Batman: Arkham City

PLANS ARE GOOD, AREN'T THEY? I'd planned to cover the UKs premier gaming events in full, but only covered Modern Warfare 2.5. It could've been massive. Ah well. Onwards, eh? Let's review a game that's been out for a couple of months...CUTTING EDGE

It's been just over two years since Batman: Arkham Asylum stunned the world by turning out to be one of the, if not THE, best superhero game ever committed to disc. It won huge applause and many caps were doffed as it walked by. It was, even, the runner up in "game of the year" category at the prestigious Tommy Awards in 2009.

The problem with it being THIS popular, and THIS brilliant, is that, if you're going to do a sequel, you need to make sure what you put out is every bit as good as the original, and then some. The Force Unleashed II is a good example of how NOT to do a sequel. Arkham City is a good example of how to get a sequel spot on.

Taking place roughly one year after the events of Arkham Asylum, Arkham City (literally) throws Bruce Wayne in the big house. The inmates of the asylum have been transported to a sectioned off part of Gotham City. As Batman, you must track down various Batman Villains, solve various puzzles blah blah blah...You basically do what you did in Arkham Asylum. BUT, the storyline is much tighter, and much more believable. The actions and the motifs of the villains are much deeper than that of The Jokers in Asylum, thus allowing the player to understand them on a deeper level.

Mark Hamill reprises (for the final time, he says) his role as The Joker, and Kevin Conroy returns as Batman. The cast as a whole is well above par, and the villains are voiced so well, it's not inconceivable that they're all potential main villains in the inevitable sequel. The one sour note comes from Nolan North, who voices The Penguin. He goes for a cockney accent, but, in practice, it's comes off more Australian. And, considering the man's voiced more video game characters than I can name, that's not really good enough. The Penguin is quite a sinister character, with an appaulingly dark back story, and he goes for a faux-cockney voice.

Batman starts City with a lot of the gadgets he ended Asylum with, with only a handful of new additions to his arsenal. And for this decision, I praise Rocksteady. It gives the impression of real development in Batman as a character, and allows veteran Arkham players to transfer their skills into the sequel seamlessly.

Content-wise, City is filled to the brim. Over 400 Riddler trophies and riddles scattered across the map, plus some very, very fun sidequests, PLUS several Riddler challenge maps, PLUS New Game+, as well as the 10-12 hour story mode, BatFans are going to be very, very busy.

A lot of fuss was made over the Catwoman missions at E3 and so on. Well, they aren't that great. they're slow, they take you out of the action entirely, and, ultimately, all they're only there because it's another character to tick off the checklist. AND they come on a FUCKING ONLINE PASS CODE. Don't hype up a game mode, allow it to fall flat on its face, then force the player to buy it (if they went preowned) just for the achievements! Online codes are the epitome of all that is evil, and i want them dead. The only companies that aren't going with that are Nintendo and Activision! LEARN FROM THEM!!!

Enough of that, though. IT'S THE CONCLUSION.

Arkham City is a graduate of the Assassin's Creed II school of "how to be a brilliant sequel". It takes the framework of Asyulm, and builds straight up. And keeps going. It improves on pretty much every aspect of Asylum, and adds things you didn't even know you wanted. In a year of big blockbusters, I wonder whether or not it'll be able to stand its own. But, if it does go down, at least it'll go down with several other games. This is a superb video game, one that not even the weight of expectation can crush. And I look forward to the sequel.

*DISCLAIMER: No actual sequel has been confirmed, this was Tom being trying to be hilarious. He's deeply sorry if he's mislead you. It won't happen again. Until the next review NO, DON'T SAY THAT.*

9.8/10