atman: Arkham City is Rocksteady’s follow-up to the masterpiece of 2009, Arkham Asylum. Quincy Sharp, the former warden, is now the corrupt mayor of Gotham city. Gotham has broken down into a violent police state dominated by Arkham City; a massive open-air prison run by Hugo Strange, a genius psychiatrist, and policed by his private militia, Tyger Security. Bruce Wayne openly opposes the city’s transformation into a reserve run by gangs and rival criminal organisations, but soon becomes Hugo’s latest victim as he is abducted by the Tyger militia and confined within Arkham City’s walls. During his escape he hears about Protocol 10, an operation Strange is putting into motion that will put him firmly in charge of Gotham as he brutally yanks Quincy’s puppet strings. Wayne has to unravel this scheme and put an end to it before he can return to Gotham City.

Why anybody still lives in Gotham City is beyond me. If they’re not being tortured by an insane clown and his cronies, they’re being taken hostage by a pompous ass with a punctuation fetish or a serial killer with his kill count sliced into his flesh. Bad luck for them but worse for you, as you generally won’t walk two steps without a cry for help or the Riddler insulting your intelligence. The sidequests are many and varied, but can seem overwhelming at first as they’re
distracting and make up a large portion of the overall game. Whether you’re interrogating the Riddler’s henchman for clues on his whereabouts, investigating a murder scene to track down Deadeye or honing your aviation skills, you’ll
sink a lot of time into these side missions, loving every minute of it, but are liable to forget what you were supposed to be doing in the first place!

Arkham City is a monster, the campaign runs 8-12 hours and sidequests easily double that. On top of that you have the Riddler challenges, which have been hugely expanded from the first game, as well as the ranked combat and predator challenges. There are now over 400 Riddler trophies to collect, a huge increase and potentially excessive to all but the most hardcore completionists. Completing riddles and finding trophies nets you experience, which can be used to upgrade your skills. Trophies are littered everywhere, with a large percentage not only being hard to find but protected by puzzles which require clever use of Batman’s full repertoire. After you’ve collected a certain amount the Riddler will contact you directly, openly mocking you and challenging you to rescue the hostages he has hidden throughout the city. This leads to a great line of side missions where you need to tackle the Riddler’s elaborate death traps, these are dark and thankfully a step beyond Jim Carrey prancing around in green spandex, and make a unique and enjoyable distraction.

Arkham City is broken down into regions ruled by warring factions, which has subtle but noticeable effects on the environment. Areas run by the Joker are littered with green paint and have a twisted funhouse theme while the Penguin favours his Iceberg lounge and his henchmen tend to be better armed, with equipment that interferes
with your gadgets as well as infra-red for tracking, forcing you to prioritise targets to execute your fight plan effectively. Flight has been greatly improved from the basic glide abilities of Arkham Asylum. You are now able to dive while gliding, using the momentum to take down unsuspecting guards or hurl yourself skyward to keep yourself airborne over greater distances. The controls take some getting used to but it’s a fun way to get around the city once you get to grips with it.

New copies of the game come with a code to download Catwoman as a playable character. Her combat style has more finesse and acrobatics than the brute force of the Dark Knight, and she makes use of her whip, caltrops and bolas for great effect. This DLC adds four missions, of around an hour in total, which are inserted into the main campaign. They add a little variety to the gameplay and a nice change of pace as well as a few additional maps for the invisible predator challenges.  The Freeflow combat system has been refined, making it more accessible and a huge improvement over its previous incarnation. Most of Batman’s gadgets have been altered for easier use in combat and are hot-keyed allowing you to seamlessly integrate them into your combos. Batman is now also able to counter thrown objects, and take down up to three assailants if they strike at the same time in flashy, over-the-top sequences. The new moves are satisfying, bone-crunching and brutal, and make you wonder how seriously Batman takes his stance on killing.

AI has improved dramatically; while enemies will stumble blindly into traps, the first time, they will adapt to your tactics, shooting down any ledges you used previously, searching vents and flushing you out with grenades or gunfire. This makes the stealth areas more fun and challenging as you can’t rely on the same tactic over and over expecting it to work, instead it forces you to utilise all of Batman’s gadgets and skills creatively to take down your enemies, making it a much more immersive and rewarding experience. This adaptive AI is especially noticeable in the Mr Freeze boss fight, which is an incredibly unique idea and one that I won’t spoil.

Boss battles have taken a massive step forward and really put you in the role of the Dark Knight as you go toe-to-toe with some of the best villains DC has to offer. Bosses tend to have a build-up area, where you fight through waves of themed goons or solve a number of puzzles or similar objectives before getting to the big bad. The scale is grander, and in true comic book fashion villains have contingencies in place stretching fights over several stages and many are a well designed combination of combat and puzzle, as the secret to winning lies in a clever use of gadgets and the environment. I strongly recommend turning off hints, as the game doesn’t so much hint as spell out exactly what needs to be done, eliminating trial and error and over simplifying the encounters.

Arkham City isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty damn close. It took the already incredible framework of its predecessor and improved on it in every way possible. The story is a solid comic book narrative and the stealth, exploration and combat are honed to perfection. There is enough Batman lore to sate the most well-versed Batman aficionado, and enough content and replay value to make Arkham City the strongest contender for game of the year so far.