly tells us that he's sorry he can't make another our only hope now is to go back to the steel mill and steal it back can't be some of that crazy well here's the thing answers don't give you Everlasting satisfaction sometimes you need to brace yourself for disappointment worryingly Joker seems healthy has he used the Cure already only one way to find out the steel mill is locked down by Joker's goons tougher enemies wait for us old root sin have been blocked off and worst of all stealth has been made more difficult because Joker's goons are more stressed more aggressive and more prepared the wealth of options afforded to US during frieza's boss fight might have told you as much but Predator mode has evolved substantially detective mode is occasionally disincentivized now some of the bad guys have disruptors but overall more variables have been introduced Hugo Strange's militia will wear heat vision goggles so there are a few scenarios where we can't hide on gargoyles sometimes a hostage will be taken during one of the missions and if we're caught an innocent will die game over upping the stakes and the tension some of the Arenas have mines or a sniper so we're faced with a choice use our disrupter to give us some breathing room or disable the sniper so he's no longer a threat gliding down from a gargoyle was useful in Arkham Asylum but it wasn't a tenable choice because the power of Batman's boots on a criminal's Adam's Apple made one hell of a noise immediately exposing us to his friends now the smoke pellet lets us conceal aggressive strategies like this just a shame then that it can refill so damn quickly opening itself up to the abuse that Rocksteady was so desperate to avoid the fantasy of being a predatorial Batman isn't communicated to US wordlessly cities bad guys yell and scream and gushed like Niagara Falls but even if they didn't the immersion would remain intact we don't need to Fumble with vents to escape anymore now the bat can slide into them one minute there the next gone if we're spotted an automatic prompt appears letting us drop another smoke bomb to give us some breathing room and vanish because of all of these little details we need to be more skilled if we want to take control of an arena Mr Freeze is the only part to the game where we feel like legitimate prey but there are short bursts of that feeling in regular stealth the enemies of the city are smarter but the desperation kicked up by the oppression of the prison forced them to behave more erratically they'll shoot and Destroy gargoyles if they think Batman is near so once they know we're here we can't just sit and watch from afar almost all of them are now wearing collars that alert their friends if they're knocked unconscious so we always need to keep moving generally if there's just one goon left they'll surrender wants to realize all of their friends are gone detective mode tells us that they're terrified but tiger guards were brainwashed by Hugo Strange so their heart rate will never rise above a steady anxious hum and they never surrender the empowerment fantasy in Arkham Asylum came from having full control over 90 percent of the stealth rooms Predator mode would go at our Pace our planning our Focus meant we controlled the swaying tension planning and preparation still play a major a role in Arkham City but the bat needs to be more improvisational if he's going to survive [Music] in 10 minutes we still don't know what Protocol 10 is but it's about to be activated our two frayed story threads The Cure and Strange's plan don't necessarily Collide in Arkham City but they do complement each other they both bring a sense of urgency to the story Batman has been so distracted with trying not to die that he hasn't had any time to figure out what strange is up to and is almost out of time Joker welcomes us and after a swift dance in a cool combat arena with ghost trains acting as an environmental hazard it all comes crashing down literally any last requests how about a joke how about a trade let him go take me in his place the steel mill starts to crumble pinning Batman down but just as he's about to die Talia arrives in the nick of time she Rambles on about being Batman's beloved who her dad is yada yada we've heard it all before but she offers a trade if the Joker lets the bats live she'll take him to the Lazarus Pit I feel kinda bad for Tally's voice actor stanikatic she was so excited when her inclusion was revealed at Comic-Con and she seemed to think there was going to be more to the character than there ended up being um I've seen her character throughout various Renditions of the Batman story um but you know these guys are going to do their own take of it so um it's always kind of a surprise when you're entering and playing a character like that you know these guys meaning Paul dini Paul Crocker and Sefton Hill did not do their own take on it and if that was what they planned the game doesn't give this fresh new Talia a chance to prove herself in a 15-hour game she gets 13 minutes and 3 seconds of screen green time at 13 minutes where she tries to seduce Batman lore dumps about the League of Assassins gets taken hostage by Joker and dies oh spoilers by the way she's City's greatest victim it's a miracle that a game with characters and villains spilling out of it is able to keep all of its plates spinning as well as it does but Talia gets the short end of the stick her death is going to be a major plot beat before the credits roll she's the woman that this Batman stupidly loves but we aren't encouraged to love her like he does and I think there's a pretty simple fix so let me Pitch it cut Talia all together okay fine fine I'll be serious after the freeze fight Talia could intercept Batman as he Glides over to the steel mill it would be a moment of quiet for our two lovers far away from the distractions of the league or Joker or race Talia would make it clear that she's furious with bats but doesn't want to see him die so we'll support him on his mission into the steel mill offering Recon this means we get to do a full level with her in our ear year and we provide opportunities for the game to make her useful even if it's just on a surface level she's obviously been tracking Batman since he left Wonder City so just let her make her presence known to him the surprise when she shows up to save his life is worth sacrificing to let her be more involved as she leaves with Joker bats tries to rise from the rubble but he's too late too weak the steel mill caves in on itself and everything Fades to Black so while he recovers let's talk about someone I've been ignoring for far too long Catwoman enters stage right it seems so tame nowadays but back in 2011 playing as Catwoman was controversial Warner Brothers couldn't help get their sticky infected fingers all over rocksteady's creation locking her behind brand new copies of the game if you picked up Arkham City second hand rented the game borrowed it from your pal Joy or hell didn't have access to the internet you'd need to Fork out an additional 10 bucks to see her in action this was mainly because game executives are slimy little neanderthals who barely understand how their own Market Works seeing as second-hand games actually injected 1.8 billion dollars into the games industry in 2010. the idea wasn't even particularly original it was stolen from EA's CEO John riccitello a man that looks like an uncooked chicken fillet wearing a wig they're still at it as well even in 2023 they've cut the dark arts battle arena out of Hogwarts Legacy making it exclusive to Deluxe and Collector's Editions a move has been lost in an ocean of other Barry snotter backlash the move was so ridiculous the GameStop decided to ignore it all together handing out free cat woman codes with every second-hand purchase of Arkham City far be it for me to throw praise at a corporation but thank God they did because Catwoman isn't just some DLC that's bolted onto the game in fact she was designed to be interwoven with Batman's story and rock said he had to do extra coding work to remove her from second-hand versions all of this is to say I really like the Catwoman stuff her story overlaps with Batman's for example when he's captured by Joker and Harley earlier on the tension is built by cutting away from the steel mill and flashing over to pick up with Catwoman iPhone what the hell sorry to disappoint you boys it's just little old me a painting of Cain and Abel is how we open the duality of man printed beneath it with a dark muscled shape holding his loose Dead Brother the cat doesn't care about all of that though she's here for the safe hidden behind it holding the blueprints to Hugo Strange's vault it's through Catwoman's eyes that we see the other side of Arkham City learning more about the gang war the goals of villains like poison ivy and Two-Face and the mind of the jewel thief herself without these episodes we get a Catwoman who's on screen for less than four minutes in the main story a Catwoman who gets captured by Two Face for reasons unknown and then shows up to rescue Batman later because she fancies him I guess two-faces henchmen have beaten her to the Vault so our introduction to the cat is through her combat her speed her animations her gadgets are all different to Batman's while she's skilled and often hand-to-hand combat and the basics remain the same there is a special emphasis on her legs kicks leaps and Spins are her defining feature gracefully soaring around the arena with acrobatic prowess she's faster than Batman her animations generally have more moves but take the same amount of time to execute both Heroes engage with free flow but the reason why that's beneficial is different ground takedowns take a full second longer than they take Batman so isolating enemies is less viable encouraging you to change targets on the regular the bat and the cat are symbiotic sharing experience points collected between their two campaigns Arkham City doesn't go out of its way to connect the two emotionally their care for each other is inferred through how they speak in a total of two scenes however it does connect them in the skill tree this is definitely overreaching but I like to think it reinforces the idea that their stories are working in tandem with one another that there's an unspoken connection the two of them are aware of but are yet to act upon Batman might level up but he can spend that skill point on Selena giving her a special combo like the whip trip an area of effect attack the stuns henchmen Catwoman likewise could spend her skill points on Batman but none of this helps her when two face points a gun at her head bringing her up to be rescued by The Dark Knight in the game's first mission while Batman's Quest eternally is for the good of everyone Selena's tale is much more selfish her goal is simple get some shiny Luton to get out of Arkham City but to do that she's going to need help from an old friend oh come on you're not seriously going to hold that against me forever are you you killed them all they were just flowers Ivy I'll buy you some new ones Ivy isn't happy to see Selena through the Arkham City Comics we learned that they worked together alongside Harley Quinn back before the prison was built Ivy got caught and Catwoman promised to water her plants while she was in here again we're reminded of her selfishness because classic she didn't do that Ivy's been brainwashing men that have wandered into her domain protection against Intruders and Catwoman is definitely intruding thankfully Selena's got some unique gadgets that can help her out none of them are useful for getting around they are specific to engaging enemies the bowlers are her equivalent to the batarang simple projectiles that can stung Locker henchmen primed for knocking out caltrops can be tossed at the feet of enemies knocking them to the ground they can completely change the tide of battle and stealth because they're so quiet unnoticeable have a great area of effect and they stay there for a good long while you can catch a couple of enemies with just one throw Ivy strings Selena up kinky before reluctantly letting her go strange has one of her plants locked up all cold and alone in his fault so she agrees to burst open the entrance to let Selena in around this point he's gonna be sync up with Batman's story as the cat heads over to stranger's Vault Batman is infiltrating the steel mill to take the Cure from Joker running atop buildings and using her whip to latch onto fire escapes makes Selena feel distinct from The Dark Knight in the end game we can switch between the two at set locations in the open world and is when control is handed over to her that the gamefield switch becomes most apparent for short episode missions this traversal system is great it doesn't outstate its welcome purely because her campaign lasts about an hour at most but if it was any longer than that I think I'd be begging for Batman's Glide to come back Catwoman can only Propel herself over to the side of buildings and then needs to LEAP up brickwork to reach a vantage point her physical movement might be faster but getting a round Arkham City takes a hell of a lot longer because she doesn't have a pair of wings it's easy to get stuck in the open world especially when hunting for Riddler trophies forced to LEAP into the sea to get back to Solid Ground there are less choices to make too jump and whip momentum is here and listen I might just be saying this because I'm bad at it the scaling buildings is deeply unsatisfying when Catwoman collides with the side of a building Green Dots will pop up signaling to us that we need to time our next button press to keep up her Pace there's no fail state for this she won't fall to the ground but if we can get the timing right she'll Bound Away like a sticky gazelle however the timing never feels right and is difficult to get a real hang of the Rhythm because the only cue we get is a slow closing of the green circles am I waiting until they close completely or the opposite where in this circle is the happy medium if you execute this Rhythm you might expect Selena's basic speed to increase as she finishes a climb and hits the rooftops the momentum could carry into her basic running animation this doesn't happen either but I believe that it should it's not the only potential fix though purely because the sound design of the Arkham games is so crunchy I think giving us a clear audio cue for when to push the button would solve this problem and give a synchronous sound that we make running around Arkham City as Selena as close to power effect as we could get sorry you can do it just walk right out of here and leave him it's easy you'll never forgive yourself Selena save Batman then get out of here it's not like he'll die it's Batman right breaking into the Vault and grabbing her goodies she thinks of leaving Arkham City but sees Batman's tired broken body on the monitors if he lies there for much longer he's not going to make it either Gotham's monsters will shoot him or his heart will finish the job for them she's so close to freedom to riches Protocol 10 whatever that is has been activated going back into Arkham City might just kill her the player is given a choice leave Batman to die or go to his rescue it's a strange choice because there's only one right answer if we try to leave it game over both for Selena's characterization and for the story rocks that he want to tell it's a silly little inclusion that lets us see what will happen if the Joker wins not a big deal but I think having this Choice takes away from the poignancy of the moment Catwoman at least in the Arkham verse is a selfish character she only cares about herself and her partner Holly thinking looking out for number one is the only way to stop yourself from getting hurt that is is until she meets Bruce in Tom King's run the two fall in love Batman Reveals His secret identity to her and a pair plan on getting married but at the 11th Hour both of them disappear into the night Selena says that if Bruce is with her if he's happy he can't be Batman she thinks he needs that rage that darkness and if he's happy and in love that will go away it's sad and complicated but in these Pages leaving him is a selfless act as Catwoman stands with her Jewels Freedom so close the only right answer is to go to Batman's Aid to commit one just one selfless act to prove that even in somewhere like Arkham City there's still glimmers of Hope and goodness while the game forces that decision anyway I think this joke choice undermines that I think I chipped a nail back there you stick with the brooding I'll handle the Wise Cracks even though Batman is safe and sound and off to save the day we are going to stick with Selena there's one loose end left for her to tie up Two-Face has raided her apartment stolen her stuff blown her home to hell and is now holed up in Gotham Museum it's time for a little payback but this time she's not gonna get caught bullets pack a massive punch to Catwoman so getting caught is even less of an option when playing as her she comes with a couple of her own stealthy tricks Thief fission is essentially a diluted detective mode it lets her see enemies through walls but doesn't give you as much information for example differentiating between armed Grunts and unarmed grunts it also looks Grim like she's wearing beer goggles the greats that hang overhead let her Leap to the ceiling with these and give stealth takedowns by choking henchmen with her legs here Two-Face acts as a stealth boss he marches around a bridge in the middle of the level and we need to clock him a few times before he goes down for good you can't just eliminate the six guns that March around him because he'll continually bring in reinforce so isolation is the meat of the plan without being able to LEAP on ceilings that wouldn't just be more difficult it would be bloody frustrating but as it is this is a decent weak inclusion to her story two face isn't quite the stealth boss Mr freezes and we'll see this setup repeated one more time in the Harley Quinn DLC but considering he's just a mob boss like penguin was I'm not sure we can expect much more from him unless you stick him in a mech suit and that would just be stupid right [Music] Joker's taken Talia I'm going after them you can't hundreds will be killed I need your help to stop a Tracker is not activating reroute all Wayne Tech satellites to boost the signal I can't do that don't do this selfie Batman must save Gotham Arkham city is in Flames Choppers tear through the prison blowing fool districts apart the prisoners are dying Hugo Strange's plan becomes clear Protocol 10 had nothing to do with the joker it's a genocide of Gotham's criminals strange has been selling weapons to the ganglords to make it look like a mass Uprising he's going to exterminate everyone in Arkham Batman has Tally's signal he's broken the night has been long and hard and he's no longer thinking straight he's so desperate that he's prepared to ignore the shelling and the fire and the explosions just to go and save the woman he loves but Alfred brings him back Batman must save Gotham and that includes Gotham's criminals it's time to take Hugo Strange down once and for all a Dark Descent back into Wonder City reminds us that Strange's plan to kill everyone sounds like the sort of thing Rachel ghoul might cook up but we're in the final hour and everything is coming to her we don't have time to make those sort of connections Batman didn't always refuse to kill in fact in just one 1940 comic he kicked Hugo Strange off a cliff shot a bunch of innocent citizens who had been turned into monsters and strangled a henchman to death while quipping I've roped steers before but you're much more deadly his no killing rule has evolved with the character over time and we now look at moments like this as silly and dated that's the beauty about Comics their retcons so often that fans can kinda pick and choose which parts of the history are Canon I love Batman stories that don't let him kill it's just one of the reasons why I didn't like the version we got in Batman v Superman and you know what this indulge me for a second I've got a little pet peeve I want to talk about and who am I kidding you made it this far you're not doing anything there's a pretty Infamous interview Zack Snyder did with the site hey you guys in 2016 where he talks about the equally Infamous scene in Batman v Superman where Batman straight up murders a bunch of bad guys by blowing them up Snyder defended the scene by saying he took inspiration from Frank Miller's graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns quote it's a little more like manslaughter than murder he said in the Frank Miller comic book that I reference he kills all the time there's a scene from the graphic novel where he busts through a wall takes the guy's machine gun and at the end of that he shoots the guy right between the eyes one shot of course I went to the gas tank and all the guys I work with were like you've got to shoot him in the head because they're all comic book dorks and I was like I'm not gonna be the guy that does that if that's true if Snyder did have a bunch of people on the film who consulted on the Batman comics you should have given them a slap because that is not what happens in The Dark Knight Returns here is the page Snyder is talking about he bursts through the wall knocks a thug out takes his gun and opens fire sure but he doesn't shoot anyone in the head he doesn't kill anyone in fact the cops will later put out a statement that he's wanted for assault breaking and entering and creating a public Hazard not murder and then later in that same comic he straight up tells Dick Grayson he hasn't killed 30 years Zack buddy I liked 300 but what are you talking about I love a Batman who doesn't kill but there's a case to be made especially in the Arkham games that it's his hamartia a fancy word meaning when a character has a fatal flaw and one of the elements that make up a Shakespearean tragedy so while Batman scales Wonder Tower inching ever closer to Hugo Strange I want to finally get around to how Arkham City uses well-worn Shakespearean elements to strengthen itself as a tragedy kept you waiting huh let's count him down number one the tragic hero the hero in a classic tragedy needs to be someone of good stature Whose actions are far-reaching effects Hamlet was the prince of Denmark Macbeth was the Thane of glams Batman is Bruce Wayne the prince of Gotham you'd have to go a thousand miles to meet someone who didn't know his name a good tragic hero will suffer inwardly and outwardly just look at the pain and guilt bats carries over the death of his parents and as for the outward suffering well that might be my iPad actually I really suck at the combat the tragic hero will also have errors in judgment for Arkham's Batman you just need to pick one he didn't expose Sharp's corruption at the end of Arkham Asylum leading to the miserable bastard becoming mayor and Arkham City being built he refuses the help of Robin when he shows up to lend a hand he's tricked by Joker at the start which means he gets poisoned and is unable to stop Hugo Strange from executing protocol 10. number two is a nice and simple one a struggle between good and evil this can be an internal struggle or an external struggle he's the bloody Batman he's a Force for good up against forces of evil he's The Duality of Man painting at the start of Catwoman's campaign he battles evil every night hell he's battling evil right now look at him go punching fascists in the face number three the hamarsha this is one that you might disagree with me on and if you think bats is a more relevant flaw please drop it below but I think his hamarsha is his no killing rule it's really important for me to stress that a hamasha doesn't necessarily need to be moral thing it's a character trait or quality which under normal circumstances would be a virtue but under the special circumstances of the story proves to be a fatal flaw because he doesn't kill Batman's villains return time and time again getting worse this is a universe where Joker shot and paralyzed Barbara Gordon Batman didn't kill him we later learned that it's a universe where Joker beat Jason Todd with a crowbar Batman didn't kill him and because he lets him live over and over again the Joker will soon kill someone else he loves get your hands off me you don't get what you've done it's glorious isn't it if Batman samarsha is his no killing rule Hugo strangers would be his ambition he's a man with such an ego that the password to his control center is Gotham's savior taking him down is a really intricate little stealth Arena six tiger guards Patrol any gargoyles that could be used as Vantage points on the outside of the Tower so they're tougher to escape to and can't be used as a means of attack most challenging of all is strange himself smugly sitting behind bulletproof glass able to see where we are and call out our location reaching him Batman's still incredibly is able to regain control slamming strangers face into the window and ordering him to look at what he's done if he was angry back in the Iceberg Lounge yelling at Penguin on a balcony now he's a whirlwind of Rage but his Fury dissipates when he sees the true Mastermind of Arkham City finally step out of the Shadows racial ghoul conveniently bringing with him the fourth element of a Shakespearean tragedy Supernatural elements in Shakespeare the supernatural will haunt the Journey of the tragic hero ghosts witches magical Visions these are important because they flag to the audience and the hero the things are not as they should be they're Omens something bad is coming the Supernatural is here to tell us that it's unavoidable with Arkham City this one is a little bit tenuous I will admit considering the game tries to ground its Supernatural in a chemical dionysium the Lazarus Pit pours through piping underground it's the explanation for how Solomon Grundy can come back to life but it's still a magical juice that makes racial ghoul Immortal I'm counting it as the Supernatural and it serves as an omen that the League of Assassins are more involved in Arkham City's construction than we might originally think Reish stabs strange through the heart Batman hasn't got blood on his hands but he has failed to keep him alive he throws himself at ration as the two fall the demon tries to kill them both by stabbing a sword through his stomach quick that's two people Batman has failed to keep alive and as he heads over to face Joker at the Monarch Theater that list is about to get a little bit longer confusing isn't it I'd want to know just what the hell is going on if I were you let's just say at times like these it's important to keep up appearances but first if you would be so kind and over my cure Joker's grand plan makes Hugo Strange's machinations look like they were drawn in crayon he's still sick has been this whole Titan Clayface has pretended to be him all along trying to convey strength so penguin and Two-Face don't move in on his Turf it's more surprising more personal and the threads roll there for us to talk at if we knew what to look for Harley almost gives the game away back in hour two when we fight Clayface in the steel mill detective mode reveals he has no bones Joker straight up tells us we fell for the fake Joker gag when he comes on screen Talia tries to stab Clayface but then Batman's Marsha his inability to kill the Joker gives us element number five a tragic waste just like the character herself Talia al Ghul's death is a tragic waste she didn't know about her father's help with protocol 10. in fact she didn't commit a single crane the whole game she just wanted to save the life of the man she loved and it ended with Joker shooting her and her bleeding out on the floor of a theater any future potential bleeding away with her and as for Clayface act he's totally fine we do need a final boss after all and he plays the part to Perfection cheered on from the sidelines by a wheezing and babbling Joker because he's made of clay bats needs to use the one Gadget given to him by a villain the freeze grenades to make him vulnerable his fluidity is his true strength able to stretch across the arena forcing us to stay Nimble leaping and dodging out of the way of each gooey lunge we can lure him into the explosives in the four corners of the room for maximum damage meaning our spatial awareness is challenged eventually his final phrase drops us into the Lazarus chamber below the dionysium bubbles waiting to gift eternal life to whoever fancies a dip so with a God damn sword Batman needs to battle dozens of mini clay faces as he splits himself apart unique animation let him slice and dice but the combat Basics remain the same so it means that after a tricky stealth Arena to crumple Hugo Strange Clayface offers a final fight that lets us test our strength our gadgets and our agility but defeating Clayface isn't what makes Arkham City so memorable is it and we still have the sixth and final element of a tragedy to cover the hero fails and loses themself Batman recovers The Cure and drinks half of it enough to keep him stable until more can be made the clown Prince of Crime hovers over us looking down into the Lazarus Pit preparing himself for immortality but before he can bathe in the dionysium bats tosses his new sword through the air knocking a generator into the pit and destroying it for good every decision you've ever made ends with death and misery people die I stop you you'll just break out and do it again think of it as a running God no are you happy now do you want to know something funny even after everything you've done would have saved you [Laughter] that actually is pretty funny The Joker dies laughing there's no shade of Pride here just desperation as he tries to lick up the antidote from the theater floor but as much as this seems like a horrific way to die he got almost exactly what he wanted he got his City in Flames just like he dreamed of in the Arkham City Comic Protocol 10 ensured there was an escalating death count Batman was so hurt and broken by a knight of failure and death that he didn't see the Joker's hidden blade as it stabbed him there's even a final joke because he stabbed Batman in the arms shattering The Cure Joker sealed his own fate finally the punchline of his own gag Batman doesn't kill Joker but he does fail to save him and as he holds the antidote in his hands he even considers breaking his Rule and letting Joker die he doesn't that's the funny part he says even after everything he was still going to save his old foe but for a second there he considered it he loses a piece of himself in that theater Arkham's Joker and Batman are two sides of the same coin one menacing and scarred the other whole the point is hammered home by how in the game's final seconds the bat looks like that Duality of Man painting that covered two faces safe he carries Joker's limp body out of Arkham City gently lays it on a police car and leaves without saying a word Arkham City broke the bat and while it feels like we should leave it there say goodbye to the game this story isn't over because in March 2012 Rocksteady released some story DLC that gave Batman's tragedy an epilogue so before we close off let's talk about Harley Quinn's Revenge one month after Arkham City released and four months before Harley Quinn's Revenge Rocksteady and DC Comics gave us an update on the Batman Arkham City end game a One-Shot comic book that filled in what happened after the Joker died setting up the events of the DLC coming out in March Harley Quinn took over siona's steel mill now leading her dead boyfriend's pack of thugs Joker hours before his death recorded a message to Batman one last game in case he died luring the bat to Arkham Asylum where he'd planted some bombs in that message there is something that the Joker says eight little words that define the relationship between the bat and the clown if I'm dead then why why wouldn't you be what is Batman without the Joker the clown Prince's death weighs more heavily on him because of two reasons the first is that everyone thinks Batman killed him only a handful of people know the truth of what happened in the Monarch Theater and the second is guilt it hits harder because he feels responsible for the Joker it's hard not to when the past 10 years of your life have been dominated by a psychopath who claims he's living just for you Harley Quinn's Revenge as a story could go further as a final bow for Arkham City Batman refuses to talk about how he's feeling he's lost Talia and the Joker in one night there's an opportunity here for Rock City to vocally explore what that does to him instead he reverts back to his usual stoic self so if that's the kind of Batman you're sticking with one who doesn't let the player in on his depression how do you communicate that in a game the answer is Robin any news Barb I'll find out hope you're right the DLC opens a few weeks after Protocol 10 ignited the fires of Arkham City Harley Quinn kidnapped some gcpd officers and hunkered down in the steel mill Batman went in to rescue them but he hasn't come out so we're playing as Tim Drake off on a mission to save his mentor by letting his play as Robin we get to see Batman Through The Eyes of his loved ones we get to hear him talk about Bruce's mental state with Oracle it turns out he refuses to talk about Talia or Joker before he went missing he was a Mourning just like he was when he and Tim met choosing Tim Drake as the player character rather than say Nightwing is interesting he splits bat fans where Dick Grayson was an orphan that let Bruce be the father he lost and Jason Todd was a criminal who proved that anyone could be brought into the light Tim Drake is there he is literally the replacement Robin motivated by a deep sea to belief that Batman must always have a sidekick what makes him unique are his brains Jason's the robin who kicked tasks dick was the robin with agility and Tim is the world's second greatest detective his whole origin story is based around figuring out Batman's true identity when he was only 13 and helping Bruce heal after Jason Todd was murdered Arkham's Robin feels pretty different to the wide-eyed lad that I just described get me a hooded Cape because hot damn he is way cooler with a visual design that I straight up love because it is unabashedly badass he is much later in his Robin career with a shaved head like a cage fighter and a fighting style that blends Batman's crunch with Catwoman's speed he's armed with a battle staff that acts as an extension of himself so he can reach further and his attacks can appear faster while maintaining the rhythm of Arkham's combat this was all to lean into a robin that's more mature more prepared and is clearly learned from Batman senior concept artist Ken muftick said as much on the Rocksteady website quote we wanted to create a robin that players would identify as a contemporary character and move away from the traditional Boy Wonder image that most people know Robin Works through the steel mill trying to find the Batman and the gcpd cops that Harley has taken hostage just like the bat she is a mourning with new clothes hair and a black veil covering her face Joker's death hasn't liberated her it's broken her the steel mill is still a fun house but now it's being redesigned as a shrine to her puddin Batman is holding his grief in but the only way Harley can think to mourn is to let it all out for the world to see she didn't just lose the Joker it's insinuated that the stress of his death made her lose a baby as well the mechanical Bots from Wonder City have been brought up here dressed in Joker's clothes and play recordings of him over and over the walls are covered in graffiti laying out her plans for Revenge most of the henchmen live in fear but not all of them take her seriously some of them even try to flirt with her seeing the bat Through The Eyes of his family is a similar framing device to the story that introduced him Drake in the comics after Jason Todd's death Batman didn't talk about how he felt but everyone noticed that something was off he was more Reckless less careful off his game as Robin descends further into the level we get a flashback that shows a Batman just like that he's a little more brutal a little more desperate the way he speaks to thugs when interrogating them isn't the cold calculated theatrics that we're used to aside from one very small room there's no stealth sections he'll blunder into combat Arenas without a second thought Predator mode almost feels like a distant memory especially when you compare it to how much Robin creeps around it is more cautious during his half this lack of caution and a clear desire to not let anyone else die is what gets Batman caught after rescuing one of the cops Harley ambushes us and tries to shoot the hostage but Batman sacrifices himself taking a bullet to the chest and when Robin finally catches up to him there's something incredibly sad about what he finds Quinn's got him trapped Harley has locked him in a cage fused to a gigantic mechanical Joker bot he doesn't have his utility belt so no explosive gel to break free and that means that he's just resigned himself to his capture he's meditating to save unlimited air inside the cage but that just feels like an in-universe reason to give us this picture of a bat giving himself over to the universe to save him Robin needs to confront Harley directly to get a key card sidekick versus sidekick brought to you once again by stealth Arena where the main villain can keep summoning baddies and needs to be attacked a few times if we're going to beat her what I think makes his battle better than when Catwoman had to fight Two-Face is the fact we don't need to be stealthy to do damage that's clearly the intended route but it's not necessary you can simply kick her ass if you want to risk being ambushed by her security team as a stealth combatant Robin uses detective mode just like Batman but there's no heart monitor this seems like it was done on purpose to reinforce that he's not as well equipped as the great Detective but I'm not sure how much it really adds he comes with a shield that can absorb gunfire and a snap flash that lets him attach tiny bombs to cranes and conveyor belts that move between levels if you time it just right it can be a pretty cool takedown the rest of the story plays out like you would imagine Robin takes a key card from Harley rescues Batman without so much as a thank you root and the pair split up to deactivate some bombs and rescue the rest of the hostages it feels like there's a big fat content Gap as wide as the Grand Canyon that should be filled with story beats that see our heroes team up this is a Batman and Robin story so why isn't there a single moment of gameplay where the two are surrounded by Thugs and need to take them down together the ending especially is crying out for this the last 10 minutes are a testament to how many missed opportunities there are in here it's a fun enough final fight we battle the mechanical Guardians that don't have counter indicators because while their robots bats can't read their movements but I can't believe that a new enemy type is saved for the last of the DLC when they could have been strong throughout the full hour and considering we've seen dozens of the things dressed up as Joker with his face glitching out of monitors it's baffling that it's not those versions were fighting it feels like that's what we've been building to surely it would have been more thematically powerful for a Batman reeling from the death of the Joker to fight robotic laughing digital versions of the clown Prince of Crime you should have left me to die and I could have been back together with Mr J Harley's plan falls apart as quickly as it was conceived she sees no reason to go on so her final Act of Revenge is to try and blow herself up but even though Arkham City took its toll even though Batman is still racked with guilt from the deaths of Joker and Talia he finds his resolve he does for Harley what he couldn't for joke her he saves her life a reminder that he's still a hero and his reward almost getting himself killed and Robin coming to his rescue classic Batman Rock Steady gambled when they developed Arkham City they tread the boards to find an open world so they could fill with color and Pulp and villains they orchestrated a story that was bigger flashier more complicated in every conceivable way the fact they were so nervous about climbing this mountain is just a testament to how Earnest the game is B the Batman isn't an offer anymore not like it was when they tried to convince people Arkham Asylum was going to be good it's an expectation and to exceed that expectation isn't just impressive it's a goddamn superpower Arkham City might break the bat it might have killed the Joker hell it might have gone on to Define how we talk about Batman games a full decade after its release but for me its greatest achievement is that it gave me a question I've never thought to ask before so riddle me this when is a tragedy this much fun don't worry you don't need to answer that hey thanks for watching if you made it to the very end of this video I have a feeling that my podcast lore dump might be right up your street it's a show where we take someone who doesn't know a game and walks into the full story we've covered Kingdom Hearts metal gear and currently we are knee-deep in the remedy verse links to the pin comment and here's a Quick Clip um so cue boss fights for the tooth battle the battle takes all across the rooftops and piping of the refinery just imagine like a nuclear power plant and they're fighting on the edge of yeah um so it's awesome Miss trial mocks Jack for not being able to keep up but eventually we best her chopping her up into little bits just like with blade wolf we tune into her final words it's dolceev the Terrorist on the other line I lost she says so this is how they felt Dying For A Cause Dulce is like dying no I need you to live live and Mistral replies je temur which translates as I love you with all my heart sounds confused Mistral you never told me so these two were in love her and this this guy that we're here to capture Ryden picks up her walkie-talkie as she's like saying her dying words and it's like he picks up he picks he picks up the walkie-talkie as Dallas I have is like crying over the thing he's like damn no it's worse he picks up the walkie-talkie because she's not talking to you idiot I think Solid Snake was more like emotionally intelligent than right and he's not emotionally intelligent at all also massive shout out to Salty boy for once again designing the badass thumbnail and quick plug for Nicholas Cortez I don't know them but the motion Comics they made for Arkham City end game is really cool so link is in the description as always big thank you to my two dollar patrons who keep the lights on and fun stuff like this order thanks go to Joel Jimenez the Vim Wayward flock alarmed larma Matt Palmer Thomas Pruitt spaulter donations Christopher McBride the Slayer of games Daniel Boyles shishki wandering Alpha Vivi media Ronnie law reach medema battenberg Captain bong clay Alec Maxwell Sweeney there's a Kingdom Hearts TCG be cursed with this knowledge as I have Michael Gallagher Captain cabinet Logan Hamilton David brynjerson name requires DLC George Vincent Eric Fray danger zone Chris McMullen Chris McRae Ryan Bryce Ryan line Brenton matami Matthew house Sean toland Jerome Hotchkiss prodigal horse Mr anthropic Mike chalabi trench coat Guy The Heirs of History Griffin Spencer beam Cody Kyle P Philly Garrett birchall Church's Vaz 76 Jack Neil Mack Sam's Forge Aurelia Kristen finchel neon Leah Saint Alison Patrick Baird lgx weaving werewolf Nicholas chairman Trevor Vernon Mark Anderson Joe Wilcox pleo gavastrion blank name Unholy biscuit uzair Leon Matthew Sinclair Thompson X writes shamax typicalanu Aiden Jonathan Riggs Ace Attorney fan621 Zachary Johnson Daxter tk421 dnsch Jared trainum monikari kieranresti lamari 25 Jeremy Shore Ike n the all-brand man Tempe unicort Anthony holder David J Morin Minato calamarmitage Christopher Tierney torstein sunnis fipsy Derek De rossia Luca Tom Inns Sami stuff jaguke Alberto Calas Captain waffles type Razz dini Zachary Powers Andrew muinos Prospero now and Gutierrez nopoff Alan black cosign Noor David Bedard CeCe Jared Helfer makor John fosterag Robert Capell Matt McCulloch Paul W Chief sweep ihor May Jonathan Lum Eddie wingforce Rhys strop angry Optimist Jana grassro Mr Fred orentum long cheddar talkster Ashley Bruning 100 Sams my friend Neil Nathaniel Waters dinken Pearson Kyle Pierce lonely Ronin Kane high wind and Eve Care thank you all so much and take care

Channel: Monty Zander

Views: 218,219

Keywords: batman arkham asylum critique, batman, bruce wayne, rocksteady, arkham games, arkham combat, freeflow combat, predator mode, sefton hill, arkham asylum behind the scenes, arkham critique, arkham city, arkham origins, game critique, batman arkham city analysis, arkham city critique, batman arkham city review, batman arkham city retrospective, arkham city stealth, riddler arkham city, arkham city comic, arkham city endgame, arkham city analysis, batman arkham city critique

Id: 8aiK00lFVsI

Length: 135min 44sec (8144 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 26 2023