Before we begin, I promise there will be no quoting of The Dark Knight film nor ’that comic’ in an effort to seem witty. There’s no need for it, since Batman: Arkham City is an excellent game that stands on its own merits and would be worth playing even if it didn’t use the Batman license. This third-person action game is a direct sequel to 2009’s Arkham Asylum, and starts with Bruce Wayne protesting the ongoing operations of a literal ’prison city’ within Gotham, called Arkham City. When Arkham City sends a strike team to interrupt his press conference and bring the billionaire within its walls, Bruce discovers much of what’s going on is Professor Strange’s handiwork, and it’s then up to him to recover his Batman equipment and set things right.
Arkham City shares a lot in common with Asylum, as it’s played with the same camera system, controls, and emphasis on planning. It’s actually entirely possible for Batman to walk up to a crowd of thugs and beat them all senseless in a head-on fight if they’re unarmed or using nothing worse than a baseball bat or pipe, but some of his enemies are much more organized than that. So while you can just mash the attack button with the occasional use of the counter button to fluidly slip between blows to look awesome early on, you’ll need to use Batman’s full arsenal in order to really succeed. Swooping from a rooftop to knock down a gunman followed dropping a smoke pellet and using your grappling hook to escape shots from his friends will be a necessary tactic, as will using weak explosive charges as traps to knock down groups of foes and set them up for quick finishing strikes, and this is just the begining of the sort of things you can do.
It’s not all fighting, however. A mix of famous characters from the Batman mythos show up, and most of them have excellent voice actors that have worked together to tell a very interesting story. You need not have played Asylum nor be deeply familiar with Batman to follow the plot, either; an in-game summary of previous events will be enough to allow you to understand what’s going on if have even the most basic grasp of the franchise. Along with Professor Strange’s activities, it seems many of Batman’s worst enemies have set up gangs in the prison city and are pursuing their own agendas... ones Batman will have to figure out, even as he races from one end of town to the next in order to fight their minions and save innocent lives since he’s not the only one falsely imprisoned here. I don’t want to give too much away, but rest assured that many staple Batman characters show up in one way or another and they’re used to tell an interesting story.
The name ’Arkham City’ is apt, as players are given a full city to explore. It’s not as grandly detailed as some of the largest Grand Theft Auto worlds, but the premise is similar; the city is your hub that connects the plot and missions, and has plenty of secrets to find. They’re worth digging up, since you’ll be rewarded with a mix of gallery items (art, character bios, etc.) and experience points that can be used to unlock upgrades such as new attacks, improved armor, extra abilities, and so on. There is even some ’Metroidvania’ aspect to it, since Batman will come across challenges he can’t immediately clear but upgrades will solve it at a later time. Additionally, there are times where Batman is busy or doing something that wouldn’t be interesting to the player, so you’re given control of other characters (in the interests of avoiding spoilers, I’ll refrain from saying how many or which ones). They play similarly to Batman, but not identically and have their own neat tricks and roles in the storyline. The only problem is that some of this content seems to be tied to DLC codes included with the game; it’s a practice I’m not fond of but commenting on it at length is beyond the scope of this review.
