[rwp-review id=”0″]
I really just want to start this review with saying that Arkham Knight is the best game in the Batman: Arkham series. I shouldn’t have to tell you the pros and the negligible cons of this game for you to consider buying it. If you have a console, then you should own this game. There shan’t be any exceptions. But I do have to write this review, so here it is.
Rocksteady brings a close to their Batman: Arkham series with their pièce de résistance – Batman Arkham Knight. The story picks up two years after the events of Arkham City, where Joker meets his demise due to the infection set on from the TITAN drug. A new scourge is plaguing Gotham in the form of toxin attacks from the Scarecrow and an alliance of supervillains he orchestrates. Also making things difficult for Gotham’s vexed vigilante is the Arkham Knight, a mercenary leading his own army of baddies, who possesses a worryingly innate knowledge of the Dark Knight’s tactics, strategies and past.
Facing such a grim alliance, Batman enlists the help of Commissioner Gordon, Nightwing, Barbara Gordon as the Oracle, Robin and good old Alfred, to save the world’s unluckiest city – AKA – Gotham. He then puts on his big-boy pants (literally, in the form of an upgraded, titanium batsuit) and drives right into the midst of it in his Batmobile. Which also doubles as a tank. A TANK. It’s awesome. And you get to drive it!
As far as scripting and narrative go, Rocksteady pulled out all the stops and the result is a sublime story arc that delivers fantastic closure to the series. Scarecrow makes a very believable supervillain and main baddie for this video game. His upgraded toxin leaves Batman with an internal struggle in dealing with the guilt from Joker’s death, which is compounded by the fact that (as it turns out) being infected with Joker’s blood in Arkham City has [SPOILER AHEAD – SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH TO AVOID] slowly begun a transformation that could potentially turn the Dark Knight into the Joker. You didn’t read that wrong. Batman battles becoming the Joker. I had as much of a hard time trying to figure out how to word that sentence as your brain had trying to make sense of it. But I don’t blame Rocksteady for selecting such a convoluted and scientifically-impossible story arc, because what’s Batman without Joker, really?
The gameplay in Arkham Knight remains the same as the previous games in the series. Additionally, like Arkham City, it’s an open world environment where you can choose to not follow the main storyline and instead pursue side missions and quests. The differentiating factor is that in this game, you can’t complete the game unless you’ve finished almost all of the side quests. In my particular case, the only side mission I didn’t complete is that of the Riddler because I needed to finish the game for this review. Once you’ve completed enough missions, you trigger the KnightFall Protocol, which [SPOILER AHEAD – SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH TO AVOID] signals the end of the game and the end of Batman.
Unlike the previous game, where you could fast-travel to various map points using the Batwing, in this game you control the Batmobile. Rocksteady has done a great job in making the Batmobile enjoyable to drive around and yet making it so that you don’t want rely fully on the Batmobile to move around and still turn to gliding around Gotham to move about. While the Batmobile is great for traveling long distances and some of the missions require being in the Batmobile, like to fight drone tanks, there are still ample opportunities (and the subsequent need) to glide around. With the extra grapple boost capabilities, gliding between the islands was also a preferred mode of transport for me.
The Batmobile itself is fantastic. Armed with a 60mm cannon, a Vulcan machine gun, a riot control gun and missiles, it’s truly a war machine to be reckoned with. Thugs and mercenaries tremble at the sight of the Batmobile as it roars into view and rightly so. The missions that require you to use the Batmobile’s unique combat or pursuit capabilities make it a fun ride and one that is not replicated in most other video games that involve cars. Rocksteady, I tip my hat to you.
In fight-mode, Arkham Knight has nifty feature where all the move combos that you unlocked in the previous game are already unlocked in this game, making takedowns, combats and free-flow fighting a lot easier to excel in. Combat situations are actually easier in this game than the previous games because a) the story doesn’t have as many combat situations and b) a lot of situations can be dealt with using stealth or the new Multi-Takedown feature, which allows you to take down groups of up to 5 people at one go.
I have two main qualms with the game though and they’re not major issues but were noticeable enough to warrant a grimace.
Firstly, the mission selection process is annoying. A lot of the missions can’t be completed at one go, and I know this because I’ve played the previous games and I have a general understanding of how video game narratives work. But if you’re a casual gamer, selecting missions will annoy you tremendously as you slowly discover that you can’t just choose any mission you want. You have to wait for it to be available, either through discovery on the map or through the narrative making it playable. The mission selection will pester you until, after frustrating attempts to continue with missions that you can’t just yet, you are forced to figure it out. After that though, the issue sorts itself out. The only annoying part then is having to wait to see missions you actually want to complete, to be made available.
The second thing that really annoyed me, as cool as it was, was the identity of the Arkham Knight
[MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD – SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH TO AVOID]
As you fight through the night, you are repeatedly antagonized by the titular Arkham Knight who, as he mentions repeatedly, wants you very, very, very dead. When the identity of the Knight is revealed to be Jason Todd, pre-Red Hood, I was a bit surprised (as you should be) but also a bit disappointed. You see, Jason Todd is supposed to be dead; the Joker kills him to piss you off. And, as per the comics, when Jason Todd is brought back to life using the Lazarus Pools (a la Ra’s Al Ghul), he blames Batman for not killing Joker, even though Joker killed him. In the game, when Batman is hallucinating due to Joker’s infection, we see Jason Todd held captive by the Joker. We see variations of the torture that Joker put him through and the degrees to which he twisted Jason’s mind. Then we see him killing Jason. At this point, we just assume it’s a homage to the comics. So when it turns out that the Joker lied to you, manipulated Jason Todd through torture and pitted him against you, it’s all surprising but a bit convenient. As the game progresses, the narrative begins to drop a lot of hints that the Arkham Knight is someone who has intricate knowledge of Batman, including his real identity. Put two and two together, and you know that there’s literally no one else it could be, but Jason Todd (because everyone else is either properly dead or accounted for). They overplayed the narrative and it became predictable.
Beyond these two things, I have nothing bad to say about Arkham Knight. It’s truly the best game from the three, in terms of the way it’s designed, scripted and executed. As far as the story goes, Batman: Arkham City was the best. But this game has the second best story and is definitely the better game all around. Seriously, don’t waste any more time. You should be playing this game.
