VideoGame Garbage. 1 Star.
This version of the Batmobile would be awesome in a movie. It looks incredibly badass. But it's not fun to operate, and the vehicle combat segments are tedious, annoying, and far too frequent. I kept playing in the hopes this would turn into one of the first three Arkham games, but was disappointed—occasionally, the really good parts of Arkham City (particularly the predator levels) make an appearance, but not often enough to make this thing really playable.
As for the plot, here's a pop quiz that tells you everything you need to know:
1) You are the Arkham Knight, one of the world's most brilliant tacticians. Your personal knowledge of the Batman's weaknesses—especially his pathetic refusal to kill his enemies—will enable to you destroy both him and Gotham. One of your lieutenants comes to you with an idea for unmanned drone tanks to patrol the city during your master plan. Do you:
(a) Fire this idiot, possibly out of a cannon, and assign some members of your improbably-large mercenary army to tank driving duty;
(b) Restrain kidnapped civilians in each of the tanks;
(c) a) and b);
(d) Use the drone tanks as-is, enabling Batman to blow them up without hesitation.
2) You are The Batman—the Caped Crusader, the Gotham Guardian, the Masked Manhunter, the World's Greatest Detective, and one of the most skilled martial artists in a world with no shortage of impossibly-skilled martial artists. You have cornered the supervillain Scarecrow, who has nearly destroyed your city tonight. Do you:
(a) Knock him down with a Batarang, then pound him unconscious and bring him back to GCPD headquarters;
(b) Grab him with your Bathook, clothesline him to the ground, then pound him unconscious and bring him back to GCPD headquarters;
(c) Incapacitate him with your Remote Electrical Charge, dropkick him to the ground, then pound him unconscious and bring him back to GCPD headquarters; or
(d) Threaten him, then stand around like an idiot while he pushes a button on the remote control in his hand, allowing him to escape with the superweapon he needs to finish his plan and extend the plot by another few hours.
3) Name a good Batman story that doesn't focus on the Joker as the most important villain:
(a) No Man's Land
(b) Year One
(c) Other
(d) None. The Joker is the only worthwhile Batman villain and any Batman story that doesn't feature him constantly will automatically suck.
If you answered d) to the above questions, please send a resume and writing sample to Rocksteady Games. They're always on the lookout for talent like yours.
VideoGame Refuses to go gentle.
Y'know, I like many others got a bit of an uneasy feeling when a majority of hype and previews from Rocksteady about their final installment in the Arkham series seemed to inevitably derail into gushing about the Batmobile and how it's the greatest thing since sliced bat-bread.
...And, had it not turned out to be one of the most well-realized and intuitively designed cars in gaming history, that could've ended up being a giant deal-breaker. It's really not as big an anthill as most people are making it out to be. The only real problem is that they forced usage of said rocket-powered hearse into basically every part of the game. But enough about that. So many others seems to flanderize their own criticisms into Batmobile niggles and precious little else, and I refuse to fall into the same trap.
Arkham Knight is a more than worthy final installment of Rocksteady's Arkham series. It's home to the most focused and effective narrative in the series. The gameplay has been fine-tuned to an obscene degree, with some awesome new tech at your disposal. Flying around Gotham feels as awesome as it should, and is a good alternative to the Batmobile as a mode of transport. And, of course, most importantly, it's basically The Riddler's piece de resistance! Hell, a good chunk of why I love the Arkham series is listening to his smarmy veneer almost audibly crack as I hunt down more and more of his painstakingly devious riddles.
One thing I'm a bit torn about though, is the aesthetic disconnect to the rest of the series. Everyone looks more realistic and less cartoony (Catwoman, for instance, no longer looks like she shot herself in the face several times with that makeup shotgun Homer Simpson invented), and in many instances it does work. Scarecrow, however, is hard to swallow as his new incarnation has little to nothing in common with the spotlight-stealing gangrel creature from Asylum. In fact, he's a bit dull and nondescript, to the point that his incessant monologuing (a rehash of the already repetitive Hugo Strange monologues from City) elicits little more than yawns.
Still, all things considered Rocksteady do themselves justice with this one. While the series never really recaptured the magic of the original Asylum, this is a lovely gift basket to Batman fans both old and new.
VideoGame More bad than good.
The good: Great story, lots of atmosphere. In my opinion Scarecrow is an excellent Big Bad (If of the nonaction variety). Combat is fun with lots of new features (though I could go either way on fear takedowns. Makes things a bit too easy at times but damn if it aint fun to use).
The bad: The batmobile and all associated gameplay. Fuck it and fuck Riddler for making so many of his riddles batmobile-centric. Also the Arkham Knight is kind of a whiny bitch. Not saying he don't have something resembling a point but still. The Riddler sidequest is as obnoxious as it ever was even leaving out the Batmobile. I miss the maps from Asylum instead of tracking down Riddler's 50 bajillion randomly spawning goons. Lackluster challenge maps, most of which are batmobile-centric. I only ever played the predator challenges in the previous games and am disappointed that there's only 3 in this game, only for Batman, unlike in Origins and City where there were like 8 or 9 for each character.
Overall I give it 6/10. I guess it was okay on average but not worth replaying, or even keeping longer than my next visit to gamestop.
In closing I would just like to say fuck the batmobile.
VideoGame A Brilliant Ending (This Review Contains No Spoilers)
As the title quite obviously demonstrates, I loved this game. I thought this game was a fantastic Arkham game, a brilliant way to end a series of 3 fabulous games (Origins doesn't exist, what are you talking about?) and, apart from a few things, a very solid game.
The good: Since this encompasses 98% of the game, I will keep this short and sweet. Soundtrack was brilliant, though not as great as City's in my opinion. The voice acting was brilliant, especially Kevin Conroy, Ashley Greene, Mark Hamill, Troy Baker and John Noble in the best Scarecrow portrayal I have ever seen in my short life. The story was fabulously-written, filled with drama, emotion, intensity and overall a thrilling narrative. The gameplay? It's City's gameplay, but better. Enough said, although I am not a fan of the changing of certain buttons, such as Detective Mode. But those are minor grievances. As for the Batmobile, I found the Batmobile quite fun to be in at first. But once you get to the end of the game, the constant Riddler stuff, Riddler races, Batmobile platform segments etc. the Batmobile wears out its welcome. The Cobra stealth sections with the Batmobile are incredibly fun though, but that's just my opinion. So as you can tell, I think almost all of the game was good. Now for the not-so-good stuff that I've yet to cover.
The bad: Fuck the Riddler. Fuck his boring sidequest, his Narm dialogue, his completely useless challenges. I thought the Riddler sidequest wore out its welcome in City and was annoying in Origins but it is definitely the worst here. The interactions between Batman and Catwoman are quite literally the only reason you should EVER consider putting yourself through the painstaking, nauseating boredom of the Riddler sidequest. Just...no. The sidequests are my main problem with the game, honestly. Boring, uncreative and, besides from a couple, very anti-climactic. Kind of disappointed.
But to step back to talking about the game positively, Overall, I think this game is fantastic, I think it is fun and the best game in the series. Again, some things could be done better but no game is perfect. And the other 98% of this game certainly is. Go out and buy it, you'll love the shit out of it. I give it a 9.5/10.
That is all.
P.S: This is strictly my opinion. I welcome any criticism and you don't have to take this review as gospel.
VideoGame Could have been better, but a good way to close a brilliant franchise (spoilers).
If Arkham Knight is indeed the last game in the Arkham Series (or at the very least, the last one made by Rocksteady), then it's a satisfying enough end to the series. The visuals are fantastic, as noted on the site, rain looks amazing when sliding off Batman's costume, and the gameplay for the most part is enjoyable, with new additions towards it. The Batmobile felt a bit shoved in at times, and near the last third of the game I did groan a few times when the objective said I needed the vehicle for it but ten years ago, I never would have imagined there would be a good way to drive a video game with the Batmobile. The voice actors are on top form, John Noble makes a chilling Scarecrow who nails his lines with a deep tone instead of the hiss the Scarecrow from Asylum used (although due to knowing Scott Porter from other roles such as the Walking Dead, every line from Nightwing sounded like he had a subtle country accent). Albert King was pretty eh but Christina Bell and Johnny Charisma were interesting people infected by the Joker's blood. The Joker himself is hilarious with most lines.
I enjoyed playing it, although there are a lot of problems. The twist that Jason is the Arkham Knight could have been done better. By the time the second hallucination with the Joker and Jason happened, I knew straight away he was the Arkham Knight. Tim Drake is turned into Dick Grayson, to the point that the staff aside barely anything resembles the third Robin to the point where he even gets together with Barbara Gordon while Dick himself is shoved to the side for mostly a Penguin sidequest and gets his ass handed to him by Harley. Harley's demoted largely, and her DLC is maybe a half hour long if you breeze through it, although her Psychosis Mode was intriguing and I wished it was longer. Barbara spends half the game apparently dead and for someone who likes her character a lot, it annoyed me that they dragged out her being "dead for so long". Finally, Hush gets shoved into a sidequest that lasts not even ten minutes, which is very lackluster giving the Cliffhanger his scene in City left.
The ending seems to make it definitive that Bruce Wayne's story has drawn to a close and I can understand that. Maybe another game will be made, maybe another one won't be, but for now, I think this is a good ending to a great series.
VideoGame An Interesting Conclusion
Arkham Knight is a controversial game on multiple fronts, to be sure. The decision to make the Joker the main bad guy (of sorts) once again, the emphasis and often over-reliance on the Batmobile, multiple iconic villains (particularly Hush and Deathstroke) getting pretty anti-climactic final outings, and some objectively dumb character/writing decisions that seem to stem from Paul Dini not returning to write the script of this entry all contribute to Arkham Knight not quite living up to its predecessors in multiple areas...
...and yet, after playing all 5 Arkham games, Knight is the one I enjoyed the most.
The combat formula of these games, while revolutionary, suffers in different ways in the other games (usually exposed when you're playing the combat challenges and performing the same actions over and over); here, I would argue that it's at its best with a wide variety of moves, seamless transitions, better crowd-control options, and minimal instances of button inputs not resulting in the desired action (this was especially bad in City and Origins with the counterattack triggers). Graphically, this is one of the best-looking games ever made, even 8(!) years down the line and even more so than modern-day Batman games like Gotham Knights - comparing it to later AAA or "AAA" titles rushed out the door in 2 years will make you appreciate what craftsmanship and proper development time can bring to the table of a game's appearance. And you know what? I like the Batmobile! There were definitely too many drone battles for it, but it felt genuinely badass to race around the city faster than ever like hell on wheels, able to blast through everything in your way (somehow non-lethally) on your quest to take back Gotham from an invading army.
And that brings me to my final point in favor of this game: the uniqueness of the storyline, at least compared to other Arkham games. See, every single Batman game revolves around ol' Brucie fighting off multiple villains in a single night while trying to figure out what the main scheme afoot is and doing his best to stop it, so usually the "learning process" of the storyline is one-sided (Batman's enemies "knowing everything" and him not). Here, though, that's both done again AND inverted at the same time with the addition of the Joker hallucination from the mounting fear gas exposures. No one, not a soul, other than Batman ever knows about what he's seeing and hearing over the course of the game, and only a couple realize he's been infected by Joker's blood like the other victims - so for the only time in the series, the tension of the storyline is doubled by the fact that you, the player, watch the many villains unknowingly contribute and grow closer to unleashing a demon on Gotham City and the world, one far worse than any of them could ever imagine or hope to become. This was years before The Batman Who Laughs entered (and proceeded to wear out his welcome several times over in) the comics, so the idea of a Jokerized Batman at the top of his game and able to burn down everything on a whim was fairly novel for the day, and being able to watch it progress, indirectly helping it along, and coming this close to the nightmare scenario becoming a reality is something only a video game can do like this.
So, overall, Knight is my favorite game of the series. It's not perfect (and I don't really like the Arkham games anymore), but I believe it's the best of the bunch for the reasons stated above...and I'm not playing Kill The Justice League, so that's likely to remain true forever.