Arkham City is a videogame developed by Rocksteady Studio and produced by Warner Brothers in late 2011. Batman is probably WB's most popular videogame IP right now, next to its Lego games. However, unless you're ten then you might not care about those. That said, Lego City Undercover was ok.
Anyway, Arkham City is set after Arkham Asylum and Arkham Origins, out later this year, is set before both. Confused? Good.
Unlike Arkham Asylum, the game is largely open world with mission hubs available to go to at your own leisure in order to continue the story. But that's about where the serious innovation ends. It's still stealth-infused with combat mechanics more addictive than codeine. The idea is that you build up combos and hit harder and harder. The combo ends if you get hit.Most of the time you'll be outnumbered so that button mashing simply isn't a viable option. You need to time your attacks and parry/return enemy attacks.
It feels like proper fighting. Not Michael J. Fox getting lost in a Michael Jackson "Thriller" video like in many other games.
It's also got a bunch of collectibles. But not awful collectibles which improve your attack strength or give you an advantage over enemies, potentially breaking the game. They unlock concept art and full scale models of enemies and characters in the game which you can look at in the trophy room and pan around 360 degrees.
Another thing about Arkham City is the fact that you can steam music from your PS3 WHILST playing the game. This is the only game I know which allows you to do that. And it will stop when a cutscene triggers, joyfully.
I find it makes combat much more intense. Or maybe that's just my music taste.
The game is also very well designed. There's no one bad guy, even thought the Joker and Hugo Strange are the "big bads", there's a bunch of other villains around. The entire city is basically a big prison block in which the villains can just go around doing villainous things and the city is divided to show that. There's a big icy section around Mr Freeze's building, Jungle vines around Poison Ivy's area, Clown stuff around Jokers section and Penguin is in a casino. All boss fights are engaging and aren't your run-of-the-mill "He's got a massive healthbar, hit him repeatedly until he doesn't" kind of bosses.
There's also cameos from a bunch of other characters including Calender Man, Killer Croc, Bane (Not Tom Hardy. Proper mutant-y Bane.) and Azrael. And that's just off the top of my head.
You can also play as Robin and Catwoman. Both have their own different talents, but they're not quite Batman and tend to get beaten to death an awful lot during their respective sections. Oh and Nightwing. Haven't played as him. Can't comment.
The story is pretty fun, there's lots of different sections and a lot for Batman fans, both old and new.
You can also get experience points and upgrade your equipment when you level up. Because every game that is an open world sandbox also needs RPG mechanics. Clearly.
There are also gadgets, similar to the ones in Arkham Asylum, which you receive at various points throughout the game. Some are returning ones with new uses and some are brand new.
So yeah, it's a pretty fun game.
Sorry it's from, like, 2011. But you can't have everything. I can't review new things every week. A man needs to eat.
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