Batman: Arkham City

The critically acclaimed sequel to 2009's Batman: Arkham Asylum

Featuring a greatly expanded open world environment, as well as offering the ability to play as multiple characters, Batman: Arkham City builds upon the enormous success of Batman: Arkham Asylum. As the name suggests, the story takes place in Arkham City; a super prison built within Gotham City, with Hugo Strange serving as the prison's warden. Batman, incarcerated in the facility, must uncover the mystery behind a plot called 'Protocol 10'.

Voice actors Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill return to their roles as Batman and The Joker, respectively. The plot continues on from its predecessor, although newcomers to the series will be able to pick up and play the game without too many issues. The game received numerous awards from media outlets, with many considering it to be among the finest video games ever made. So does it really live up to the hype?

Improvements

Those who played Arkham Asylum will find the basic gameplay familiar, albeit with several improvements having been made along the way. It remains a third-person action adventure game and takes place in an open world environment, which is significantly larger than that found in the previous game.

One of the few criticisms aimed at Arkham Asylum was that its free-flowing combat system was somewhat repetitive after a while. With Arkham City, that situation has been resolved thanks to an enhanced counter system, the ability to use gadgets in combat and the addition of Catwoman as a playable character.

Indeed, during the sections of the game where the player is in control of Catwoman, it is noticeable that her movements and fighting style are different, adding great variety and making the two characters feel completely distinctive. The downloadable add-on story, 'Harley Quinn's Revenge', also allows players to take control of Batman's long-time sidekick, Robin, who also feels completely unique.

Open World Gameplay

The main storyline centres around Batman's quest to learn about the mysterious 'Protocol 10' and prevent it from being implemented. However, while Hugo Strange serves as the game's primary villain, the story includes various familiar foes along the way, including The Joker, Harley Quinn, The Riddler, Poison Ivy and Bane.

In addition to the main plot, the game also includes a number of side missions, which allow the player to break the story up a bit and which really help to add to the open world nature of the gameplay. In total, the main story takes around 20 hours to complete, while the side missions should add at least another 10 hours on top of that.

Further Information

Visually, Batman: Arkham City is extremely impressive; the comic book world has been brought to life with stunning 3D character models and superbly detailed environments. The developers have shown great attention to detail, with Batman's costume becoming increasingly damaged as the story develops, while the voice acting is exceptional.

Those who enjoyed the Riddler Challenges in Arkham Asylum will be pleased to know that they are back and have been greatly enhanced, with more than 400 challenges to solve, including some that can only be solved by Catwoman. Challenge maps also return, giving the game a shelf life far longer than that of the main storyline. Batman, Catwoman and Robin are all playable characters for this particular game mode.

Finally, committed Batman fans will be delighted to learn that there are various alternative costumes available for download, changing the outfits of the main characters to those worn in graphic novels like The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Earth One, or to those seen in the TV shows Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond.

Pros

• Features a greatly expanded open world environment
• Improvements made to the combat system make it less repetitive
• Excellent plot and a variety of side quests keep the player entertained for hours
• The Catwoman sections make for a great addition

Cons

• Some players may find themselves frustrated by the sheer number of Riddler Challenges