I'm sorry for that title. That rises below even my usual low standards for blog titles. Anyway, I've played Arkham Knight, to completion (literally, I got 100%), and now I'm writing about it. Er, written about it, by the time you read it. I should say that while I'm not going into a deep analysis of the plot, I will be discussing some spoiler stuff (including the twist(s)), so be forewarned! I'll hopefully remember to white that stuff out, like I usually do when I don't forget.

But, as I am wont to do when writing about the latest entry in a series, let me go over my history with the franchise first. I've always, for as long as I can remember, loved Batman. I grew up watching The Animated Series, I loved those stupid 90s Batman movies that most people seem to hate (and as of the last time I watched them (within the last few years), I still enjoy them for the camp and goofiness), I loved the 1960s show when TV Land started airing reruns, and I especially loved the Chris Nolan take on The Batman once Batman Begins and The Dark Knight came out. Though, I've never actually read a Batman comic book in my entire life, despite knowing a fair amount about some of the bigger story arcs and different versions, just through osmosis online.

So, when Arkham Asylum was coming out, I was at once excited, but only cautiously so. As much as I love Batman, and that universe (or at least the Batman part of it, DC as a whole, not so much), Batman games had always been mediocre at best. I'd played small pieces of some over the years, either through renting, or playing at a friend's house. I do remember the Batman Begins game (which I did buy because I was 14 at the time and shut up) being almost pretty good. It had the ideas for a good Batman game in there, with using limited stealth and the environment to instill fear in the enemies. The problems being that it was painfully linear, not very long, and every encounter came down to scaring the guns out of the crooks' hands and then punching them. But it's the only game with Michael Caine in it, so it's got that going for it.

Luckily, Arkham Asylum ended up being a good game. Not just a good game, a game so good that I couldn't really believe it. It wasn't flawless, and to this day I still have issues with it (literally, I just started playing it for about the fifth time yesterday, as I wanted to replay it and City after finishing Knight). But it was so much better than any other Batman game, in terms of game play, story, atmosphere, and just the way it used that universe. It lived and breathed Batman, and was made by people that pretty clearly had a deep love and understanding for the universe (for the most part, anyway).

Because I loved that game so much, and had played it several times by the time Arkham City came out, my expectations were now set really high. And I wasn't disappointed. I know lots of people prefer Asylum to City, and who know if my opinion will change once I get around to playing it again in the near future, but at the time, I thought City was a step up in every way. Asylum felt too restrained, and restricted to me, but City was just open enough to really make me feel like The Batman as I soared over the rooftops. But it also knew when to put Batman in tighter quarters, and had some really great indoor sections. I also liked the story a lot more than the, "Joker is using a super serum to make monsters" story of Asylum, even if I had the game's big twist spoiled to me some time before I actually played it. Which is always a bummer, but I enjoyed the game anyway, and ended up playing it several times as well.

I skipped over Origins. At the time the impression I got was that it was a mediocre, buggy cash-grab on WB's part, so not playing it seemed like the thing to do. Plus, I watched the Quick Look and really wasn't interesting in listening to Chris Redfield pretend to be Batman. Yeah, I get that they wanted a younger voice actor, and after listening to Kevin Conroy be The Batman again, I totally hear the other one sounding like a younger version of him... But he's voiced be the guy who was Chris Redfield and he is 100% just doing the Chris Redfield voice (nothing against that guy, he's done some great work over the years, like being Ezio in the AC games). But more recently, I've gotten the impression that Origins is a lot better than it's given credit for, particularly in the story department. But have I heard enough good things to actually take the time to play it? I dunno, maybe if it was $10 or something. Maybe.

Then fast forward to the near past, and Arkham Knight came out to a resounding, "I dunno, the parts where it's the same as the last games are good but there's an awful lot of driving in it." I didn't get to play it for almost a week (I know, a whole almost a week) until after it came out, so I wasn't really sure what to expect after days of reading people responding to the game. Some came to the defense of the Batmobile, some didn't, and some were somewhere between liking it a lot and disliking it! Almost as if opinions don't exist on a pure binary scale of good and bad.

And where do I land on this controversial issue? Overall, I think the game is fantastic, just like I think the other two games are fantastic. I think it excels at certain things, and does some things a lot better than the others. I also think the story is really predictable in some aspects (more on that later), and the Batmobile is shoehorned into the main story missions quite a bit more than it should be.

And I really liked the Batmobile. More than anything else, it just feels powerful. Usually in open world games, the vehicles either feel way weaker and more pathetic than they should (get wrecked easily, can't drive through things like fences that they would be able to realistically), or they are comically able to drive through trees and stuff that they wouldn't be able to (GTA IV comes to mind with the trees). But the Batmobile is a beast that roars through concrete pillars like they were damp tissues, and laughs at those pillars as it rushes forward, barreling through the night. I like it a lot.

Prior to release, it was the Batmobile's "Battle Mode" that had me worried the most. The idea that it turned from a figurative tank into a literal tank to fight an armor of drone tanks just seemed, to be frank, like the least Batman-y thing possible. Like they wanted it to be able to move in any direction to prevent people from Austin Powers-ing it stuck between things, and just went completely overboard with making it a literal tank. But, in the context of the game, and when compared to other versions of the Batmobile in other versions of Batman (the Tumbler in the Nolan movies and this monster in Dark Knight Returns come to mind), it seems about on par for what the Batmobile has become over the years. The fact that it has unlimited ammo is a little silly, but it's always been silly that Batman had infinite Batarangs in these games, but makes sense game play wise, so I'm not complaining.

And in the context of the story, the city being filled with drones does kind of make sense. Or at least more sense than I expected it to. The basic reasoning (not really a spoiler) is that the villains have decided that since everything else has failed, they need a literal army to stop The Batman, and an army of mostly drone tanks happened to be the one that they were offered. Really, the reason they're all drones is so that Batman can drive around blowing them up without having to worry about the people inside. Though, a game where you had to deftly disable tanks that have people in them, but without actually blowing up the tanks could be really interesting too. But, as it is, I think the tank on tank violence in Arkham Knight is pretty fun, and it isn't shoved down your throat so much that it gets old, at least in the main story missions.

The Batmobile sections that I didn't care for at all are the ones where you have to drive really quickly, and with precision through tight spaces, and often in tunnels. Specifically there's a couple Riddler challenges that involve racing on his absurdly large underground racetracks, and what the game asks of you there is beyond what is fun to do with the Batmobile. And there's a couple spots in the story where you have to escape from a thing in some tunnels that I didn't think were as bad, but still weren't really fun. There's also some spots in the game where you have to switch back and forth between Batman doing a thing, and remote controlling the Batmobile in order to progress, and it gets a bit tedious. Not terribly so, and there were a couple spots where I found that stuff enjoyable in a puzzle solve-y way, but for the most part those sections felt more like they were shoehorning it into the game.

Which is a shame, because like I said earlier, I loved driving the Batmobile around the open world, and chasing down enemies in it was often thrilling. One of the various side missions involve chasing down a series of Militia (the inventive name for the occupying force in Gotham) trucks and disabling them to capture the Militia lieutenants (because shooting missiles at trucks which then flip through the air and crash wouldn't kill the passengers inside). I really liked that stuff, and I kinda wish they had fleshed it out a bit more. Have something like Batman having to chase down a named villain in some equally extravagant vehicle, I don't know. It would have been better than two separate boss fights against a guy in a mega tank that is flanked by a bunch of Cobra tanks, which can only be defeated with a well placed shot to the rear. Yes, that means tank stealth in this game. I actually enjoyed that stuff, for the most part, but having two boss fights built around that (even if one is optional), is kinda lame.

I also found it really weird that of the two control schemes for the Batmobile in the game, the default one is clearly the worse one. I don't know why someone would want to hold L2 during entire tank fights in this game, when tapping R1 is way better. Plus that also puts brakes on L2, like they should be. Though, the game is kinda built around not needing to brake, as I was able to get around most corners in the game just by letting off the gas a bit. And even when I did brake, I found the handbrake on Square to be a bit better, for drifting, at least. But at least there's an option to switch, which I definitely recommend doing as soon as you can't (the option doesn't appear in the menu until after you clear the Batmobile tutorial).

So, I kinda touched on it earlier, but I feel like I should say something else about the push and pull between the fact that Batman never kills anyone, and a lot of the stuff he does in the game. It's not just the fact that he's driving a turbo charged tank around Gotham. It's things like the newly added environmental takedowns. As if breaking bones, backs, and probably skulls wasn't enough, now Batman does things like slam people into electric sparking boxes on walls, and slams lights down onto their heads (not both at the same time). The sort of things that, in any other game, or real life, would probably kill the person. And if not, they'd be in a coma, paralyzed for life, or both. And there's one specific spot in the game where you can use an electric shock to water that some enemies are standing in to take them out all at once. You know, electricity and water, well regarded as a nonlethal way to deal with enemies in games.

Some of the stuff, like how enemies go flying and sparking away from the Batmobile as you drive into them, is pretty funny and silly. In a way that I definitely appreciate. But a lot of that other stuff feels like the developers are really stretching the limits of what can happened to people before they actually die. Even by comic book universe standards.

But, the interesting thing is that there actually is kind of a story reason as to why Batman would be more aggressive than in the previous games, and why he would be slamming people's heads into electric sparking boxes, and driving a literal figurative tank around Gotham. The game literally hints at that in one of the text thingies you get in the game from solving Riddler's riddles. I don't really want to get into that stuff, though, because I think that stuff is pretty straightforward (and I wish I hadn't watched the Quick Look and seen that some of the stuff around that was in the game before I played it, but too late now).

I am, however, going to discuss The Arkham Knight, including spoilery stuff around him. Not quite yet, but, like, the next paragraph, probably. The one thing I want to mention before getting to the actual spoiler stuff is the name. I think Arkham Knight is a really dumb name, and I don't think the game ever gave a satisfactory explanation as to why he has that name. Maybe it's hidden in some piece of text that I didn't read, because despite taking the time to do all of Riddler's stupid stuff, I didn't read every last piece of text that was unlocked from that stuff. I did listen to all the audio logs, but I didn't read all the text. (Quick aside: While I definitely think 243 Riddler things is way too many, I do think a fair number of them are actually pretty decent puzzles, and also Arkham Asylum has 240 of them, so these games have ALWAYS had way too many Riddler things).

Okay, now to the actual SPOILERS. Actually, I'm not going to explicitly spoil who The Arkham Knight is, but if you plan on playing the game, skip over the whited out stuff, because it might still be too much if you want to go in knowing nothing (in which case, you probably shouldn't be reading this in the first place!).

So, the thing with The Arkham Knight is that despite what Rocksteady said prior to release about him being an entirely new character, it's clear from really early in the game that he has a history with Batman, and thus that he's actually an existing character in the universe. And from that specific moment, I was pretty positive I knew exactly who he was. And it later turned out that I was correct. But the thing is that, despite it being really obvious to me, as someone with a decent knowledge of the overarching Batman lore and mythos, given the way the game handles that story arch, and hints at it earlier in the game, I feel like it would have been a pretty cool twist if I knew nothing about the Batman universe beyond what was in these games prior to playing. But, obviously, I have no way of knowing if that would actually have been the case. Unless someone who played this game without any prior knowledge of that stuff could respond to me about it.

Anyway, for as predictable as the story stuff was to me (and it wasn't entirely, to be fair), I do think the story is presented incredibly well. The game is absolutely gorgeous (though a fair number of the cut-scenes are, I believe, still pre-rendered and thus the in game graphics don't really matter), and the voice acting is great (particularly from the main cast, as there's way too many repeating lines from the same three or four random thugs in the open world). But the most impressive thing to me about the way the story is told in the game is, well, how it's told. The cut-scenes are just, I'm not sure what the best term to use is, but they're "shot" really well. Great use of camera work, would be the way to put it, I guess. But it's not just that, there's lots of cases in the game where things happen in the environment whilst you still have (limited) control to convey stuff. In some cases flashbacks, in some cases just whatever Batman is dealing with in his head. And I think all of that stuff is superbly well done, and that a lot of developers could learn a thing or two from this game.

Though, whilst I'm on story stuff, I should just briefly mention that much like the last game I wrote about (Witcher 3), this game doesn't exactly handle women well. To once again paraphrase my friend Lina, almost all of the major women in the game are either damsels in distress, die, or both. Not all, and I'm not even going to hint at what happens to who (because that'd be major spoiler details), but I still think it's important to acknowledge this stuff. I don't want to harp on it, and I don't really have much else to say, or expand on that stuff, but it would be nice if it wasn't the case.

There's plenty of great women in the Batman universe, and seeing characters like Catwoman reduced to the reason you go through Riddler's absurd challenges, and then have the thing she does after you get her out be to try to get Batman to sleep with her is, frankly, a waste, and kinda sexist. Especially after the big deal that was made out of those parts of Arkham City where you played as her being locked behind the buying the game new code. Even if, personally, I felt like those were the worst parts of the game in terms of what was going on game play wise, and that they broke up the flow of the overall game in a negative way, they were still a much better use of Catwoman than in Arkham Knight.

I realize now that I'm almost six pages into this blog, and I've not talked about the core of these Arkham games, which is the melee combat, and the stealth. But that's because there really isn't much to say about that stuff. It's back, and it's just as good as it ever has been. There's some new stuff, new abilities, and the open world does affect how some of the stealth/predator sections work, where instead of grappling up to a gargoyle, you grapple up to a nearby roof, or something along those lines. The enemies in this game tend to be better equipped, and will more quickly try to adapt to your tactics. If you favor gargoyles, they'll start bombing those, or torch the vents under the floor if you use those a lot. But, at least on normal, the game never gets hard enough that any of this becomes an issue, which is also partly because there are so many different options that you don't really have to just stick to one or two different things. And that's cool.

The melee combat, though, I think goes just a smidge too far in throwing too much at you in some of the later fights. Specifically, there's one enemy type that really irked me. They're these big guys (which require being stunned and a flurry of punches) that alternate between sparky things on their arms (which you can't attack head on without taking damage) and a shield (which requires yet another method to get around). Like all the enemies in the game, on their own, they're not an issue. You play as Batman, after all. The problem is that the game seemed to always through two at you at once, along with a regular sized group of enemies, often comprised of regular guys with shocky things, ninjas with swords, regular guys with shields, and maybe even a guy with a gun. It got to be just a bit too much in spots, which makes me wonder how much I'll enjoy New Game Plus once I get around to that after I finish replaying Asylum and City.

Aside from that stuff, I feel like the last thing I want to mention is that I feel like too much of Knight takes place in the open world. One of the things I liked the most about City was that it had a big open area, but it also had a bunch of "dungeons" that you went into, at which point it basically became Arkham Asylum style levels. I really liked the balance between the two in that game. But in Knight, there's only a couple of small areas in the game that are like that. I wish there was more of that stuff in the game, because I think this game could have easily been the best in the series. It's definitely the best from a mechanical point of view. Which, it SHOULD be given that games are about the only medium where better tech can directly lead to a better experience (in terms of game play), instead of just bigger explosions like in movies.

But with the story being predictable in a lot of ways, and the Batmobile stuff being kinda shoehorned in, I don't think I can really say it's my favorite of the bunch. I mean, we'll see once I get done replaying Asylum and City, but I still think City will wind up being my favorite when all is said and done. Do I like Knight more or less than Asylum? For as similar as the games are, I think comparing them really isn't fair. Asylum is a tight, and pretty small game that takes pretty heavily from stuff like Metroid Prime, with requiring new items to access previously inaccessible areas, and backtracking to find stuff you couldn't before. Knight is an open world game where you are gliding and driving around like a lunatic.

Oh, one thing that I almost forgot to mention is how much I like the "world" that the game is in. Despite there being some pretty contrived reasons for why there are only criminals out on the streets of Gotham, and despite it being relatively small compared to a lot of other opens worlds, this game's Gotham still felt more real to me than a lot of other games' open worlds. Specifically in terms of scale. Most open world games, even ones that are technically larger than this one, end up feeling deceptively small to me. Games like Skyrim feel huge and massive until you get to what the game considers a city and realize how laughably small everything is. Witcher 3 is a bit better, but even then, most of the villages would be way too small to support a population, and even Novigrad, "The largest city in the north" is a lot smaller than any real city would be. And games like GTA V are just absurd in their setting. That game is one big island out in the middle of the ocean, half of which is fake LA, and the other half is weirdo rural drug country. Makes zero sense.

Arkham Knight, however, takes place on three islands which comprise of part of Gotham. But the key, for me, is that it's not the whole city. Just across from one of the raised bridges you can see the rest of the city, which looks pretty big. In another direction you can see the remnants of Arkham City, and in another you can see Arkham Asylum. If you look in yet another direction, you can even see Wayne Manor in the distance. What I'm trying to say is that while this game might not have the physical size that some of those other games have, it does more with its size, and does more to make it feel like it's part of an actual world, instead of just this contrived space that exists for a video game (again, despite the aforementioned contrivances to clear the streets of non-criminals).

Okay, now I'm pretty sure I've run out of things to say. That said, I really liked this game a whole lot. I'd even go so far as to say I loved it. Bloodborne is still my favorite game of the year so far, but I'd say this one is second. Yes, above Witcher 3, which as you may remember, was often a game that I loved in spite of itself. This, however, is a fantastic game that just has a few missteps here and there. If you like the Batman games, this one is absolutely worth your time.

Especially since it's probably the last one we'll see from Rocksteady, and in this style for quite a while. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised (or upset) if in like, ten years we got a return to it from them called, Batman: Arkham Returns that was their spin on the Dark Knight Returns arc. I mean, I'd play that. I just hope that we don't get another spin-off prequel in two years from another developer. Give Batman a rest for a bit, and when a new game comes (which it will), do something different with it. A bit campier, and I dunno. But something different.

Anything else?

I know I didn't do a PS+ Catch Up last month. I was going to, but every time I thought about writing one, I just ended up playing Arkham Knight instead. That said, given that I had already played the best games of last month's PS+ (Ground Zeroes and that Call of Juarez game), I didn't really have much to say about those games. Or Ether One, which I did try getting back to, but it just wasn't holding my attention. I would like to write something about #DRIVECLUB PlayStation Plus Edition, though. Maybe I'll work that into the next edition, the other half of which will be a return to the rapid fire days of, "I dunno, it was okay aside from this one thing that bugged me" PS+ Catch-Up blogs.

I should also add that, there's no new games coming out that interest me until MGSV on September 1^st. At least not in terms of big releases, maybe some small indie game will surprise me in the mean time. I might borrow my cousin's copy of Dying Light and give that a shot, but other than that, I'll probably just be replaying old stuff for the next month and a half ish. I do still want to replay some of the MGS games, though I dunno if I'm going to go through with the whole shebang like I had been planning. Specifically I don't really want to play MGS1 on PS1, or replay Twin Snakes and spoil some of my memories of that game. I'll definitely play MGS2 HD and MGS3 HD, because I paid $6 a piece for those a few months ago. Aside from those? I dunno. We'll see. I'm not making promises, though, so don't go expecting the comprehensive Metal Gear Quest I had once said I'd do.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and have a good day! <3

I don't know much about Batman comics so I started to suspect who the Arkham Knight might be when they started laying it on thick right before the boss fight but I wasn't sure until the very end. It was an ok twist but in the long run it didn't really make much sense to me - like how did he afford this whole army given his circumstances.

@humanity: Yeah, that was something I forgot to mention. The logistics of that army were absurd. I was expecting some sort of last minute twist, like Lex Luthor was secretly funding the whole thing. I still think there was way too much LexCorp in that game for it to merely be there to fill out the world, you know?

@humanity: @mooseymcman: actually it is mentioned but not through the game's main narrative but through random thug/militia chatter. They mention how Scarecrow not only convinced Batman's rogue gallery to join forces to take out Bats, but also had them chip in their resources together to hire the mercs and the tech. Lex Luthor is mentioned to maybe having a hand in all this but the thugs/militia say that it's merely a rumor.

Excellent, excellent, excellent write up. Wonderful job being both an adoring fan of the game and a critical voice for its weaker aspects.

Specifically, there's one enemy type that really irked me. They're these big guys (which require being stunned and a flurry of punches) that alternate between sparky things on their arms (which you can't attack head on without taking damage) and a shield (which requires yet another method to get around). Like all the enemies in the game, on their own, they're not an issue. You play as Batman, after all. The problem is that the game seemed to always through two at you at once, along with a regular sized group of enemies, often comprised of regular guys with shocky things, ninjas with swords, regular guys with shields, and maybe even a guy with a gun. It got to be just a bit too much in spots, which makes me wonder how much I'll enjoy New Game Plus once I get around to that after I finish replaying Asylum and City.

I'm glad you spent some time to poke at this very specific issue. Weirdly, I felt like balance was an issue with the combat in Arkham Knight, and these particular enemies were the tipping point causing the melee balance to turn awry. City had big brutes as well, and sometimes forced you into situations where more than one brute made up parts of a larger group of baddies. But City felt way more restrained in the way it handed gimmicks out to the enemies. Sure, brutes needed to be stunned first, but that was it. They couldn't electrify themselves or use shields or stun batons.

And it doesn't help that brutes seem to be the one enemy in Arkham Knight that can attack Batman in the middle of any animation--even Takedowns--more or less nullifying the effectiveness of Batman's Freeflow combat. The Freeflow setup has always provided a series of safety windows, animations or frames of certain animations where enemies won't attack or where Batman is invincible to strikes. Knight's brutes don't adhere to the rules of those invincibility frames, and quickly countering a brute's attacks leads to a stilted non-animation, giving the freeflow combat an uncomfortable stop-and-go pace.

When there is a brute in play, you're supposed to attack him first and foremost. Stun and beatdown. But if there are two, suddenly that prospect becomes much more difficult. If you stun the first brute, the second is free to attack. If you counter the second, the awkward animation is long enough that the first is no longer stunned, interrupting Batman's beatdown string.

Very frustrating. Otherwise, an excellent game, save the other problematic issues you noted.

@mooseymcman Great write up. I'm also there with you in thinking that these Batman games are top notch. These are some of my favorite games of all time. I'm interested to hear what you thought of the Knightfall protocol after getting 100% in the game. I think another great thing about the game is how much little details there are in it. You should look closely who is in the crowd during the Knightfall protocol final cutscene.

@toysoldier83: That explains how Scarecrow was able to hire them, but doesn't explain how he was able to amass that army in the first place. That can't have been through Scarecrow and them, because they wouldn't have hired him if he didn't already have the army, right? I dunno.

@historyinrust Thanks! And good job expanding on what I wrote. I don't think I had noticed that they can interrupt takedowns. I'd almost go so far as to say that might be a bug, but I dunno.

@thestandardtoaster Thank you too! As for Knightfall Protocol, I feel like I was left with more questions than answers. I mean, SPOILERS (for other people reading this), obviously he faked his death, presumably to protect the people he cared about. But the last thing we see is some new Batman like figure that either has supernatural powers, or is using a Scarecrow fear toxin like thing to fight crime. And I totally get that it's supposed to not answer everything, but I wish I knew more about it! Is that someone new? Azrael? Red Hood? It's not Tim, he was getting married to Barbara. Or is it Bruce, just doing a better job at hiding his identity this time?

I was also expecting/hoping for some big reveal. Like, I mentioned this in another comment, but I really thought Lex Luthor was going to play into the story. Him secretly funding the Knight as a means to force Wayne out of Gotham (the idea of him knowing who Batman was seems plausible, given his resources and him being pretty smart) so LexCorp could roll in. Something along those lines. But, nope.

That said, if it wasn't for my having lots of free time, and there being Trophies involved, I wouldn't recommend actually getting 100%. The ending is on YouTube, and I'd tell people to watch it there.

@thestandardtoaster: I just watched the end again (on YouTube), and I tried looking at the crowd, but didn't see anyone that stood out. Hm...

@mooseymcman: It's someone stood near Vicky Vale in the crowd. To be fair it's pretty easy to miss but they maybe give a hint to it in one of the riddle locations, I only spotted it because I played through Asylum and City before Knight came out.

It's my second favorite game behind Bloodborne as well, I'm a gigantic batman fan though. I've read quite a few of the comics, love the Nolan trilogy, and I've watched my share of the animated series

Very well written and I'm surprised I found someone that laid out their opinions and those said opinions are the same as mine. I'm close to 100% Arkham Knight (freaking riddler trophies) and I can't stop playing it. I'm thoroughly enjoying the game more than I thought I would. I was going to pass on it until a price drop after playing some of Origins, but I'm glad I pulled the trigger. My favorite in the trilogy by far.

Also, September cannot get here any quicker. Granted, I have Witcher 3 to finish up before then, there is nothing coming out until MGS V that I'm looking forward to (other than Madden....yea....I'm that guy). In the meantime, we have MGScanlon 4 to look forward to!

@historyinrust: @mooseymcman

I had a problem with that as well. Specifically there is one "checkpoint" right outside Oracles tower pretty late in the game that I literally restarted about 5 times. It had two medics, two brutes with knife hands, stun baton guys, electric fist guys, shield guys, sword guys and two thugs would eventually pull out rifles. It is probably the hardest melee confrontation I've faced in the entire game and it didn't help that the crowd was so thick that I would inevitably and without fail always hit a shield guy when aiming for a normal thug and lose my entire combo. The previous games offered a challenge that still remained fun. Arkham Knight felt like there was just too much going on and the crowds too big where you couldn't reliably target your foes, which all seemed to have their own specific little quirks.

If there is one word that perfectly describes Arkham Knight for me from beginning to end it's "overwhelming." The control scheme got out of control, the side objectives, the number of bad guys in each fight.. it all felt on the verge of just being too much to be fun, and sometimes it was.

@mooseymcman: Calender man is in the crowd. You can see the ring tattoo on his head. In Arkham City, Calender man says he something like he there at the beginning of Batman and he will be at the end of Batman. I thought it was cool to see them follow through with that.

And to doggypile onto this--the game is fucking dark. Like, wow let's turn up the brightness dark. So there were a couple of sequences where I just couldn't visualize what kinds of enemies I was dealing with in a particular encounter.

@thestandardtoaster: HOLY SHIT. Yeah, I was looking in the video again, and I noticed that guy, but I wasn't sure who it was. Hahahaha, that's great if he's the one who killed Batman.

@historyinrust That might just be your TV. I left the brightness at the default, and I didn't have any problems.

Gotham? Damn near killed him! Did kill him?

@hippie_genocide: Nice!