(NOTE: This review is only for the Batman segments, not Catwoman.)
Gameplay: 4/5 – The gameplay for the most part is very similar to the first game. They’ve changed up the melee-fighting a little bit which can take a while to get used to, but is actually pretty good. There’s a lot more superfluous special abilities and gadgets you can get, but if you liked fiddling around with them in the first game, there’s no reason you shouldn’t enjoy it in this one as well. My biggest gripe with this game are the Quick Commands which have been redone entirely, except for the Quick Batarang. Seriously, if you have to hit two buttons separately on a controller, that is NOT a “quick command”, that is just a button combo. In addition I kept forgetting most of the “quick” commands anyway, but really didn’t need them most of the time anyway.
Graphics: 4/5 – The graphics are just as detailed and good as the predecessor, but I also have to say, not really any better either. The Raz Al Ghul hallucination effects add a bit of variety, but quite frankly there wasn’t anything that blew me away about the game’s graphic look.
Animation: 5/5 – The cutscenes were just as kinetic and cool as before. No complaints here.
Music: 4/5 – The music too has stayed on the same level of quality as the first game.
Sound: 3/5 – Here I have to criticise the game for a number of things. First and foremost though, I did think the voice-acting in the game was good and hearing Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill again warms my heart. However, none of the new character voices particularly stood out. Mr. Freeze was just okay and the Penguin sounded pretty horrible. Unless it’s Danny DeVito, you can’t honestly make the Penguin badass or frightening (especially not with a wine bottle bottom stuck to his face). What really ruined the game’s atmosphere for me was the fact that I kept picking up the regular street-cronies conversations on my bat-radio as I made my way through the city and I never got a moment’s peace. The game just really lost that silent feeling of solitude, where hearing the chatter of henchmen was a sign that it was time to throw down. You do get used to it eventually, but quite frankly, I prefered the atmosphere of the first game better.
Plot: 2½/5 – I was unconvinced with the whole premise of the game initially (when I learned what the title meant) and actually seeing the story in motion didn’t change anything. The story is absolute garbage. Turning a part of Gotham City into a prison? They honestly couldn’t come up with anything less believable to bring all these Batman villains into the same venue? Seriously, they could have just had multiple locations and dispensed with the idea of a huge over-world. Or why not just set the game in Gotham and have Batman traverse longer distances by Batmobile or with the Batplane? The only thing about the story which was even slightly interesting was Joker’s illness. Hugo Strange was a really underwhelming villain and, in the end, turned out to be just a red herring anyway.
Replay value: 3½/5 – My enjoyment of the game was weakened by various little changes from the game’s predecessor that I felt were neither necessary nor even improvements of any description. However, the game itself flows pretty well. And despite the ludicrous plot, the high fan-service factor might be the main reason why people like this game so much (both Batman fans and just generally speaking [a.k.a. punching and boobies]). I suspect the real reason to play the game is all the side missions (which I didn’t do) and playing as Catwoman.
Score: 74% – Batman: Arkham City tried so desperately to add new things that I think it lost sight of why Asylum was such a good game. Asylum did a lot of things well and was both an entertaining game and an excellent Batman title. Arkham City just wanted to do a lot of things to appear like a bigger game, but it honestly just lacks the heart and high quality story-telling of the first game, while whoring itself to the sandbox crowd and hardcore Batman fans with an obscene amount of character cameos.
Arkham City is a pretty good game, but it just doesn’t have the flow, fun-factor or narrative push equal to its predecessor. If you ran out of things to do in Asylum too quickly, then this game will have taken care of it, but I’ll pick Asylum over this title any day of the week.
Batman: Arkham Asylum – Score: 89%
- Gameplay: 4,5/5
- Graphics: 4,5/5
- Animation: 5/5
- Music: 4/5
- Sound: 5/5
- Plot: 4/5
- Replay Value: 4/5
It’s funny you mention That the Penquin’s voice sucks because as you may or may not know he Is voiced by the ever so poular Nolan North. Nolan north fanboys might flip out. Hell go check out his wikipedia page because been in a lot of roles.
His resumé may be extensive, but his unconving Cockney accent, combined with what almost sounds like a bad Jason Statham impression, just makes him sound annoying as hell. I’ll take Burgess Meredith any day of the week.