Do you want to hear something funny?

Right, here we go then - my review of Arkham City.  T'is probably going to be short and sweet (especially compared with my previous rambling monologue on Batman!), though I may end up eating those words...

[As I said in the previous post, this will remain spoiler-free until clearly marked otherwise]

[Also, as an aside, the following EXCELLENT article uses Arkham City as an example, and so is vaguely, tangentially, related to this piece - go read it! http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2011/11/nerds-and-male-privilege/all/1/ ]

As a rough outline of the plot - Arkham Asylum is the prison-cum-psychiatric ward located on an island just offshore of Gotham City that houses most of Batman's villains (in the times between their sprees), and was the setting for (and name of) the first game.  In the intervening time, overcrowding in the prison has allowed the ex-prison-warden, now-mayor, Quincy Sharp, to convince the city council to wall off a portion of the city and house criminals there - thus, "Arkham City".  As a backdrop to the plot of the game, a turf war is brewing between gangs led by notable criminals Two-Face, Joker, and Penguin, with goons attacking one another almost as often as they do Batman.

First and foremost; this is a truly BRILLIANT game.  Judging from how fantastic its predecessor was, its quality would never in doubt - but Arkham City seems to have taken everything that was imperfect about AA and ironed it out.  I didn't think it was possible, but combat is even more fun, and challenging - in particular, the introduction of "Joker informants", who can be interrogated if they're the last hostile left conscious, adds a Batman-esque sense of "power under control" to proceedings.  Double counters, more effective gadget use (grappling-hook-ing an enemy towards you and clothes-lining him as he staggers will NEVER not be fun, and nor will lobbing an ice grenade that temporarily freezes a thug to the spot), and more challenging enemies all added to the variety and difficulty.  Although the controls differed slightly from those of AA, they immediately felt intuitive and natural.  The timing of recovery after gadget use in particular felt like it had been tweaked so as to make them more viable options.

Batman's interrogation procedures can sometimes be a little...intense...

On the topic of challenge in combat, a nice touch in AC was that grappling away to a convenient gargoyle isn't the get-out-of-bullet-flavoured-death-free card that it was in the previous game.  Yes, hiding in the rafters and gliding down to deliver the swift boot of justice to the back of the head is just as effective as ever it was, but if you're spotted, grappling away won't have thugs immediately exclaiming "I lost him!" in confusion, especially when they start getting smart enough to wear night-vision goggles.  This encourages you to be more careful in your engagements, prioritising stealth and isolation over speed, which has the nice twin benefits of a) making you think (and feel) more like Batman (arguably not a good thing in light of my previous post, but certainly enjoyable for short periods of time!), and b) showcasing the game's impressive array of stealth takedowns.  A boss fight in which you have to use a variety of stealth takedowns (diving through windows, popping through floor gratings, swinging from ledges, pulling from balconies, etc.), with each disabled after you use it once, showed that the dev team were keen to get people thinking about more creative ways to strike fear into the hearts of criminal scum.

Batman surveys the thugs below while in Detective Mode (see below)

In both games, you have the ability to activate "Detective Mode" - billed as the HUD that Batman can get through his cowl, it overlays your view with a blue wash and yellow wireframes around edges, highlights destructible areas, usable items, and, crucially, shows the location and armaments of enemies even through scenery.  In fact, in the first game, there was almost no reason to ever switch it off, which was a shame, as you missed out on a lot of the beautifully rendered textures of the game.  Through some mysterious process of game development that probably involved better signposting/highlighting in normal view, and decreased functionality in detective mode, but which I'm going to call "magic", the dev team successfully steered me (and, apparently, many other gamers) into using detective mode far less often - switching it on to size up a situation or plan an attack, then executing it in normal view.  This is all to the good - what's the point in having all those pretty textures if no-one ever sees them!

Who wants to see this in Detective Mode!?

One of the standout differences between this game and the previous one was the sheer size.  Instead of being constrained to a single small island, Bats is roaming around a good chunk of city, with a healthy underground section and a large number of enterable buildings.  Grappling up to a skyscraper and gliding halfway across the map - especially with the new additions in this game of dive-bombing (which can be used to gain momentum for a swooping pull-up, or to gain momentum to transfer to a thug's skull) and grappling boosts that launch you into the air above a ledge - give you a very enjoyable sense of being a shadowy menace.  Numerous side-quests scattered around the city (saving political prisoners from acts of violence, tracking down non-main-storyline villains, and the return of the infamous Riddler puzzles) make this feel very much like Grand Theft Batman - and I say that with the highest respect!

I am so glad that this picture already existed.  Internet, don't ever change.

The other notable difference from the previous game was the characterisation.  In Arkham Asylum, your interactions were basically with Oracle (Barbara Gordon, a computer hacker who serves as Batman's information broker through an audio link) and Joker, with a little time spent talking to Harley Quinn (Joker's assistant).  In this game, you get to interact with many of the major villains of the Batverse (Penguin, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze, Zsasz, Ra's al-Ghul, Bane, Hugo Strange, etc.), and also hear Robin and Alfred on the intercom as well as Oracle.  Moreover, those intercom conversations aren't simply "I need to know this data/ok, here it is" - at times, the Batfamily show their care and concern for Batman, with Alfred at one point going so far as to disable a homing beacon Bats has planted because he knows that, at the time, it's more important for Batman to rest up and heal before following his prey.  The emotion with which Barbara begs Bruce to prioritise his own health over ruthlessly pursuing his target - "Please, Bruce.  For me." - is truly touching.

It's not just the heroes who have excellent characterisation, though - the villains you interact with are all credible (or as credible as a supervillain can be!), well-acted, and a delight to listen to.  Mark Hamill has once again done a fantastic job of portraying the Joker's mania, with excellent script-writing, and the incidental dialogue that can be overheard between gang members can sometimes throw up some real gems.  Arleen Sorkin (from AA) was closer to my imagined voice of Harley Quinn (in AA) than Tara Strong (who voiced her in Arkham City), but that could be down to personal preference - they're both very good portrayals.

Could this be the best thing Mark Hamill's ever been in?

Ummm, I don't know, what else has he done...?

So, we have a game that's ironed out what few flaws its predecessor had, and introduced a vastly expanded world, with more heads to bash, more ways to do it, better acting, better storyline...why aren't I trumpeting this as the best game ever?  Should John Marston be quivering in his boots, worried that this will be replacing Red Dead Redemption as my favourite game of all time?  Well, I still haven't made my mind up, but writing this should be a good exercise in getting my thinking about it straight.  I have two main problems with the game - one spoiler-free (which will be detailed first), and one spoiler-y (I'll warn you when to look away).

So, spoiler-free problem.  It can be summed up in one word - Catwoman.  As part of the downloadable content for the game, there are sections that can be played as Catwoman, that tie in to the main storyline.  Almost everything about them is inferior to the main game - her combat feels more flimsy and jerky than The Dark Knight's, the objectives of her areas are simplistic (making each section feel "tacked on"), and her city-roaming is frustratingly handicapped when compared with Batman's flight.

What's more, I found her as a character to be almost insultingly pandering to the stereotype of nerds as only being interested in woman as sex objects.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of watching hot women doing athletic things wearing skimpy outfits, but everything about Catwoman's portrayal screamed "Hey, hey nerds, don't worry about the fact that everything about this character's sections are worse than the main games' - she has BOOBS!  Look at those BOOBS!  And she's making sexual innuendoes!  Bet you'd like to hear some more of them, huh?".  A fair amount of her special combat moves involve her kissing, straddling, or writhing around an opponent - one of her stealth takedowns involves, no joke, suffocating a thug with her crotch.  It was almost embarrassing.  Just as a particular example, if you hit "crouch" while running, you can duck and slide, to clear low openings (Indiana Jones style) or to knock the legs out from under a henchman.  Batman does so in almost perfect break-falling style, protecting himself, looking bad-ass and in control.  Catwoman drops to her knees, arches backwards, and gives the player a clear view down her top.  "LOOK AT DEM BOOBIES, NERDS".

Boobies.  She has them.  Therefore we're meant to forgive her inferiority everywhere else.  Great message, devs.

All of that I could forgive, were it not for her final section.  After a HIGHLY emotional ending sequence which was a logical and sensible ending point for the game, for some reason the devs felt it necessary to tack on a final Catwoman section which a) offered zero resolution to her own storyline OR impact on the main storyline, and b) was rounded off with the worst boss fight I have EVER played.  Honestly, after five or six attempts at stealthily picking off the guards one-by-one to get to the main villain, I realised that that "best" tactic was simply to run straight towards him before any guards had time to cock ("hee hee cock that's like a sex word, I'd sure like to hear Catwoman say that!") their weapons, and beat him to a pulp while watching his health drain faster than mine.  Urgh.  Oh, but it's ok, you know why?  Because this section began with her being caught in an explosion, so the devs had an excuse to show her (already-skimpy) catsuit torn to tatters.  Forget all about that epic main storyline you just finished and the emotional ending you want to dwell on, WE HAS MOAR FLESH FOR YOU, NERDS.

Maybe I'm being unfair for expecting game developers not to pander to the horny-teenage-boy market when they make video games about comic-book characters.  Maybe I'm being unfair in judging a game based on DLC (though, to be fair, it did come bundled for anyone who bought the game first-hand and the chapters are interwoven with the main plot, so a hefty proportion of players will have experienced this).  I guess I just expected better of a team who can so clearly deliver in every other aspect

[SPOILERS BELOW - I'll try to keep them moderate, but ending details must necessarily follow]

So, the other reason that I'm demurring from naming this teh bestest game of all timez evar?  That ending I've been referring to so much, and the five minutes preceding it.  Immediately after climbing to the top of a skyscraper and confronting Hugo Strange, who you've been led to believe has been the Big Bad throughout (framing you and getting you thrown into Arkham City, arming the inmates, psycho-conditioning the guards to be loyal only to him, using said guards to begin exterminating the inmates, etc.), you find that all along he's been a pawn of Ra's al-Ghul, an Arabic eco-terrorist who, among other things, has access to "Lazarus Pits", super-charged spa treatments that completely rejuvenate and/or reincarnate the user - he has thus been alive and active for several centuries.  As the top of the tower explodes, and Ra's and Batman plummet downwards, Batman impales Ra's with his own sword and steers him so that he'll land on spiked railings. [If you're not a comics nerd, feel free to skip to the next paragraph here...] Maybe I'm being picky here, but remember how I was talking about certain immutable facts of canon in my last post?  Batman does not kill.  It's one of the fundamental parts of his character.  Yes, Ra's' followers will inevitably reincarnate him soon, but that's not the point; the point is that Batman does not end life.  What's more, in this conversation afterwards with Oracle, he appears almost flippant about breaking his own single rule - "Let's just say that he'll need a visit to a Lazarus Pit".  This would be even less jarring if it weren't for the numerous times previously in the game that Batman's been tempted to kill Ra's - hell, Ra's even dared him to do it himself a number of times!  And there's even more - though I'm not 100% sure I recall this properly, I'm pretty sure that Batman's conversation with Oracle shortly after his first encounter with Ra's has him talking about Ra's "using some substance called Lazarus that he's mining under Gotham to rejuvenate himself", meaning that a) the technology is new to Bats in this timeline, and b) he's unaware of its potential.  I.e. that he didn't know that it could bring people back from the dead.  I.e. that he straight up just killed a dude in cold blood.  Even if I've misremembered that and Batman was aware of the possibility of resurrection all along, unlocked backstory text (I haven't found it yet, but I'm citing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Pit#In_other_media) suggests that, in this continuity, the Gotham Lazarus Pit is the only Lazarus Pit.  Since that's destroyed shortly afterwards in the final boss fights, Bats had better get used to living with a death on his conscience.

tl;dr - Batman killed a guy and that's bad.

I expertly doctored this image, can you tell!?

Shortly after Batman flippant dismissal of having MURDERED A MAN TO DEATH, we're treated to a phone call from the Joker insisting that you meet him in the Monarch Theatre (nerds are wetting themselves with excitement here - everyone else, the Monarch Theatre is, in some continuities, the location the Waynes are leaving when they are killed).  Cue a STUPENDOUS ramp up in difficulty as the theatre is guarded by ten or so night-vision-googled snipers who are VASTLY better spotters than any of the previous guards.  I don't mind difficulty in games - indeed, I was pleasantly surprised to find that some of the new variant thugs were more difficult to deal with than in the previous game - but when I'd actually been finding the rest of the game, on average, slightly easier than I'd found Arkham Asylum on first play through, such a large jump was jarring.

After finally managing to get into the theatre, the big twist of the game is revealed (I'm not going to spoil that!), and a pretty decent boss bottle leads to an end cinematic in which the Lazarus Pit (remember that?) is destroyed.  Now, back it up a second - what I haven't mentioned throughout all this article is that Joker is dying of some unknown disease caused by his overexposure to a chemical compound in the previous game, and he infects Batman with it near the beginning of the game as an impetus for Bats to find a cure.  During this end cinematic, Bats drinks a portion of the antidote, then debates with himself whether to cure Joker (while Joker taunts him from the shadows).  Suddenly Joker leaps from the shadows to attack him, causing him to stumble and drop the antidote vial, which drains away.  As Joker kneels on the floor, defeated, Batman says "Do you want to hear something funny?  Even now, after all this...I still would have saved you", as Joker lays down and dies.  The next scene shows Batman walking out of the building, cradling Joker's dead body in his arms, laying it on the bonnet of a cop car (as Commissioner Gordon asks "Batman, what happened in there?"), and walking off.

Yup, this happened...

I really, really don't know how I feel about this ending.  On the one hand, the Arkham games have never claimed to fall within any other continuity, and they're perfectly free to create their own storylines - and this is certainly a damn dramatic and emotional one.  On the other, there are at least two serious (and related) hints in the game that a sequel is planned, and I just don't know how they're going to generate any menace without the Joker on the bad guys' side.  As I explained (at nauseating length) in my previous post, Bats and Joker really riff off one another, and it's really hard to imagine anyone else filling those shoes in the main antagonist role.  I'm not saying that it can't be done - I'm just saying it could be a disappointment.

Having had a good 24 hours to mull the ending over, though, I realise it's nowhere near as bad as I initially thought.  I was suffering from comic-book syndrome, analysing the story not just in itself but also in its context in a broader narrative ("how will this affect future stories?").  My dislike sprang, not from the ending itself, but from its implications for future stories.  Once I got past my gut reaction of saying "Joker can't die!" and started thinking "why not?", I realised quite what an emotive button had been pushed.

Nevertheless, I still come up shy of declaring this an RDR-beater.  It is a truly fantastic slice of gaming, with numerous inspired moments, and well worth anybody's time and money - but, as someone for whom story will always be more important than gameplay (assuming both are of a high standard), and considering that RDR created from scratch a character who made me teary on more than one occasion, it still holds the number one slot.  Arkham City's gameplay certainly outshadows RDR's, but, on reflection, its storyline contained only two original points - one of which I've already stated my disgust with, and the other, though highly emotive, remains unfulfilled until a possible next game.  Opinions, of course, will vary.

Argh it's late and my writing has degraded.  Sorry bout that.  Feel free to write thoughts and opinions in the comments below, I'd love to hear what anyone who's played this game thinks, or if anyone who hasn't is even vaguely interested in my ramblings.  If you're going to discuss spoilerific details, though, please mark it as such at the beginning of your post, in consideration for others.