Batman: Arkham Knight

My reverence for the Arkham games is well known among my friends. But since anyone reading this likely doesn't know me on a personal level, let me just say that Asylum and City were easy GotY contenders for me in the years in which they were released. I've yet to ever play a "perfect" game, but these were as close as I've seen to the lofty height of perfection in my entire time spent gaming. There's just, simply, a lot to like in both Asylum and City. And we'll just all agree not to speak of Arkham Origins, yes? If you really need to know my take on it, there's a review I wrote on this site that you can look up if so inclined. I did not feel the need to mince words. But it's not a "ROCKSTEADY" Arkham game anyway, so the less said, the better.

So imagine my surprise, when about half way through Arkham Knight I found myself just kinda wishing it would end already. When disarming yet another street mine in yet another borough of Gotham and facing down YET ANOTHER wave of drone tanks with my Batmobile, it all just started to feel so mundane.

That's really where it all lies. The story in Knight is good. Possibly the best one to date, although I'm not entirely finished with it yet. I've enjoyed what I've seen thus far, even though I'm pretty sure I figured out the Knight's true identity during his introduction (because, you know, I read the comics). But who cares about that, it's still fun to face off against these larger than life villains. The Freeflow combat, like the story, measures up nicely to those games which came before as does the Predator segments. They're fun, challenging, and engaging in that way that this series perfected on it's initial offering and has refined since 2009. But that damn Batmobile. It commits the video game cardinal sin... it's just boring!

Not bad, not difficult, just kinda bland. You get better at it once the controls "click" in your brain. Which can take a while if you're old like me, or can snap into place and become muscle memory if you're younger. But either way, even with full mastery of the vehicles tricks at your disposal, it just gets so dull to keep shooting the same stupid tanks over and over. And don't even get me started on how thematically innappropriate it is for Batman to use this tool. And I'm not even talking about the guns specifically. Why would Gotham City's sworn protector, Gotham's Dark Knight, why would he be so cavalier about decimating the entire city with this big cumbersome tank. You just plow through everything with this machine. Walls, support struts, thugs, other cars including police cruisers. It's just very out-of-character in my view, even though Arkham's version of Batman has always fallen on the "mean" side of the spectrum, I just can't see him going the Christian Bale route and busting up the city left, right, and sideways with such reckless disregard for the safety of all those around him.

But even if you buy that he would build and deploy this whirling dervish of destruction on the mean streets of Gotham City, it still doesn't excuse just how much time you have to spend wheeling this thing out to complete your challenges. Destroying endless waves of drones, Riddler's obstacle courses, all of it just runs together to be such a dull blur.

All my complaining aside though, it does have some great moments to this game. There's still fun to be had here. And as I said, the story manages to entertain in that really specific way that comics tend to be so great at delivering. This is a good game. But for the Arkham series, it started in the "Great" category. So "Good" feels like such a back step.

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UPDATE

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So after having finished the story, I'm in a position to weigh in on "The Arkham Knight" a bit more. Needless to say, SPOILERS will follow this point

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So early on while playing Arkham Knight, I got the feeling that the Knight was playing out the same basic story arc as Under The Red Hood, albeit on a larger scale. This isn't neccessarly a bad thing, but it was very predictable. Not helped by the fact that they gave us a Red Hood DLC pack for pre-ordering at GameStop. It really telegraphs the move. I get the need to disguise it though. I mean, Batman fans have all likely seen the Jason Todd/Red Hood story arc play out already, so just making the Red Hood show up would offer no mystery. I had just hoped they were actually making up a new character, not a new outfit and new alias for an existing character is all.

Further, I get the idea behind the game's double ending. Finish the story and get the game's ending, finish 100% to see "The Knight Fall Protocol". I haven't actually gotten my 100% yet. I may add another update if it is interesting enough. Although I'm pretty sure I know how that is going to play out too, but we'll see. It's a nice way to add incentive to finish the game fully and get the player to see all the content. In theory. In practice though, it means having to do an interminable amount of Batmobile stuff that I'd likely just abandon otherwise. And I was never someone who hated doing Riddler trophies either. I got 100% in both Asylum and City. I just don't want to have to keep driving that thing around all over town to nab trophies and disarm those stupid land mines while fighting waves after waves after waves of drones.

Lastly, I do like that they added in Deathstroke as a sub for The Knight once you finish off the story. It's a good way to keep the status quo post ending so you can keep playing if you like. And I plan to do so, even though I am not really super into the Batmobile stuff. So I guess I'm going to call Knight a success all things considered. But it's good that this is their last game. I'll be eager to see what ROCKSTEADY does next.