Maybe
Super
Mario Bros. 3.
I
used to get really excited for the WWE wrestling games, too, but that
excitement was always tempered by the knowledge that the newest game
was just as likely to be bogged down with new features that were not
better and inexplicable restrictions on old features that were fine
in the first place as it was to be an exciting and fresh improvement.
But
you guys – I bought a whole new system
for Arkham
Knight.
This
game’s predecessors, Arkham
Asylum
and Arkham
City
are my favorite games of all time, with City
being my absolute favorite. I don’t play a lot of video games
anymore due to a lack of time and, quite frankly, desire, and I have
never had a history of finishing games. There are probably less than
ten games that I have finished and less that I have completed.
To
me “finishing” a game involves getting to the conclusion of the
main storyline.
“Completing” a game means that not only did I
finish the story, but I also did all of the little side missions and
whatever other extras the designers tacked on to increase value or
expand on features.
I
completed Asylum
and City
because both games were so good and so rewarding that I wanted to
play them as long and as much as I possibly could. They were
challenging, but for the most part not frustrating. I play games to
relax and have fun, so as soon as I start to feel my body temperature
rise due to some task that is taking more time or effort than I want
to spend on it, I tend to check out. I’m not there to get pissed
off. This is a habit that probably started when I worked for Video
Game Exchange years ago and continued up through my employment with
GameStop. At both places I had the opportunity to play whatever games
I wanted at no cost, so there simply wasn’t an economic compulsion
to finish games. When I got stuck or pissed off, I’d just get
another game.
Game
developer Rocksteady’s Arkham
games
have combined all of the elements of being Batman into a successful
video game. The gadgets, crime fighting, rogues’ gallery, and even
detective work – the most oft-overlooked aspect of the Caped
Crusader – are all fun and compelling. Every element of the game is
the best of Batman distilled into a modern video game setting.
Side
Note: Arkham
Origins was
developed by a different studio and felt, to me, like a mis-step. The
story was excellent, but the gameplay felt like a watered-down and
limited version of Arkham
City’s.
Since discussing it on the Arkham
Knight
Needless Things Podcast,
I wonder if I was too harsh. I plan on revisiting it – and the
other Arkham
games
– soon.
I’ve
been playing Arkham
Knight
since the day after it came out. As of this writing I have finished
the story and have just a couple of Most Wanted missions left. I’m
at 94%. I’ll get into details after the Spoiler Warning, but for
now here’s how I feel, spoiler-free:
The
game picks up basically where Arkham
City
left off. Most of Batman’s gadgets are intact and he’s even
wearing the same Batsuit, which I like. It’s frustrating when a
series makes you start from scratch every time and I appreciated this
continuity. Barring the interruption of Arkham
Origins,
it felt like picking up where I left off. Everything works the same
and I was gliding around the city and punching goons in short,
satisfying order.
The
two main portions of the game are the main story and the Most Wanted
missions. The main story is the actual narrative of the Arkham Knight
and their quest to destroy Batman. The Most Wanted missions are tied
into this narrative but do not necessarily advance the plot (until
later in the game). These consist of things like taking down portions
of the Arkham Knight’s army, disarming mines laid throughout
Gotham, and other goal-focused pursuits.
The
big, new element of this game is the Batmobile. I am not a fan of
driving games, so I was definitely concerned about this addition and
about how much of the game it would be a critical part of. But I had
faith that Rocksteady knew what they were doing. I found the
mechanics of driving and combat to be solid and enjoyed driving the
Batmobile immensely.
Until
I realized just how much of the game required
the Batmobile.
As
far as just navigating Gotham City, you can use the traditional
method of gliding or drive the Batmobile pretty much as you wish. It
is easy to summon the Batmobile whenever you want and neither method
has any real advantage from a pure travel perspective. As far as
missions, it’s easier to find most things while gliding. As much
fun as it is to drive, it generally is more practical to grapple and
fly.
But
there are many missions – both Most Wanted and within the main
story – that require the Batmobile. And these get progressively
more frustrating as the game goes on, I think mostly because you lose
the versatility that Batman has on his own. One of the trademarks of
the Arkham
series is how open the problem-solving has been. As Batman you can
actually develop your own style of playing – completing missions
through stealth or direct violence. From time to time you have to do
things a certain way, but for the most part the players’ personal
style determine show things are done.
With
the Batmobile, missions typically require one response and depending
on the mission and its difficulty this can become quite a grind.
The
next-gen graphics are beautiful and Gotham City is massive. I’ve
been mostly focused on the missions and have barely even scratched
the surface of exploring the new metropolitan expanse. But I have
noticed something – Knight’s
Gotham is not as full of life as City’s.
There are riots in the streets that are easily dispersed by the
Batmobile’s non-lethal armaments, but the rooftops are vacant.
There are no random gangs of crooks up to no good for the Dark Knight
to subdue. Sure – you can walk the streets on foot and dispatch the
goons you find there, but not once will you experience that “OH
SHIT” feeling of landing on a roof and realizing you’ve just
startled a bunch of armed thugs.
To
address the main story itself, here’s the spoiler-free version –
it’s great. There are plenty of surprises, it’s massively
compelling, the balance of gameplay types is spot-on (with a tad too
much Batmobile at the end; but not nearly as much so as the Most
Wanted missions), and it is a fitting conclusion to the series.
Arkham
Knight
is a lovingly crafted game that feels like a comfortable conclusion
to a great video game series. If you’re a fan of Rocksteady’s
Batman games, you must play it. The cracks in the Bat armor didn’t
start to show until I was almost done with the story, and I’ll
discuss those after the Spoiler Warning.
One
piece of advice for those of you that haven’t played the game –
take your time. Balance your story play with your Most Wanted play.
Level Batman up and explore the city. I won’t say why here, but DO
NOT let
the mystery of the Arkham Knight’s identity drive you like it did
me. I burned through the story far too quickly because I was worried
about spoilers, and I wish I hadn’t.
I
still had a wonderful time playing and highly recommend the game. For
those of you that have played it or want to know more, it’s time.
From
here on out, be warned. There will be
*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*
I
got very caught up in the story and pretty much ignored the Most
Wanted missions.
Rocksteady made something of a big deal about the
identity of the Arkham Knight – going so far as to delay the
release of the figure, supposedly because it contains spoilers. As a
result, my game experience was less balanced than it should have been
and I finished the game with a severely underpowered Batman and had
used very little of the arsenal that would eventually be available.
Okay
– now that we’re a paragraph past the Spoiler Warning, I’ll
drop the bomb.
The
Arkham Knight is…
Jason
Todd.
In
the least surprising turn of events since I ate at Arby’s and got
diarrhea.
Look
– it’s not bad. It’s not a let-down and it makes the most sense
given everything that has gone before. Within the established history
of Batman and given the way that the Arkham series has adapted that,
it had
to be Jadon Todd. But it’s not a big surprise and they totally
hammer you over the head with the fact that it’s going to be Jason
Todd, to the point that I thought that was way too obvious and came
up with an excellent scenario where it was Barbara Gordon. As a
matter of fact, it made so much sense to me that I was absolutely
positive it was
Barbara and had dismissed
Jason entirely because there were whole cinematic sequences dedicated to making you think that it was Jason.
About
a third of the way through the story, Batman watches as Barbara –
under the influence of Scarecrow’s fear gas – shoots herself in
the head. It’s meant to be horrifying and impactful and to raise
the perceived stakes of the story and it worked.
For
about five minutes, until I started thinking about the conditions of
what had just happened and how it could potentially affect the game.
I
simply couldn’t believe that Rocksteady – who have handled these
characters so respectfully and have been so faithful to the core
conceits that have been established – would err so egregiously in
their depiction of Barbara Gordon. With everything that character has
been through and her status as the heart of Gotham’s crime fighting
elite, there was no way in the world I could buy that she would ever
commit suicide. Out of three nearly perfect games, it was the one
moment that rang jarringly untrue.
The
more I thought about it, the more I wondered why they would do
something so opposed to the nature of one of their characters. And I
decided that I didn’t believe it.
I
believed that Batman
could believe it. It was established not only that he was also under
the influence of Scarecrow’s fear gas, he was contending with the
fact that the Joker had taken up residence in his head.
After
Batman’s first face-to-face confrontation with Scarecrow, it is
revealed that the Dark Knight has been infected with Joker’s
chemically-altered blood, which is causing him to slowly transform
into the Joker (this all makes sense within the story of the games).
One of the absolute best things about this game is how Joker –
voiced for the for-real last time by Mark Hamill making a surprise
return – pops up in Batman’s vision to taunt him and be hilarious
with the blackest of humor.
So
Batman is pretty messed up in the head. I wouldn’t buy Batman at
one hundred percent believing that Barbara killed herself, but Batman
in the unstable condition that Arkham
Knight
portrays him in might.
I
didn’t, and quickly started trying to figure out why Rocksteady
would make it appear that Barbara Gordon killed herself, from a
storyline perspective. The obvious answer was to remove her from the
story. As Oracle, she is the nigh-omnipotent force helping Batman. To
remove his external source of intelligence would create an obstacle.
But we had Alfred filling that role, so that wasn’t the intent.
It
hit me all at once that it fit perfectly for Barbara Gordon to be the
Arkham Knight. This was prior to the Jason Todd flashbacks, but like
I said – those were so heavy-handed that they actually reinforced
my belief. At one point we see a flashback to the scene from The
Killing Joke
where Joker shoots Barbara, paralyzing her from the waist down. This
might instill a resentment in her that Batman hadn’t killed the
Joker before then. I could also see her being concerned about her
father’s well-being given Batman’s continued refusal to put a
more permanent tend to his enemies’ criminal activities, especially
given the almost Batman
’66 levels
of reliance that the Arkhamverse GCPD has on the Dark Knight. There’s
even a scene early in the game where Gordon basically utters a Chief
O’Hara-like, “None of us can handle this! Thank the Lord for the
Caped Crusader!” type of line.
It
seemed to me they were setting the stage for someone to resent not
only the effect Batman was having on Gotham, but also the fallout for
his associates.
The
latter is actually a very strong theme of the game. Catwoman, Lucius
Fox, and Robin are put directly in harm’s way because of Batman’s
actions and Nightwing mentions several times the dangers of working
with him. Again, this suggested to me that Barbara could be looking
to end the overall threat he presented and the pain he personally
represented.
And
yeah – I could buy her going bad much more easily than I could buy
her committing suicide.
As
the game went on, I thought that my belief was being reinforced.
Gordon is locked up “for his own safety” – being removed from
harm’s way for story purposes so there was no chance he could be
harmed by Barbara’s army. When he was released, he immediately went
after Scarecrow, but essentially disappeared. I assumed Barbara had
taken him prisoner and removed him from danger. It all fit together
so well. She would have had the resources to build and army and to
coordinate the villains as needed thanks to her work as Oracle and
her relationship to the GCPD. Heck, if Oracle did
go bad,
I don’t know that I believe Batman could stop her. Especially if he
was the target of her machinations.
And
it would have made for a truly shocking and powerful twist because,
like all great villains, she would have been right.
But
as it turned out, Jason Todd was kidnapped, tortured, and brainwashed
by Joker. This was all shown via flashbacks that take place in
Batman’s Joker-possessed psyche, except that Batman believed that
Joker had killed Jason. It all makes perfect sense and provides a
much happier ending than my story because Jason is driven by madness
and abuse while my evil Barbara would have been driven by rage and
righteousness. Batman could allow a confused, beaten Jason to go free
at the end, but Barbara would not have had a storyline motivation to
give up her vendetta. It would have been a bleak, miserable ending
for her and especially for her father. I like
my
Arkham Knight more, but Rocksteady’s provides a more satisfying
conclusion.
Minor
gripes:
When
you look at the unlocked character model for Professor Pyg, he
doesn’t have his mask on. What’s up with that?
I only encountered one glitch in the game. I dies and somehow fell through Gotham and ended up over four thousand meters beneath the city before I had to exit the game and start again. I didn't lose any data and it looked neat, so whatever.
I only encountered one glitch in the game. I dies and somehow fell through Gotham and ended up over four thousand meters beneath the city before I had to exit the game and start again. I didn't lose any data and it looked neat, so whatever.
I
was totally expecting to have to sacrifice the Batmobile at some
point. It happened, but thankfully Lucius had made a backup. It’s
silver instead of black (presumably because it hasn’t been painted
yet) and looks awesome, but is not available as a skin for some
reason. There is a fourth Batmobile skin spot, but why wouldn’t it
be unlocked after you finish the story? Also, you get an incredible
Jokermobile, but it isn’t available for use in the story mode.
One
of the sections of Most Wanted missions involves disarming mines that
have been placed around Gotham City by the Arkham Knight’s militia.
They start off as fun combat sequences, but escalate into
frustrating, controller-endangering hassles. As of this writing I
still have four left and I don’t want to do any more. For the first
time in the history of Rocksteady’s Arkham franchise something
feels “video game hard” rather than challenging in a more complex
way.
Side
Note: To me, “video game hard” means that something has been made
more difficult in a thoughtless manner – adding an overwhelming
number of opponents, limiting the usefulness of in-game tools, that
sort of thing. Arkham
Origins
was rife with this sort of uninspired design and I hate to see it in
a Rocksteady game.
Speaking
of limiting in-game tools, the gadgets feel limited. It seems like
you get to use certain items one or two times, then they become
obsolete and you don’t get to enjoy them. One example is the
ability to take over drones. Most of the time you can’t get close
enough to download the code to control them.
In
other story notes:
I
loved the reveal of Professor Pyg as the serial killer. I totally
didn’t see that coming.
There
are several points where you get to play as someone other than
Batman, and they’re all great. There’s a Joker solo mission, and
also cooperative missions where Batman works with Catwoman, Robin,
and Nightwing where you switch characters on the fly. You also
control Azrael for specific challenges. The Harley Quinn and Red Hood
side stories are also very good. I could play a whole game as Harley.
Her mechanics and style are so much fun.
Side
Note: I suggested a “Battle for the Cowl” game as a follow-up to
this one and I think it’s a great idea. The only problem is that it
would probably end up being some kind of online multiplayer thing
with a concept like that. I’d prefer just switching between
multiple characters in an integrated storyline. There’s no reason
we couldn’t have this massive, open Gotham City combined with
gameplay similar to LEGO Batman 2.
Interesting theory on Barbara. I completed the game and am working on getting all the Riddler trophies right now, but until the 'reveal' of Jason as Arkham Knight I personally had the theory that it was Talia. They throw in a lot of 'boo hoo Talia's dead you're so sad' stuff that I thought it was all hints. Oh well, so much for overthinking.
ReplyDeleteI've balanced how I play the game (except for the excessive amount of Riddler Trophies - Jesus Christ does there have to be seventy thousand of those?!?!) and I feel the game flowed beautifully. But I can see it not being the case if someone were to skip side missions etc.
I also loved the inclusion of Professor Pyg. I wasn't sure if the mass murderer would turn out to be him or Dollmaker, but I was happy he was the one we got to meet in this last (yeah right) Gotham outing.
I've got fourteen Riddler items left and three mines. I'm having a heck of a time with the mines and with the time limit trophies where you have to race across the cities. I don;t mind the number of Riddler challenges, but the balance of difficulty is ridiculous.
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