BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT

jackcooper98
Mar 16, 2016
6 min read

People of Gotham, this is your only warning. Abandon this city, or I shall unleash your greatest fears.

Who else read that in Scarecrow’s voice?

I love the Arkham games as much as the next person. They’re the peak of hero games, and they won’t be beaten as a series for some time to come. They showed not only that hero games can work, but also that they can be masterpieces. Asylum was good. City was great. Knight is…yeah.

Don’t get me wrong, the game has great moments, much like the other entries into the series. Even I’ll admit there are thing about Origins I really like. But when the previous game is Arkham City, you’re always going to struggle to make a better game. City was, after all, really fucking good. Knight has a lot of stuff that could’ve been improved. Like, a lot of stuff. But also some high points for the series overall.

Arkham Knight kicks off about a year after the events of Arkham City. Scarecrow has returned after his defeat at Arkham Asylum, and has united Batman’s enemies in one last bid to destroy him. Aiding Scarecrow is the mysterious and deadly ‘Arkham Knight’. That’s this guy:

After Oracle is taken by the Knight’s forces, Batman goes on a one man punching spree to save her and Gotham City from his greatest enemies, and rid his city of Scarecrow's fear toxin and the Arkham Knight.

I’m going to get the bad stuff out the way now. The first problem I, and a lot of players had, was the complete lack of boss battles. Counting the campaign alone, and no Most Wanted missions, there’s one. Maybe two at a push. And even then, they’re nowhere near as good as the old ones. Why Rocksteady decided Arkham Knight should have no boss battles is a mystery. They were a great, and fundamental part of the other games. Mr Freeze anyone? Even when you do count the Most Wanted missions, those boss battles consist of pressing about one button, so they can’t really be counted either. It’s a great shame, because, even as Batman, punching normal thugs gets old after a while.

My second problem, and one shared almost universally, was the Batmobile. What?! Treachery! Blasphemy! Calm down. If rocksteady had kept the Batmobile as a car, and not much more, players probably wouldn’t have a problem with it After all, who wouldn’t love to drive that thing round? But, for some reason, they decided to turn it into a tank. A nice feature to begin with, but, firstly, it’s a bit too Nolan-y, and second, when you’re forced to fight through tank battle after tank battle, you’ll just get bored and frustrated. I know I did.

The problems from here on could form a small list. Oh look, they have. 1) The game was incomplete on launch, an annoying theme that seems to have popped up in several franchises over the past year. Free DLC is still being added, almost a year later. Rocksteady clearly weren’t ready for launch, even after it got pushed back a few months. 2) It’s still unplayable on PC. As a console gamer, I both laugh at and feel sympathy for PC users. Hehehe. 3) If you can’t figure out who the villain with a partly red suit, similar training to Batman’s, uses guns and hates him for something that happened in the past, you’re not a Batman fan. The rest of us saw it coming a mile off, meaning the reveal wasn’t as good as it could’ve been. 4) Also, Batman alienates all of his allies and never once even thinks about calling the Justice League.

Ok. Now…The Good stuff.

The graphics are brilliant. While the other games in the series had good graphics, these…These are great. Rocksteady have clearly not taken any shortcuts here, and everything from the dystopia that is Gotham to the Dark Knight himself looks incredible. Example:

Told you they were good.

Arkham Knight also shows off some gameplay upgrades that Rocksteady have introduced for Batman’s final outing. Gliding is now much quicker than the previous games, meaning you’ll still be moving fast even without the Bat-tank-mobile. Oh, and there’s fear takedowns. Basically, if you can get close to a group of enemies undetected, you go full speed of light on those bastards and knock them all out before they realise you were there. It’s pretty fun. Combat on the whole is pretty much the same as the previous games, just with some new takedowns.

But the greatest thing, by far, is the one thing Rocksteady did keep secret from the players. The Joker. Whaaa?! But…But he died! Yes, it’s true, Joker did die at the end of Arkham City. But, as Batman is still infected with Joker’s blood, the Joker appears throughout the game as a figment of Batman’s imagination. It’s a cause for some great dialogue, done perfectly by Mark Hamill himself. It also gives the player a new perspective on what it’s like when Batman’s arch nemesis gets inside his head. Especially when it looks like this...

Which, when you think about it is odd, given that Joker being the main villain in Origins is one of the reasons I don't like it as much as the others. Believe me, I have nothing against Troy Baker's version of the Clown Prince of Crime, I think he does a stellar job, and the Joker's look in Origins is one of my favourites of his. But when you play through the first third of Origins, just to find out Black Mask, who could have been a great villain, is actually the Joker, it just seemed like that game was just made so he'd be in it.

I'm getting off topic.

The rest of the cast does a great job of voice acting as well. Kevin Conroy once again shines as the Dark Knight, as he has done in the series and beyond. So much so, that when I read the comic books, it’s his voice I’m reading Batman’s lines in. Same goes for Mark Hamill and the Joker. I can’t really say much for Arkham Knight, because he’s voiced by Troy Baker, and he’s great in everything. At first, Scarecrow disappointed me a bit, mostly because it’s not the same voice from Arkham Asylum. Over time though, I got used to his darker tones, and now think Boromir’s Father does a great job. Plus, he does get some awesome lines.

I have to admit, having two different endings is a great idea. It's not so much optional choice, but the ending you get is based on how much effort you put in before finishing the game. If you just do the main story and a few side missions, you'll get the standard ending. If you finish the main story and finish all of the side missions, including finding all of Riddler's shit, you'll get the 'Knightfall' ending. That one's worth a Google.

The story…I’m still undecided on. It’s good, but the other games certainly did better. I think the story suffers from side-lining all but two of the villains, and even one of the appears on a TV screen more than face to face, and doesn’t stray far from the source material. It feels like Rocksteady played it a bit too cautiously when it came to new ideas. I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m just saying it has a lot of room for improvement.

I won’t lie, I’m finding it really hard to score this game. There are moments when it shines. Moments that are damn near perfect. But for some reason, there are moments where it feels very different, almost too different, from the previous Arkham games. Yes, it’s a good conclusion to Rocksteady’s brilliant series. There’s no denying that. But like The Dark Knight Rises, it struggles to compete with it’s predecessor. If you like Batman or the rest of the Arkham games, by all means give it a go. Just…Just be prepared for it to feel very different in comparison.

Arkham Knight, as a game, is very, very good. The story and gameplay innovations make for a fantastic game. Sadly though, the story isn't quite up there with Arkham City's, and too much of the overall game was given out as free DLC after release. For that, I'm going to give it an...

8/10.

All pictures are from my own gameplay experience