STORY
[1] Arkham City's story is joyless and devoid of wonder. It begins with Bruce Wayne being arrested and imprisoned in a walled-off section of poorer Gotham City. After Joker infected himself with the Titan formula at the end of Arkham Asylum, it mutated into a fatal disease in his blood. The clown gives Batman a blood transfusion [2], infecting him with the virus. Apparently, they have the same blood type. He wants to spread the virus throughout Gotham.
[1] Opening.mkv
[2] blood_transfusion.mp4
[1] In the museum chapter, Batman frees Penguin's captive Mr. Freeze for a cure to the virus. I can't remember why Freeze agreed to make a cure for Joker. They have almost nothing in common. [2] Anyway, after Freeze tells Batman that he first needs his suit back, Batman informs Freeze that Penguin is protecting himself with his ice gun. He does not tell Freeze that the suit is unprotected in the north wing where he just came from, and Freeze does not call out his dishonesty later. [3] Penguin having Freeze's ice gun has nothing to do with Freeze needing his suit. Calling it dishonesty is obviously too generous to the writing and game design. Batman goes back to the north wing and takes the disruptor from Freeze's suit [4], which lets him disable Penguin's ice gun in the Iceberg Lounge, which is in the west wing. [5] After a fight with Solomon Grundy, whose presence may confuse casual comic book fans because he doesn't even get a story, Mr. Freeze tells Batman that he can easily make a cure, but it needs a restorative enzyme. This makes Batman think of the immortal Ra's al Ghul, whose minion (in writing only a child could come up with) just happens to be in a display case in the same room. [6] He tracks her to Ra's and the League of Assassins, in the old Wonder City.
[1] where_is_the_cure.mkv
[2] Freeze_freed.mp4
[3] liar_batman.png
[4] Freeze's_disruptor.mkv
[5] Ice_gun_and_Solomon_Grundy.mkv
[6] Mr._Freeze_to_Ra's_al_Ghul.mkv
Penguin and Freeze have little if anything to do with the game's main villains: Joker and Hugo Strange, the warden of Arkham City. Nor do Two-Face [1] and Poison Ivy [2], who appear in other chapters. Even though the game is not long, the coming and going of all these characters turns parts of the story into prolonged slogs, as you try to remember how your current task was supposed to lead to Batman's goal. Solomon Grundy's appearance is [3] probably the most offensive. No scenes before or after the fight. I would have rather fought that anamatronic dinosaur at the entrance of the museum [4], than see Grundy used and dumped like that, and I don't even particularly care about the character [5]. If the writers wanted an ensemble of villains and good structure, then they should have split each game into loosely connected episodes, some of which could have featured other protagonists, namely Robin and Batgirl. Episodes exploring different genres and tones, like campy adventure, horror and comedy.
[1] Two-Face.mkv
[2] Character designs > Ivy_1.mp4
[3] Solomon_Grundy_fight.mkv
[4] T-rex_1.mp4
[5] Animated series > T-rex_(Mean_Seasons).mkv
Before Batman finds Wonder City, Robin gives him the Line Launcher. [1] This ninety second appearance is his first in the Arkham series. As if the structure wasn't already messy enough, he would not be seen again until Harley Quinn's Revenge, the brief story DLC for Arkham City.
[1] Pursuing_assassin,_meeting_Robin,_Line_Launcher.mp4
Ra's al Ghul is poorly used [1]. The material had already been covered in other media like the animated series, possibly dabbling in the same continuity, judging from how well Batman knows Ra's and his daughter Talia. Again the 600-year-old father asks Batman to take his place and again he threatens to kill his daughter. I wouldn't have minded this retelling of the story if Batman had encountered Ra's and his League of Assassins for the first time. Watching Talia and Batman's relationship develop sounds more interesting to me than coming in years later, after some events that you read or watched in the comics or cartoons already happened but others, like Ra's threatening to kill her, apparently did not. It speaks to a bigger problem with the Arkham games: that Batman already knows almost all of the characters and fans can't tell what they have already been through together. Regardless, this whole Ra's al Ghul story would have worked better as a standalone adventure that took Batman out of Gotham City for once.
Much of the chapter is a hallucination of sorts. I think the main problem with the cliche video game hallucinations and dreams that became so common after Arkham Asylum and Far Cry 3 is that they are simultaneously too real and alien. The mechanics and movement of the character are barely different from the character's waking, sobre experiences, while the landscapes are too bizarre to draw from them. I have never played a video game dream and thought for a second that the character was awake. It's never subtle [2][3].
The end of the Ra's al Ghul hallucination highlights some of the poorer boss design of this series. The combat that you've used for hours is largely thrown out the window. You now shoot the electric gun through gaps in Ra's' spinning defense and try to roll away from his giant swords by double-tapping the run button. When you fought normal enemies, Batman started running automatically once the combo was active, but boss fights don't have so many opportunities for combos. Instead, you continuously hold that run button down with the side of your index finger, while navigating the camera with your thumb. I have always played these games with a mouse and keyboard. The forced walking would have driven me mad if I couldn't make Batman run by holding the Spacebar down with my unused thumb. It's easier to spam the electrical charges than to time them. For the other halves of the fight, you battle a bunch of fakes and roll away before the real Ra's can attack you. Each stage of the boss features a checkpoint that brings you back with full health, in part because the developers KNEW the design was too weird and would set players up for failure after the game did not establish the style of play earlier.
[1] Ra's_al_Ghul_chapter_and_fight.mp4
[2] animated series scenes > Perchance_to_Dream_1.mkv
[3] animated series scenes > Perchance_to_Dream_2.mkv
It becomes obvious not long after leaving Wonder City that Strange is Ra's al Ghul's puppet [1][2]. Their motivations are similar and the game leaves so many hints [3]. Ra's dies two minutes after the revelation, wasting the setup with little pay-off [4]. Learning that Ra's was behind it essentially doesn't change anything for Batman. There's no new obstacle for him in Ra's, no next chapter in that part of the story.
[1] hints_about_Ra's_controlling_Strange_1.mp4
[2] hints_about_Ra's_controlling_Strange_1.mkv
[3] How_predictable_indeed.mkv
[4] Strange_and_Ra's_defeated.mp4
It's good that the game is almost over at this point, because the simplistic fights became rote a while ago.
Minutes later we get the ending, with another revelation: Joker was actually Clayface, some of the time. We are never told why Clayface helped Joker. This is his first appearance in the game. Did I mention that this story has too many villains? The Clayface fight is similar to the Ra's al Ghul fight. Just spam the gadget as much as you can, roll away from his long range attacks and mash through the crowd [1].
[1] Clayface_fight.mkv
Even to the very end, Batman won't kill Joker [1]. Yet he was perfectly happy to drop goons on their heads from several meters up and explode them with gel and their own mines. They were only unconscious. Probably. Strict pacifism has no place in a video game about Batman. There are too many things that can happen to his opponents. You wouldn't want them to bounce off invisible walls when you're on a rooftop or high catwalk [2]. Having Batman automatically catch them with a rope would only disrupt the action. Since there is no way to believably save every opponent, the story should mostly ignore that aspect of Batman. If he kills a few, it's for a greater good [3][4]. Even if the man you just let fall from a rooftop never committed any serious crimes and was not involved in some evil plan, it would be better to score the player more negatively at the end of the game or call the player out on it like the Metal Gear Solid games used to than to save the man by restricting the physics.
[1] The_ending.mkv
[2] invisible_wall.mkv
[3] Batman_89_kills.mkv
[4] Batman_Returns_kill.mkv
Conveniently, every single regular enemy that Batman defeats loses consciousness [1]. Could the developers not leave some writhing and quietly moaning on the floor?
[1] unconscious.mkv
Do we really need dialogue and cutscenes injected every two minutes? [1] There is so little freedom in the Arkham games, because of the importance placed on the story and the constant exposition.
[1] Cinematic_games.mp4
Also, it's probably not a good idea to have enemies talk so much and let the player hear them all from afar over Batman's earphones if you only have a few voice actors for them. They all sound the same. Almost everything they talk about involves the characters and story, as if none of them have personalities or interests.
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SIDE QUESTS
The overworld feels rather dead after the story is over, with the chaptered side quests not amounting to much.
One quest has you listening for ringing payphones, tracing the serial killer Zsasz as he talks about himself and then rushing to his last location, in a series that feels endless. [1][2]
[1] zsasz_hunted.mkv
[2] zsasz_completed.mp4
The Deadshot story is similar in its repetition. You investigate the scene of a dead body, track where the sniper shot came from and then maybe find a clue there, before the cycle is repeated some place else. When you finally face off against him, all you have to do is sneak up as his laser sight slowly circles the area and take him from a conveniently placed floor grill. [3][4]
[3] Deadshot_hunt.mkv
[4] Deadshot_fight.mp4
You would expect an encounter with the Mad Hatter to be more thoughtful, but the only gameplay is simply another brawl, in a world as bizarre as the Ra's al Ghul hallucination. Why is it that a television program can tell a story like "Perchance to Dream," but video game developers take the same villain, a manipulator of the mind, and only think of the most insane, overt visuals? Like I said earlier, video game dreams and hallucinations are never subtle. [5][6]
[5] Mad_Hatter_fight.mkv
[6] Animated series scenes > Perchance_to_Dream_3.mkv
The gory Identity Thief quest doesn't have an ending. Hush leaves his hideout, locking Batman inside. Even though it takes Batman only twelve seconds to unlock the door, he prefers to speak with Oracle a while as the sadistic serial killer gets away. He closes the case before leaving the hideout, having already decided that he can't track him like he did several others earlier in the game. [7][8]
[7] Identity_Thief.mkv
[8] Identity_Thief_end.mkv
Another quest has you destroy all the Titan containers for Bane. When you return to him, you are both ambushed and fight together to protect the remaining Titan. He reuses all the animations and attacks from the couple of Titans you fought earlier. He betrays you, but there's no second half where you fight HIM, because the developers weren't going to build another boss fight for content few players will get to. [9][10]
[9] Bane_quest_1.mp4
[10] Bane_quest_2.mp4
Fewer still will be dedicated enough to collect all the Riddler trophies, save the last of his hostages and defeat him. The final hostages are not even part of a challenge like the five previous ones, since Riddler doesn't expect you for once. You simply move behind the hostages, who have been forced to walk for hours, and then watch as Batman pulls their captor through the floor. It reminded me of the useless reward for getting all 120 stars in Super Mario 64. More for its notoriety, since I still found the process of completing the game funner than what Riddler offered in that depressing city. The stars weren't all revealed on some map for me. [11][12][13][14]
[11] Riddler's_final_challenge_intro.mp4
[12] Riddler's_final_challenge.mp4
[13] Riddler_encounter.mp4
[14] Super_Mario_64_reward.mp4
Overall, the quests are too simplistic to justify the open world.
[1] Arkham City's story is joyless and devoid of wonder. It begins with Bruce Wayne being arrested and imprisoned in a walled-off section of poorer Gotham City. After Joker infected himself with the Titan formula at the end of Arkham Asylum, it mutated into a fatal disease in his blood. The clown gives Batman a blood transfusion [2], infecting him with the virus. Apparently, they have the same blood type. He wants to spread the virus throughout Gotham.
[1] Opening.mkv
[2] blood_transfusion.mp4
[1] In the museum chapter, Batman frees Penguin's captive Mr. Freeze for a cure to the virus. I can't remember why Freeze agreed to make a cure for Joker. They have almost nothing in common. [2] Anyway, after Freeze tells Batman that he first needs his suit back, Batman informs Freeze that Penguin is protecting himself with his ice gun. He does not tell Freeze that the suit is unprotected in the north wing where he just came from, and Freeze does not call out his dishonesty later. [3] Penguin having Freeze's ice gun has nothing to do with Freeze needing his suit. Calling it dishonesty is obviously too generous to the writing and game design. Batman goes back to the north wing and takes the disruptor from Freeze's suit [4], which lets him disable Penguin's ice gun in the Iceberg Lounge, which is in the west wing. [5] After a fight with Solomon Grundy, whose presence may confuse casual comic book fans because he doesn't even get a story, Mr. Freeze tells Batman that he can easily make a cure, but it needs a restorative enzyme. This makes Batman think of the immortal Ra's al Ghul, whose minion (in writing only a child could come up with) just happens to be in a display case in the same room. [6] He tracks her to Ra's and the League of Assassins, in the old Wonder City.
[1] where_is_the_cure.mkv
[2] Freeze_freed.mp4
[3] liar_batman.png
[4] Freeze's_disruptor.mkv
[5] Ice_gun_and_Solomon_Grundy.mkv
[6] Mr._Freeze_to_Ra's_al_Ghul.mkv
Penguin and Freeze have little if anything to do with the game's main villains: Joker and Hugo Strange, the warden of Arkham City. Nor do Two-Face [1] and Poison Ivy [2], who appear in other chapters. Even though the game is not long, the coming and going of all these characters turns parts of the story into prolonged slogs, as you try to remember how your current task was supposed to lead to Batman's goal. Solomon Grundy's appearance is [3] probably the most offensive. No scenes before or after the fight. I would have rather fought that anamatronic dinosaur at the entrance of the museum [4], than see Grundy used and dumped like that, and I don't even particularly care about the character [5]. If the writers wanted an ensemble of villains and good structure, then they should have split each game into loosely connected episodes, some of which could have featured other protagonists, namely Robin and Batgirl. Episodes exploring different genres and tones, like campy adventure, horror and comedy.
[1] Two-Face.mkv
[2] Character designs > Ivy_1.mp4
[3] Solomon_Grundy_fight.mkv
[4] T-rex_1.mp4
[5] Animated series > T-rex_(Mean_Seasons).mkv
Before Batman finds Wonder City, Robin gives him the Line Launcher. [1] This ninety second appearance is his first in the Arkham series. As if the structure wasn't already messy enough, he would not be seen again until Harley Quinn's Revenge, the brief story DLC for Arkham City.
[1] Pursuing_assassin,_meeting_Robin,_Line_Launcher.mp4
Ra's al Ghul is poorly used [1]. The material had already been covered in other media like the animated series, possibly dabbling in the same continuity, judging from how well Batman knows Ra's and his daughter Talia. Again the 600-year-old father asks Batman to take his place and again he threatens to kill his daughter. I wouldn't have minded this retelling of the story if Batman had encountered Ra's and his League of Assassins for the first time. Watching Talia and Batman's relationship develop sounds more interesting to me than coming in years later, after some events that you read or watched in the comics or cartoons already happened but others, like Ra's threatening to kill her, apparently did not. It speaks to a bigger problem with the Arkham games: that Batman already knows almost all of the characters and fans can't tell what they have already been through together. Regardless, this whole Ra's al Ghul story would have worked better as a standalone adventure that took Batman out of Gotham City for once.
Much of the chapter is a hallucination of sorts. I think the main problem with the cliche video game hallucinations and dreams that became so common after Arkham Asylum and Far Cry 3 is that they are simultaneously too real and alien. The mechanics and movement of the character are barely different from the character's waking, sobre experiences, while the landscapes are too bizarre to draw from them. I have never played a video game dream and thought for a second that the character was awake. It's never subtle [2][3].
The end of the Ra's al Ghul hallucination highlights some of the poorer boss design of this series. The combat that you've used for hours is largely thrown out the window. You now shoot the electric gun through gaps in Ra's' spinning defense and try to roll away from his giant swords by double-tapping the run button. When you fought normal enemies, Batman started running automatically once the combo was active, but boss fights don't have so many opportunities for combos. Instead, you continuously hold that run button down with the side of your index finger, while navigating the camera with your thumb. I have always played these games with a mouse and keyboard. The forced walking would have driven me mad if I couldn't make Batman run by holding the Spacebar down with my unused thumb. It's easier to spam the electrical charges than to time them. For the other halves of the fight, you battle a bunch of fakes and roll away before the real Ra's can attack you. Each stage of the boss features a checkpoint that brings you back with full health, in part because the developers KNEW the design was too weird and would set players up for failure after the game did not establish the style of play earlier.
[1] Ra's_al_Ghul_chapter_and_fight.mp4
[2] animated series scenes > Perchance_to_Dream_1.mkv
[3] animated series scenes > Perchance_to_Dream_2.mkv
It becomes obvious not long after leaving Wonder City that Strange is Ra's al Ghul's puppet [1][2]. Their motivations are similar and the game leaves so many hints [3]. Ra's dies two minutes after the revelation, wasting the setup with little pay-off [4]. Learning that Ra's was behind it essentially doesn't change anything for Batman. There's no new obstacle for him in Ra's, no next chapter in that part of the story.
[1] hints_about_Ra's_controlling_Strange_1.mp4
[2] hints_about_Ra's_controlling_Strange_1.mkv
[3] How_predictable_indeed.mkv
[4] Strange_and_Ra's_defeated.mp4
It's good that the game is almost over at this point, because the simplistic fights became rote a while ago.
Minutes later we get the ending, with another revelation: Joker was actually Clayface, some of the time. We are never told why Clayface helped Joker. This is his first appearance in the game. Did I mention that this story has too many villains? The Clayface fight is similar to the Ra's al Ghul fight. Just spam the gadget as much as you can, roll away from his long range attacks and mash through the crowd [1].
[1] Clayface_fight.mkv
Even to the very end, Batman won't kill Joker [1]. Yet he was perfectly happy to drop goons on their heads from several meters up and explode them with gel and their own mines. They were only unconscious. Probably. Strict pacifism has no place in a video game about Batman. There are too many things that can happen to his opponents. You wouldn't want them to bounce off invisible walls when you're on a rooftop or high catwalk [2]. Having Batman automatically catch them with a rope would only disrupt the action. Since there is no way to believably save every opponent, the story should mostly ignore that aspect of Batman. If he kills a few, it's for a greater good [3][4]. Even if the man you just let fall from a rooftop never committed any serious crimes and was not involved in some evil plan, it would be better to score the player more negatively at the end of the game or call the player out on it like the Metal Gear Solid games used to than to save the man by restricting the physics.
[1] The_ending.mkv
[2] invisible_wall.mkv
[3] Batman_89_kills.mkv
[4] Batman_Returns_kill.mkv
Conveniently, every single regular enemy that Batman defeats loses consciousness [1]. Could the developers not leave some writhing and quietly moaning on the floor?
[1] unconscious.mkv
Do we really need dialogue and cutscenes injected every two minutes? [1] There is so little freedom in the Arkham games, because of the importance placed on the story and the constant exposition.
[1] Cinematic_games.mp4
Also, it's probably not a good idea to have enemies talk so much and let the player hear them all from afar over Batman's earphones if you only have a few voice actors for them. They all sound the same. Almost everything they talk about involves the characters and story, as if none of them have personalities or interests.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SIDE QUESTS
The overworld feels rather dead after the story is over, with the chaptered side quests not amounting to much.
One quest has you listening for ringing payphones, tracing the serial killer Zsasz as he talks about himself and then rushing to his last location, in a series that feels endless. [1][2]
[1] zsasz_hunted.mkv
[2] zsasz_completed.mp4
The Deadshot story is similar in its repetition. You investigate the scene of a dead body, track where the sniper shot came from and then maybe find a clue there, before the cycle is repeated some place else. When you finally face off against him, all you have to do is sneak up as his laser sight slowly circles the area and take him from a conveniently placed floor grill. [3][4]
[3] Deadshot_hunt.mkv
[4] Deadshot_fight.mp4
You would expect an encounter with the Mad Hatter to be more thoughtful, but the only gameplay is simply another brawl, in a world as bizarre as the Ra's al Ghul hallucination. Why is it that a television program can tell a story like "Perchance to Dream," but video game developers take the same villain, a manipulator of the mind, and only think of the most insane, overt visuals? Like I said earlier, video game dreams and hallucinations are never subtle. [5][6]
[5] Mad_Hatter_fight.mkv
[6] Animated series scenes > Perchance_to_Dream_3.mkv
The gory Identity Thief quest doesn't have an ending. Hush leaves his hideout, locking Batman inside. Even though it takes Batman only twelve seconds to unlock the door, he prefers to speak with Oracle a while as the sadistic serial killer gets away. He closes the case before leaving the hideout, having already decided that he can't track him like he did several others earlier in the game. [7][8]
[7] Identity_Thief.mkv
[8] Identity_Thief_end.mkv
Another quest has you destroy all the Titan containers for Bane. When you return to him, you are both ambushed and fight together to protect the remaining Titan. He reuses all the animations and attacks from the couple of Titans you fought earlier. He betrays you, but there's no second half where you fight HIM, because the developers weren't going to build another boss fight for content few players will get to. [9][10]
[9] Bane_quest_1.mp4
[10] Bane_quest_2.mp4
Fewer still will be dedicated enough to collect all the Riddler trophies, save the last of his hostages and defeat him. The final hostages are not even part of a challenge like the five previous ones, since Riddler doesn't expect you for once. You simply move behind the hostages, who have been forced to walk for hours, and then watch as Batman pulls their captor through the floor. It reminded me of the useless reward for getting all 120 stars in Super Mario 64. More for its notoriety, since I still found the process of completing the game funner than what Riddler offered in that depressing city. The stars weren't all revealed on some map for me. [11][12][13][14]
[11] Riddler's_final_challenge_intro.mp4
[12] Riddler's_final_challenge.mp4
[13] Riddler_encounter.mp4
[14] Super_Mario_64_reward.mp4
Overall, the quests are too simplistic to justify the open world.
