Batman: Arkham Knight picks up where City left off with the death of the Joker (spoiler aler…too late). Batman puts the Joker finally to rest only to have Scarecrow crop up to bring a new terror to the city of Gotham. Along side of Scarecrow is a new, unknown nemesis named the Arkham Knight, who has all the skills of Batman, which makes for interesting character development. Beyond the two main bad guys, Scarecrow gets together the usual Batman villain suspects to help make the cape crusader’s life quite the hell.
Senior Editor Steven McGehee took on the PlayStation 4 version of this game, so if you’re looking for the PS4 review, check his out here. The Xbox One doesn’t differ much, but we’re going to break this game down anyway.
The gameplay in Arkham Knight is what you would expect from a Rocksteady Batman title. The controls are forgivable when it comes to massive battles. Taking on a group of 10-15 enemies at a time is more of a joy than it is work. The Xbox One controller, the tank that it is, was built for this type of button mashing madness. And you will find quite a bit of madness in it. Anyway, as I was saying, expect the same type of quick button combinations and back-and-forth fighting that you’ve found in the previous two Rocksteady Batman titles. For example, beating an enemy with X will eventually lead you to finishing them off with LT+Y. Or doing an aerial assault will lead you to hit B+A+A quickly. If you don’t hit these marks, the game is incredibly forgiving, as are the enemies (though, the artificial intelligence has improved with this title). Most of you probably still play Shadows of Mordor, so I don’t think you’re going to have any issues with catching on to the control scheme.
On the AI side of the equation, it might just be me, but Rocksteady did a great job with making the enemies more than just senseless drones that can be wiped out quickly. During the melee combat, you start out by pushing buttons and getting results, but as the game progresses and new enemies start emerging, the AI starts putting up fits during fights. For example, there is an enemy that will electrify another enemy fighter during one of Batman’s massive fights. This enemy’s sole purpose is to revive other fallen enemies, give them an electric charge for combat (literally, they’ve got electricity streaming through their attacks) and send them off to battle. If that electrically charged enemy hits you, it’s basically a third of your life gone. If you don’t dispose of the enemy electrically charging other enemies, this will be a problem during fights. The AI in this enemy will actively seek out fallen enemies to make your life hell.
Good AI doesn’t just stop at the melee scraps.
When you’re driving the Batmobile, enemies will actively try to evade you when you’re chasing them. For example, there are several missions where you chase armored vehicles and the enemy vehicles will do things like u-turns, quick ducks into alleys and just simply avoid straight paths where the Batmobile can easily take them out. It’s frustrating and fascinating to watch because the AI so damn good. The Batmobile is a bitch to drive at first, by the way, so try not to throw/break/chuck the controller.
Speaking of the Batmobile, a complaint that is rearing its head amongst some critics is the amount of time spent in the Batmobile during the game. There is a large amount of time, though I think it’s not too overwhelming. I can see how some people can get frustrated, especially when it comes to properly controlling the thing. You accelerate using the RT button with the right thumbstick controlling the movements. The LT button puts the thing in battle mode, while the left thumbstick (while the LT button is pushed) allows the wheels to turn in an X/Y axis. If you mix these things up, it’s a bitch of time driving the sucker. Granted the controls can hurt the driving portion, thus making the entire experience within the Batmobile seem long. I think most critics probably had this issue, which gave the illusion that the Batmobile was everywhere at all times. Honestly speaking, there were a few moments where I felt like the Batmobile was on stage too long with Arkham Knight, but not enough to hate it by any means or affect my enjoyment of the game. Anyway, the controls are probably the stickler, but good gamers can work through it. It took me about 4-7 hours to actually get the hang of things and properly control the car/truck/monster in the game.
Getting back to the nitty-gritty controls in the game, Batman: Arkham Knight has an extensive amount of upgrades that make the fighting and general gameplay far more interesting than it should be at times. It’s as if Rocksteady was just throwing in every possibility it could when deciding on how to make the combat more entertaining throughout the game. The upgrade tree covers things like upgrading Batman’s armor, Batmobile, Batman’s gadgets, his style of fighting and various other little things that make the game customizable and fresh. For example, there will come a point where Lucius Fox will offer to upgrade the Batmobile. You can attach a CPU Virus uploader to the car, which will allow you to upload viruses to enemy mobile units, which in turn will force them to attack their own kind. Brilliant stuff and it adds just a bit more depth to the overall experience. Of course, earning XP gets you to upgrade these things and there are dozens of ways to gain XP. The XP part of the game is where the beef of the gameplay resides.
Outside of the main story, you have a lot of options when it comes to quests in Batman: Arkham Knight. At any given point you might run into a side quest, which will equal out to XP. For example, when you’re riding around Gotham in the Batmobile you might run into a car chase or a heavy armor chase from the Arkham Knight’s crew. You can join in on the chase or you can choose to keep focused and on task. Regardless, you will find several moments like this in the game. Completing tiers of side quests in the game equals out to XP possibility. You can gather a lot of XP quickly, too.
More structured and predictable side quests come in a few forms, and from a few villains. There are things like having to stop Two-Face from robbing banks, which can take a good bit of time. You can play missions where you have to stop the Riddler from killing Catwoman, which requires you to go through several brain-wrenching puzzles (and sometimes race tracks). There is a side quest where you have to remove large explosives randomly set in the streets of Gotham (literally), which will not only require Batmobile skill, but also requires you to prevent tanks/armored vehicles from blowing you up. How many side quests are there? Sheesh, put it this way, I was 70% through the main mission and the overall game had me at 29% complete. Yes, there are that many.
Now, what’s surprising about all of this is that the extra content built for this game is all interesting. I never found myself ever rolling my eyes and hoping it was over quickly (well, maybe with the Riddler stuff). This is basically, at least for me, the same kind of feeling that I had with Skyrim, where I could just wander off and explore for hours upon hours without feeling like I’m needing to give a bit more attention to the main story. That’s the type of gameplay and world that Rocksteady has built for Batman: Arkham Knight, though they didn’t take the main story lightly either. Definitely don’t discount it one bit, as you’re in for some pleasant (and unpleasant) surprises along the way.
Before we move on to presentation, let me just add that the main story is gripping. There was a lot of thought put into it, as well as effort put into it to make this more of a psychological thriller than just another comic book action title. I have to give some major kudos to the game’s story direction, as it uses all the necessary tools to make sure you’re hooked into what’s going on. They develop the characters well, they treat people (like the Joker) properly and they even add in some warped moments from past DC graphic novels. I don’t want to give too much away, but wow Rocksteady did a superb job with making sure the main story wasn’t a throwaway. Developers that make games of this scope sometimes forget how important the main story can be (see most first-person shooters from the last decade), thankfully Rocksteady did not do this.
Anyway, there is enough gameplay depth and content to make the game a huge and enjoyable event for gamers. Rocksteady has built the gameplay to make sure you remember who rules the roost when it comes to Batman titles. They’ve certainly come a long way since their small E3 2008 booth when they were first showing Asylum. More importantly, they’ve properly built up and improved their entire gameplay package since that first initial release. You have to give them major kudos for that type of gameplay construction.
On the presentation side of things…good Lord. Where to begin…
Well, the first and biggest noticeable difference you’ll see in the game is the girth of it. While I can say without a doubt that Asylum and Arkham City certainly had a large cityscape attached to them, Arkham Knight takes those and triples them. When you are riding around in the Batmobile or jumping from rooftop-to-rooftop, you feel like you’re in a large, metropolitan city. What’s even scarier is that there is so much life in the city and so many things happening. You get flashing lights, unique businesses, random people and groups of criminals, and you get multi-tiered structures that vary in size. This looks like a real place that would take you a while to visit every nook and cranny. It’s unbelievable how big Gotham is in Arkham Knight. Prepare to get lost once or twice during gameplay.
As for the character models, textures and animation upgrades — significant. Batman: Arkham Knight looks like what a true current generation title should look like. When you see Bruce Wayne’s face for the first time, where you can see his gruff five o’clock shadow or his pores on his nose, you’ll know Rocksteady has arrived with the current generation console goods. Or better yet, watch the crap floating in the air of Gotham or the rain falling down on Batman’s costume and how it reacts. The details with this game are eye-popping and a visual treat. Things like lighting and reflection of streets, costumes and overall environment are nicely done. This is a true current generation game.
With that said, the Xbox One version of this game does run at 900p (according to several places on the interwebs), which might be disappointing to a few fans out there. Honestly, who gives a rats ass about this? Granted, PlayStation 4 owners will certainly throw this back in the faces of XB1 fans, they’re at 1080p, but the gameplay, visuals and beauty of Batman: Arkham Knight will make you forget resolution wars. Personally, I couldn’t give two shits about this and honestly, as long as gameplay isn’t affected, why does it matter? Gameplay over resolution, folks. It’s not like XB1 players are getting 480p out of this generation. Anyway, if you care about this sort of thing, then enjoy this detail. If you don’t, like me, then enjoy the game. It’s worth more than the resolution.
Anyway, to round up the presentation portion of this review, the acting is superb. The usual suspects knock this out of the ballpark and I am hoping Zack Snyder/Ben Affleck are taking note of how to properly tell and act a good Batman story. The acting adds to an already great experience.
So at the end of the day, is this game worth it? Yes and hell yes. Halo 5 and whatever hits in the fall/holiday season better pack a punch because Batman: Arkham Knight is going to be ‘Game of the Year’ otherwise. I’m sure Fallout 4 will give it a run for its money, but until then you would be insane not to include Arkham Knight in your library.
Onto the Summary!
