Groucho

The "spare one henchman" mechanic sounds great on paper, but it's wildly annoying in practice.

I do like that the AI is smarter this time around, and will start shooting down gargoyles if they see you on them.

dsa_shea

What is the 10 hour bit? Does something happen if you do not finish the game in less than 10 hours?

boredsilly

So I beat the game. The issues with being overwhelmed early on aside, this is a really good game. I don't think it is as good as Asylum though. It's just a rung below that game in my eyes. Everything is there to make City seem like it should be obviously better than Asylum, but Asylum was better than the sum of its parts, whereas I don't think City is. City is still an exceptional game, it's just lacking that extra something something that make Asylum special -- a lot of which was the novelty of it, surely.

One thing that holds City down in my eyes a smidge is it doesn't hit the highs like Arkham Asylum did. There are moments from Arkham Asylum, like going to your mini-Batcave or seeing the Batplane, that haven't been duplicated in City. However, the biggest missing element is the lack of the visceral nature of the Scarecrow levels. Rocksteady uses some other folks to give you a feel of those again, but neither comes anywhere close to being as incredible as those Scarecrow segments were.

With the main campaign out of the way, I'm not as inclined to do the sidequests. I just spent about an hour and change wrapping up some of the things I didn't do (I haven't done them all), but with the main quest finished, I feel like I'm done with the game. I have maybe a third of the sidequests left to do, but I think I might just skip them. I'm satisfied with the amount of the game that I have played.

I do have all of the challenge rooms and all that I can play around with, and while I like the fighting system of these Batman games a lot, they aren't enough of a draw in and of themselves without there being a point to fighting a bunch of thugs to get to a new area to progress the story. That shouldn't be a surprise to me, as I didn't really do too much with the challenge mode in Asylum either.

Some thoughts about the ending:



I'm really curious to see where they go next with this series. The obvious thing would be to do Gotham proper, but I think that would be a little dry just having a GTA style city. If I had my druthers, I would have these guys tackle the No Man's Land story. For those that don't know, the NML story was when Gotham was hit with a major earthquake, and subsequently annexed from the United States after a mandatory evacuation. Those who stayed in Gotham, for whatever reason, were left to fend for themselves -- a situation which the villains took full advantage of.

Arkham City had elements of that, but that would be a good way to make use of all of Gotham City, without having the city be generic (because it will be half destroyed due to the quake). You can have all of the rogues having control of quadrants of the city, like the story. Even though the Catwoman sections left a little something to be desired, you can have more playable Bat-family characters -- or at least cameos. I dunno, I think it could work. The problem Rocksteady has now is they've upped the stakes so far, I can't see how they could have another game that would scale things down, and focus on just a few of the Rogues. But whatever they decide to do, I'll be there.

Also, I wouldn't be made if they made use of the Arkham Asylum and Arkham City layouts in the next game. They're already built, why not?

All I know is, whatever the fuck these guys do next, just PLEASE let me have access to Wayne Manor and (most importantly) a fully featured Batcave -- with Giant Penny and Dinosaur. That would make this dork hella happy.

boredsilly

It's just an element of the story, you're fine. It's not an actual timer.

dsa_shea

Batman: Straight Outta Gotham should be the next game. I really don't know where they go from here unless it is to just expand to the whole city and make it focused on one main enemy.

boredsilly

I do really like how they made a non-obvious choice in focusing on Hugo Strange, so I'm really hoping Black Mask can get some similar attention next go round. Actually, now that I think about it, there are a handful of people we haven't seen yet. Man-Bat, Killer Moth, Firefly, or even a new guy like Professor Pyg. Not to mention the little used villains that have been in the games, but not much, or the villains that are related to Batman by way of Robin, Batgirl, the Birds of Prey, or Nightwing. Yeah, they've got some options.

Supermallet

Seriously. I try not to even hit the Riddler informants because I've knocked some out by accident. It's making me dodge a hell of a lot more than I ever had to before.

I don't know if these things were mentioned, but so far I've seen nods to the 1989 Batman and Batman: The Movie from 1966:



Overall I'm loving this game. The boss fights are much better than in Asylum, although I agree that Asylum had more character. Also this one inevitably suffers from the weight of expectations. No one really expected an excellent Batman game last time, because 98% of the time superhero games suck. This time, everyone was expecting a GOTY, so obviously the reactions will be different.

The other thing I think Asylum really has going for it is that there's a strong sense of progression. As you go through the game, you can see areas you can't get to, and once you get the right gadget or defeat the right villain, you feel a strong sense of accomplishment and forward progression. Arkham City is so open that the forward momentum is dulled a bit.

On the plus side, I feel like those times when you have to sneak into a room and slowly terrify a group of armed thugs are even better this time around. There are even more walls to explode, grates to sneak through, etc. I've had more fun in those sections of City than I did in Asylum.

The biggest issue I have is how poorly integrated Catwoman is. She shows up at the beginning, Batman saves her, you get one mission and then she disappears. You barely even hear the thugs you eavesdrop on talk about her. I'm fairly far into the game by now and she has yet to re-appear. When I first read about her being in the game I assumed she was going to be more of an active participant. That element really feels like an afterthought.

boredsilly

I didn't think about that, but you're right. Even if there is a part in City that you can't get to, you probably don't encounter it until you can get to it.

Her stuff does feel really tacked on. I liked her last two missions, because they were a bit more realized, but she definitely feels like her role isn't integral to the game at all. It would be nice if you ran into her more during your progression through the story, but alas.

Good calls on the nods. I got the one, but the other didn't even occur to me.

Supermallet

Yeah, I don't need more Catwoman missions, just more appearances of Catwoman throughout the game, interacting with Batman. She is the most sympathetic character to him inside of Arkham City, so it would make sense that she and Batman would rely on each other, maybe with a little tussling here and there.

I haven't gotten to her later missions so I don't know how those stack up.

boredsilly

I don't want you to get your hopes up. They aren't anything special (save for one moment) but I probably enjoyed them more, because I was more used to using Selina.

kstublen

I'm almost done with the main storyline and I'm on what I think is the end, or very close to it, and...the game froze.



Here's where I was at, for those who finished the game:



I'm really loving this game though. Everything about it feels better. I haven't used Detective Mode all the time, the side missions are fun, the Joker challenges are great, the fights (both bosses and thugs) are much more difficult. For what it's worth, I started playing it and was very frustrated because I couldn't find my way around the city and it felt a little overwhelming. I got to about 12% and then just restarted the game. This time around everything was much more enjoyable and I haven't been able to stop playing.

Dragon Tattoo

Yeah, they do. Which is good because it had auto-saved and I started freaking out thinking that I'd have to replay this entire game again.

It's an awesome little moment, though.

Most of these things you guys are complaining about--you know that you don't have to do them, right? And unless you're going for a 100% completion I don't understand why you would...? And if you are, then there are games that make you do much harder bullshit for a 100%. Not hitting one bad guy is child's play by comparison.

That said, I didn't find sparing the one henchman aspect to be that difficult. You do have to learn how to dodge and parry, but it just makes the fight that much more engaging. Plus it helps to know your quick actions so you can keep the henchmen away without hurting them.

Now, the actual Riddler challenges...and ALL of the Augmented Reality segments after the first one...THOSE are difficult.

TheNightFlier

Don't know if it's true or not but according to a couple places you have to find all of the Riddler stuff (all 400) before you can complete his side missions. F that.

mzupeman2

It doesn't feel like bullcrap while you're playing the game though. After you collect so many Riddler trophies, it begins - He set up a little challenge for you, making you run through a little gauntlet while using your noodle, so you can save the life of an innocent. Once he feels you're ready (after collecting more trophies), you'll be tested again. I actually prefer this... because let's say you leave most of your trophy hunting for after the main story... it got to be a pretty tedious task in Arkham Asylum. It was all down to business... but now you'll get little breaks in between the searching to play more missions. The implementation is much better this time around, if you ask me!

TheNightFlier

I already completed two parts of the Riddler side missions from picking up various trophies while playing the main game. After beating the main portion of the game, going back and hunting for every single trophy and riddle seems like a waste of time at this point imo. Not to mention having to switch back and forth between Batman and Catwoman to get some of them.

aktick

I'm assuming AA should be played before this? GOTY edition or not?

kstublen

Okay, it froze again in the exact same spot. Anyone else have any problems with that part? Maybe it's just my disc...

slop101

It helps, but it's not necessary. The main reason you should play AA is just that it's really good game, probably better ACity. Regular edition is fine.

Groucho

AA eases you in, and introduces the mechanics one at a time. This game assumes you've played AA, and gives you (almost) everything up front.

glassdragon

It did freeze for me a couple of times, and by freeze I mean it lagged where the screen froze for a few seconds. Lots of enemies on the screen + these graphics is not a good combo sometimes lol.

OldBoy

I find myself using detective mode quite a bit. Feel like I am missing a beautiful game.

foxdvd

Just finished...working on side quest now...

The game did not freeze on me during any parts of the actual game, but I had maybe 15 or more freezes during the launch of the game, where I had to reboot my system...


Good game, I would give it an 8.5 out of 10...


Catwoman stuff was a waste...at no point did I find I enjoyed her missions...and I hate that it wanted you to waste points on her upgrades..it should have been a separate system for upgrades.

Decker

Totally. It's absurd to expect you to upgrade Catwoman when you could spend those points on Batman's upgrades instead. Maybe they could have done something where when you upgrade Batman, it automatically upgrades Catwoman's armor or abilities as well.

Liver&Onions

I had freezes on launch consistently when I had it installed to the drive. I uninstalled and haven't had a freeze up yet. I also had one occasion where the DLC came up as Corrupted, so I uninstalled that and redownloaded it and haven't had that issue again either.

LorenzoL

I finally was able to play the game this morning since I first bought it. I had no issues with the installation of the game along with the Catwoman side missions.

Played it until I got my first trophy and I think is safe to say that I will be spending a lot of time with this game for a while.