Batman - Arkham City

[Custard]

Not due out til March or April, but bloody 'ell, the trailer and first images are getting me all excited

Batman- Arkham City trailer

BATMAN ARKHAM CITY New HD Screens

There's rumours of there being a multiplayer mode, which sounds cracking.

I've just started re-playing Arkham Asylum, and if this can even get near the same levels of quality, it will be pretty special.

[Mister Six]

Yep, Arkham Asylum was easily one of my favourite games that year and by far the greatest Bat-game yet made so I'm looking forward to this too. As a big Batman fan, I was amazed at how well they'd got the 'feel' of the comics and characters right - no doubt helped by having Paul Dini onboard - but more than that, how they'd got the feeling of being Batman perfect. There was nothing better than wading into a group of 10 enemies and taking them all out simply because you're Batman, damn it!

The one niggle I had with it was that the character models were utterly hideous, and that doesn't seem to have changed this time around. Ah well. Even if the idea of moving Arkham Asylum into the middle of a city is fucking ludicrous I'm still looking forward to this. Especially since they seem to be drawing on the great No Man's Land story for aesthetics and tone.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Arkham Asylum was fun, I'm not sure about the depiction of Gotham City in this though, it's all a bit dank and messy.

[Mister Six]

Sounds about right, surely?

[El Unicornio, mang]

I dunno, the comics I read (most late 80s/early 90s) showed Gotham as being more like a regular city, with some gargoyles here and there. Seems like the game version is more like the Tim Burton movie/parts of Batman Begins depiction of the city. Still looks like great fun though.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I think the storyline is that the people in charge of Arkham bought up a big slum, shipped all the inmates there and walled it off, Escape From New York style.

[Mister Six]

I dunno, the comics I read (most late 80s/early 90s) showed Gotham as being more like a regular city, with some gargoyles here and there. Seems like the game version is more like the Tim Burton movie/parts of Batman Begins depiction of the city. Still looks like great fun though.

Ah, right. I know what you mean - Gotham Central[nb]Basically 'What if NYPD Blue was based in Gotham City?' - probably my favourite Bat-series of all time and currently undergoing reprints.[/nb] had lots of conventional-looking US city buildings too. I guess I'm just a sucker for the Dini/Timm-esque stylised Gothic look, though the street-level scenes in that clip look a bit more like a modern US city. You can explain it away by saying that different neighbourhoods have different architecture, in the same way that the twisty roads and high buildings of London's Bank area don't look too much like the urban sprawl of Harginey.

[mycroft]

My favourite thing about this game so far is that the voice of Mr Freeze is being done by the man who did The Brain from Pinky and the Brain. He'd better be doing the Orson Welles thing.

[madhair60]

I just beat Arkham Asylum, about an hour or two.  Last boss was cack, rest was good.

[mycroft]

I just beat Arkham Asylum, about an hour or two.  Last boss was cack, rest was good.

The final boss is stupidly easy I agree, but at least he isn't as stupidly awful as the Killer Croc bit. You know that bit would have been cut if he hadn't featured so much in the trailers but, even if he had to be left in, they could have at least cut it down to collecting three samples and then leaving via a manhole than collecting five and then retracing your steps. What a chore that level was.

Ivy wasn't much better. Took me a whole morning. Bitch.

[madhair60]

I didn't mind Croc's bit - repetitive but not too long.

Poison Ivy was a great boss.

[Zero Gravitas]

I thought all the boss battles were boring, the great thing about AA however was how a relatively small number of mechanics came together beautifully to give a real feeling of mastery over the environment and enemies, a swift batarang throw and then zip-line across to take out a sniper ending in a satisfying KAPOW!.

The 'room full of goons' stages really stood out for me as they feel so free form, beautifully complemented with the few constraints thrown at various stages in the keep the player from relying on one known technique. I think that's why the boss battles failed, they're all of the type 'learn the weakness and exploit it eight times' which sits poorly with the use of skills learnt by the player and the creativity asked of them in the rest of play.

[madhair60]

My favourite thing about this game so far is that the voice of Mr Freeze is being done by the man who did The Brain from Pinky and the Brain. He'd better be doing the Orson Welles thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EtHfr0eBA4

[Mister Six]

The 'room full of goons' stages really stood out for me as they feel so free form, beautifully complemented with the few constraints thrown at various stages in the keep the player from relying on one known technique. I think that's why the boss battles failed, they're all of the type 'learn the weakness and exploit it eight times' which sits poorly with the use of skills learnt by the player and the creativity asked of them in the rest of play.

I hate those kinds of battles anyway. I just want a little pop-up to appear after the first two repetitions with, 'Do you know what you're doing? Y/N'. And if you select 'Y' it just kills the boss outright and lets you get on with having fun.

[Custard]

Tell you what though, that first Scarecrow confrontation was utterly jaw-dropping for me, visually. Got annoying when they kept repeating it over the course of the game, but yeah, the introduction of that character was a sight to behold. The unzipping of the body-bags, John Wayne reverting to a child, the ground disappearing from below his feet and everything crumbling, the eventual reveal of the mahoosive Scarecrow, the terrifying soundtrack. Brilliant stuff.

On a side-note, i was in a train-station recently, and when the ping-pong of the tannoy-system came on I genuinely thought the Joker was about to speak. Sadly he didn't. Real life is balls.

[Mister Six]

Tell you what though, that first Scarecrow confrontation was utterly jaw-dropping for me, visually. Got annoying when they kept repeating it over the course of the game, but yeah, the introduction of that character was a sight to behold. The unzipping of the body-bags, John Wayne reverting to a child, the ground disappearing from below his feet and everything crumbling, the eventual reveal of the mahoosive Scarecrow, the terrifying soundtrack. Brilliant stuff.

On a side-note, i was in a train-station recently, and when the ping-pong of the tannoy-system came on I genuinely thought the Joker was about to speak. Sadly he didn't. Real life is balls.

I'd be grateful about that if I were you!

Yeah, the scarecrow levels were fantastic, though - as you say - their brilliance was dimmed by repetition. But it was three or four spots of repetition over the course of the game rather than eight bits of repetition in a row.

[Little Hoover]

I don't know the best encounter was the fake glitch one, which really did have me confused and worried. Even though I soon strongly suspected what it was doing, I was still worried that had something had coincidentally gone wrong with my disc, at the exact moment of the pretend glitch.

[mycroft]

I don't know the best encounter was the fake glitch one, which really did have me confused and worried. Even though I soon strongly suspected what it was doing, I was still worried that had something had coincidentally gone wrong with my disc, at the exact moment of the pretend glitch.

My friend had palpitations during that bit, as he'd only just had his Xbox returned from the repair centre in Germany.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Yeah, I thought my PC graphics card was bust! Shat myself, then realised it was a clever fake, then unshat myself. I even fell for it again second time round.

Anyway, can't wait for this, but I'm glad they're taking time on it rather than rushing it out. I had more fun with Arkham Asylum than I'd had with most games for a while, even played it through twice and got 100% completion which I don't usually have the patience to do. Yeah the bosses were often a downer which got in the way of the general gameplay, but most of them were thankfully brief and Posion Ivy was a decent boss. She should've been the last boss actually, instead of shoehorning the physically weak Joker into the role.

[MojoJojo]

I've recently started replaying it, definitely one of my favorite games of recent times.
The combat was definitely repetitve but really enjoyable...

The stealthy bits... I feel they really struggled to make them more varied and challenging. Fairly early on they introduce the suicide collars, and they really made it all a bit pointless - there was no longer any point in doing silent takedowns. Also it's pretty easy to massacre the mooks once you learn a few tricks. E.g. Takeout one guy, gargoyle, batarang mooks who come to look, swoop down and ground pound them works pretty well on groups up to 4 (or 5 if one is always sticking to the exit).

Bosses definitely not a strong point.

I note they have Two-face and Catwoman appearing in the trailers. Any other characters they are going to bring in for a bigger role? Also wonder if getting someone other than Joker in might have been a good idea.

[thecuriousorange]

The fake glitching in Metal Gear Solid 2 and all the meta messages that accompanied it really, really messed with my head.

[wheatgod]

Interesting bit on meta/fourth wall here.

Arkham City is looking verrrrry nice. Made in the UK, doncha know. The first one was pretty darned good, might have to repurchase it.

[Mister Six]

Interesting bit on meta/fourth wall here.

That's a really badly written article. She gets to the conclusion halfway through, gives a load of examples but doesn't elaborate on why they're a bad thing (merely restating the premise of the argument) and misses the point of Max Payne, which is all about the postmodern commentary. GOD. How do these people end up working for those sites? More importantly, how do I?

Never mind. At least the comments provided a link to this excellent Metal Gear Solid parody.

[Custard]

Loads of new info, and a gameplay video (with Catwoman!) ere - http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a324198/batman-arkham-city-preview-e3-2011.html

Can't wait for this. Arggghhh!

[Custard]

Batman: Arkham City will feature Robin as a playable character, it has been revealed.

The sidekick will only be available in two unique challenge maps and will not join Batman in the main campaign, according to Game Informer.

The maps will be available as a Batman: Arkham City pre-order incentive from US retailer Best Buy, but is assumed to be available in Europe and as post-release downloadable content.

Two-face, Mr Freeze and Penguin have been previously confirmed as characters in the Batman: Arkham Asylum sequel.

Batman: Arkham City's campaign has been teased to last eight hours, and will feature Catwoman as a playable character.

Batman: Arkham City will be available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC from October 18 in North America and October 21 in Europe.

So three playable characters (albeit briefly)? Nice

[The Region Legion]

Er what? Only 8 hours?? Arkham Asylum was a lot more than that I'm sure.

[Ignatius_S]

Er what? Only 8 hours?? Arkham Asylum was a lot more than that I'm sure.

More like 8-10 hours, I would say, including side bits like The Riddler's challenges.

[MojoJojo]

I'm sure my first play through of Asylum was something like 20 hours, although a lot of people seem to put it in the 10-15 hour category...

So, who knows? Depends a lot how many riddler trophies etc... you go looking for.

I really want this game to not be a let down. I wouldn't really mind if it was just a bit more of the first game, although the stealth challenges had got a bit stale by the end.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

8 hours sounds about right.

I haven't been this excited about a game since Fallout New Vegas. Asylum was an instant favourite, and I've been looking for a good free roaming swing around a city 'em up ever since Spider-man 2, so it's nice to see that they've expanded on the already fun gliding ability from the first game.

[Ignatius_S]

After checking, it took me 15-16 hours to complete everything - so for a little while, I thought I was 30-50% better at being Batman than I thought was. Just sticking to the main story, I think eight or so hours would be fine.

In any case, I'm really looking forward to this one - particularly with the firm foundations of the first.