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29 Jun 2015 - 13 Sep 2015
With the Joker dead, Batman has decended into depression. A new villain, the Arkham Knight, has taken advantage of Batman's state and thrown all of Gotham into chaos. Can Batman defeat this new threat, even though he seems to be two steps ahead?
It's difficult to talk about this game without also talking about the drama around it. Yes, it was a bad port. Yes, it didn't work on a lot of people's machines. That's definitely bad, and both the developers and publishers are to blame (probably one more than the other). To their credit, though, they put out a series of patches that largely improved performance and made it playable for a large section of the playerbase. Some would question whether or not that made up for the mistake. Others will hold it up as a reason to never preorder - but that's a point for a different post.
As to the game itself, assuming you can get it to run (I had no problems at all), I found it very similar to others in the series. The only big difference is the Bat-Tank, which is a strange addition to Batman's arsenal. It definitely came in handy, and Batman has long been established as someone who plans for every eventuality, but it does seem like a step in the wrong direction if you ever need a tank to help defend the city.
Still, better to have and not need than the other way around, so the tank is pretty useful, if a sharp departure from the rest of the gameplay. One thing that was nice about the other games in this series is that the game area was contained to just a small portion of the city. That made getting around easy, and there was no need for anything like the Batmobile. Once you increase the city size, though, now you need another justification for the Batmobile other than "it gets you places," and the tank game fits that bill.
If it wasn't for that aspect, though, this would be your bog-standard Arkham game. Batman fights, he levels up, he completes challenges, he gets equipment, repeat from step one. It sounds formulaic, but it's still a lot of fun. There's a lot less sneaking around required - it's still there, but unless it's explicitly not allowed, there seems to be an implied push to just drive up to the bad guys, jump out, and beat them all up. In previous games, you would be severely punished for that behavior; here, you can just take them all out.
Story-wise, that makes a lot of sense. Batman's been fighting crime for the better part of a decade now, and regular mooks, or even the advanced mooks, don't pose much of a threat. He still uses stealth and intimidation when he needs to, but just seeing him walk up to a mook can be pretty intimidating. Driving up, more so.
The Arkham Knight makes for an OK villain, but he's not really the antagonist in this story. Neither is the Joker, even though he spends a lot of time as an abberant personality in Batman's head. No, the real villain here is Batman himself, and he comes to realize this over the course of the story. That's the only answer I can see as to why he find he needs to change his methodolgy - he's moved from myth to man in the eyes of the citizens and criminals, and that's only caused pain. And the only way to reverse that trend is to kill off the Batman.
It's a strange, winding story, and most people are likely not to care (or even reach the end), but it's an interesting way to finish off the series. I look forward to the next great thing to come out of these studios.
Mixed bag. If you can cheese the tank portions, do so. If you can find help for the Riddler's challenges, do it. Otherwise, enjoy beating up bad guys and finding new ways to use your gadgets.