What can I say? I'm a huge fan of Batman though really I'm a mega fan of Catwoman and Poison Ivy; anyway recently I got my hands on the delightfully and well anticipated Batman: Arkham Knight and yes my review does appear a bit late but what can you do when you are so into a game your hands near become glued to the controller?
So I will avoid as many spoilers as I can but just in case I can't control myself I'll be slapping a spoiler warning label on this bad boy.
Now to start out I loved the Arkham Asylum and City games but I was a little disappointed with Origins but what I did love was how Arkham Knight stuck to the same controls as City. The graphics certainly got boosted to an outstanding visual that is beauty in every form. The city appeared as gloomy as you'd expect it to be after the evacuation of over 6.3 million Gotham residents. The city was alive with it's famous dark themes and even had some retro look to it with the almost like 1950s posters and other pieces about the city.
The characters themselves move in natural fashion; from Batman's tough guy walk to the way the ladies sashay their hips. The first one of the villains you meet face to face is Poison Ivy and the design they gave her was perfect to her look. Honestly I thought the other look with her hair nearly jutting straight back like she was in some wind tunnel too long looked a bit awkward and funny but with this style she looked much more 'humanoid-plant' and not hurricane victim. Each voice actor played their parts beautifully in capturing the character's mood and position. When you're driving with Poison Ivy as your passenger since the bat mobile is a bit hard to steer, in my opinion, she comes out even questioning who taught Batman how to drive.
Scarecrow himself as we've seen in trailers and now the game looks so creepy now that it certainly fits his scare and fear persona to a point in the beginning when you have that fear scene it made my heat beat fast. And aside from Poison Ivy or Scarecrow the other characters had beautiful upgrades to their look making them appear like I could bump into them on the street they appeared so realistic. The skin had texture, the rain made Batman's suit wet and shiny from the water... there is so much I could go on forever.
Now what I did love most was the integration of the batmobile, and it was very useful too from using it as a fast driving means to get around on the streets to turning that puppy into a badass tank. But with all honesty I'm not too great a driver and at least the driving was not as bad as something like in Watch_Dogs. Don't even get me started on that game... Anyway, as I mentioned before the combat system was just like the Arkham City game which I still have and love. but because they stuck to that it made it far easier for me to get used to the buttons again because they were the same.
With the enemies one I believe is new was the ones who charge at you to tackle you to the ground. They are fairly easy to dodge; just watch for the red warning mark over their head and get out the way. Yet Batman brings in the devastating and brutal attacks we know him to have and I believe I get why the game had to be kicked to an M rating. There is a part where the Batmobile is used and shoots 3 men with bullets. Yes Batman actually killed three men with his car. (I thought he was against bullets and guns or killing people... hmm).
The game is fairly open world and gives you side quests like the others but organized them in a wheel to make it easier to pick from even showing a graphic about what your objective mission is. From Murder mysteries, hostage rescues, and more are there to let you move away from the main story and explore the open world of Gotham City. (Tip: to gain upgrades to your gear try doing some of the training so you become a master of that weapon and gain some points). Of course speaking of quests you also get a loaded arsenal of weapons from different batarangs to the exploding gel, and later a certain upgrade I thought was really nice but I'll avoid spoiling that for you aside from you get it about 3-5 missions into the game. The suit upgrade even leads to new amazing take downs and helps you deal heavier damage while taking less from normal hits. (Didn't seem changed with the bullets really).
The Batman Arkham game is living up to the hype of it, except for the PC launch, which was crashing and bugged so bad that Steam and the company took the game down. I honestly felt bad for the PC players who had to endure such an annoying hassle with the game and if they didn't also have it for console they were stuck to wait until it was fixed up, but the game on the consoles was playing smoothly and it felt like the fact recent PC versions of any game are coming out almost unplayable at times indicates that more work is going into certain aspects or platforms but the same attention to detail is being overlooked.
Either way if you have an Xbox One or Playstation 4, I recommend picking up the game. If you have a PC or are a pure PC gamer then waiting until everything is fixed then buying it would be best so you don't deal with the hassle the launch players had. I give the Arkham Knight game a 9.1/10 now this is because the upgrades at times and certain aspects felt unchanged or they felt in someway a touch clunky or awkward. Yet the game is a good buy if you're a big fan of the series.
[Game Over]
