I posted this as a review as well.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm not holding back. I will dive deep into story spoilers for Batman Arkham Knight.

I liked Arkham knight, but I didn't like Arkham Knight.

In Arkham Knight, the final entry in the Batman Arkham series created by Rocksteady, Batman faces his biggest challenge yet. No, it's not Scarecrow. No it's not the eponymous Arkham Knight, or 200 Riddler trophies. Instead, Batman's biggest challenge is the realization that he is just not enough to keep Gotham safe anymore.

It's an interesting angle, one I'm not too familiar with in Batman comics. Usually Batman goes up against incredible odds but comes out on the other side stronger, usually with a few scars along the way. The idea of Batman is an always prepared defender of justice. Someone who is ready and willing to put his mind and body on the line to protect the people of Gotham.

And in Arkham Knight, it's all put on the line as the biggest villains of the other games all commit to bringing down the bat by joining forces and going all out on the city on one Halloween night.

The problem that I have is it just doesn't feel big. The stakes are supposed to be high but it never really makes the leap of believability for me. After all, Gotham is completely abandoned of civilians and is entirely inhabited by thugs and bad guys. All of the villains work together to bring Batman down and yet they are mostly done away with rather easily, and quickly. The only reason it really takes a long time to bring them down is because the side missions are gated by story progress.

Take the Two Face missions for example. In the midst of an abandoned Gotham City, Two Face and his thugs take to robbing empty banks. This is all well and good, this seems like something a villain would do. The thing that bothered me about these missions early on was the dramatic misuse of Two Face as a villain. He's intelligent and brutal, with capacity for kindness and compassion. A man with a split psyche who decides on which action to take based on the flip of a coin. And yet, you see none of this.

Instead, these bank robbing missions turn into predator missions in which you have to take down his thugs before they steal all of the money. Honestly, I like the concept, but there was no risk. What will happen, you die and then have to restart? In other Arkham games you would have had hostages or some sort of risk for not being silent and careful. Here, Arkham Knight wants you to be loud and reckless. No, I mean it. It really does tell you "The alarms going off will cover any noise I make, so I can be as loud as I want", allowing you to go HAM against these thugs and get it over with as soon as possible.

And during the final Two Face bank mission, the big bad man himself joins the mission... but because of where the game places you, and because of where the game places Two Face, you could literally take him out in about 5 seconds. That's it, you've done a silent take down to Two Face, so he's done. No boss battle, no epic QTE fight, nothing. It's just over.

You get none of that classic Two Face personality in this game. In fact, he plays himself as more of a One Face as he's entirely brutal and menacing with his speeches and demeanor. And yet, you can remove him from play in about 5 seconds. It's a little embarrassing. It feels like just another thug than one of Batman's big bads.

Same thing with most of the side missions, unfortunately. The Firefly and Man-Bat missions are literally the exact same thing every single time you do them. With Firefly, you have to chase his jet-packing ass through the city with the Batmobile and wait for him to run out of fuel(Or that's what I think is happening, but maybe the Batmobile uploads a virus to him to get him to land sooner or something). Once he runs out of fuel, you eject out of the Batmobile and tackle his ass, but ohhh noooooooooo he gets away and you have to do it again, and again, and again. And it's the exact same thing each time. No variations, no diversity in the mission.

Same thing with Man-Bat. You get the shit scared out of you when you come across the rooftop he's hiding out in and then you chase him, and tackle him. That's it. During the cutscene, Batman takes out his injector and forcibly takes a blood sample to figure out what this thing is. The next time you see him, it's the exact same cutscene except you're injecting a cure. And the next time, the exact same cutscene, except you are injecting more of a cure. I'm not familiar enough with the Man-Bat to know how it should have went, but I know it shouldn't have gone as easy as 3 rinse-repeat cutscenes where you deliver him to GCPD.

The lack of side mission diversity was a little shocking, actually. I figured what was supposed to be the biggest and best and most finalist Batman game would have been, you know... bigger.

In fact, one of the biggest embarrassments to the game is the mission where you single handedly take down Hush by throwing him into a table like a fucking Duddley Boy or something. I was so hyped for Hush because of Arkham City, and I know he's one of Batman's most dangerous foes in what I think was one of the coolest Batman stories. But in Arkham Knight, he's a one-off mission that you complete in roughly 3 minutes. A complete waste of a character and a joke at that.

Honestly, the reaction I get out of this game is that Rocksteady just wanted to be done with it. There are no more challenge maps, instead replaced with "VR Simulations" like from Arkham Origins, but you can't play as anyone but Batman so it doesn't make any sense. Why have(With the respective DLC, of course) Robin, Catwoman, Harley Quin, The Red Hood, Nightwing, Batgirl and presumably more characters to play as if you can't even play as them in the challenge maps? I was excited to see Catwoman open up in my showcase, as if I could actually play as her, but nope. You're limited to Batman and at least Nightwing from one dual-play VR map.

And with talk of characters, let's dig into the Arkham Knight. Or as I call him, The Most Obvious Character Reveal In The World, Like Seriously, I Bet People Who Didn't Even Read Under The Hood Would Know Who This Guy Is Because You Make It So Painfully Obvious. Or, alternatively, TMOCRITWLSIBPWDERUTHWKWTGIBYMISPO. Which is a bit of a mouthful.

I didn't follow Arkham Knight before released. I saw maybe one trailer and one gameplay video and said, yep, that's cool. I knew I would be getting the game, so I didn't want to spoil myself on plot details. After all, this is the big finale of a game series I absolutely adore. So better be safe than sorry! But when they showed the image of the Arkham Knight, I said two things: Jason. Todd. And as much as they protested and pleaded that the Arkham Knight was a new character, I saw straight through their ruse... I mean, after all, Arkham Origins was like totally about Black Mask, right? Right guys?

It was disappointing to say the least. I'm not the most well read Batman fan. In fact there are several major arcs I haven't even read. I'd say that I'm more of a casual Batman fan. I don't hold any particular love for the character, though I do like him and his related characters. Instead, I'd say that I hold more love for the Batman Arkham games. They are truly something fun to play around with.

But, as you play through Arkham Knight, the game actually spoils the big reveal all by itself. Later on in the game, Batman begins having visions of Jason Todd being captured, tortured and murdered by The Joker. But the kicker is: Jason Todd is voiced by Troy Baker. Who else is being voiced by Troy Baker? Two Face... oh and also this "Arkham Knight" guy. So it's tooooootally not going to end up being Jason Todd. In fact, this same twist happened in Arkham Origins where Troy Baker voiced Black Mask and The Joker... except The Joker was disguised as Black Mask. So I'm over here thinking "Oh hey! That's Troy Baker too? HMMMM I WONDER..."

And it ends up being Jason Todd. But once that twist is out of the way... he is gone. In fact, weirdly enough, a lot of characters in this game just end up being gone for a while. Gordon leaves for like half the game. Oracle is gone for 89% of the game. Robin sidelined for the entire game. Catwoman disappears after you save her. And the Arkham Knight leaves once he reveals his identity and that's it, he's gone. Well, he does show up at the very end of the game for a second, but he doesn't say anything. In fact, there's really no repercussions for him or his character. He shows up, does a lot of bad things, reveals himself, and is gone. There's no closure at all. You don't even fight him or anything.

In fact, there's not even really that many boss battles in the game. A majority of them are stealth based Batmobile boss battles that are so boring after like the first one that I just didn't care anymore.

It's disappointing to see so much emphasis placed on the Batmobile in a game about Batman's last hurrah. To see that even Deathstroke's surprise cameo appearance is relegated to a stupid tank boss battle instead of an actual fight can put a lot of things in perspective for where they were going with this game.

There are positives, however.

The game runs incredibly well on PS4. The framerate holds up well even during some insane sequences, and has only dropped really badly that one time I ran over 25 people in the Batmobile. That was about it.

The game LOOKS incredible on PS4 as well. I was honestly surprised to see such a nice looking game being accompanied by such a nice lighting engine. The lighting I was definitely the most impressed by, especially on Founders Island where there are a lot of modern building designs and neon lights. Incredible to look at, even more fun to play around in.

The combat is as tight as ever. Giving you some new options, while also taking others away. I was at first annoyed that you couldn't do a double silent takedown, but realized that it was probably for the better to make sure you aren't insanely overpowered. I respect Rocksteady's restraint to not just go ahead and give Batman all kinds of insane multi-takedown options.

The voice cast is pretty good. Aside from a few weird lines here and there, it's mostly solid. John Noble is the stand out with his performance as Scarecrow. Johnathan Banks also does a pretty good job as Jim Gordon. Mark Hammil's Joker is probably one of my favorite parts of the game because he really goes all out.

The soundtrack. Not gonna lie, I had to put Spotify on pause when going for most of the trophies because the soundtrack has a few really, really good pieces on there.

The Batmobile. I don't blame the Batmobile for all of the stupid boss battles you have to do with it. I do like the Batmobile, and I thoroughly enjoyed driving around Gotham in it. It's a big, meaty tank that looks great and, aside from being a little sluggish, is a real blast to drive. Literally, 'cuz it goes through most things.

I don't hate Batman: Arkham Knight. It has a lot of good. It has a lot of bad. It lacks a lot of the content I would have wanted, like challenge maps so I can pick up Nightwing and go to town on some fools, but hey... there's always DLC...

Sigh.

I only read the bold words. 3/5

I use bold words for emphasis. Emphasis.

I agree. While I don't hate the batmobile like the rest of the internet seems too, I am disappointed that alot of the boss fights were relegated to bullet sponges you shot at while dodging attacks. Deathstroke was a huge disappointment and I agree that alot of the side stuff could have been handled better and I wish the ending was a little less vague.

That being said I 100%'d the game and loved it. There are things that I would have done differently but overall I like it better than City but not as much as Asylum.

Can't disagree of this really.

The boss fights were the biggest downer. Why would Rocksteady hype up AK as such a bad-ass dude who an even match for Bats, then have his boss fight be a fucking predator map? Then there's that Deathstroke "encounter". I was hoping we'd get another hand-to-hand fight after how visually exciting his fight was in Origins, but no, it's another tank battle. Were the bosses outsourced to Monolith?

I'm kinda glad RS is done with the franchise, hopefully WB Montreal will lead on the next game.

Also, small side note, it was Brian Bloom who voiced Black Mask in Origins.

TMOCRITWLSIBPWDERUTHWKWTGIBYMISPO

Crit Spider Ruth

man I must be tripping or something if that's the first thing I saw when reading that...

Same here. This game is a lot like MGS4. I can really only openly criticize it, but I do enjoy playing it.

So much so that I got the Platinum trophy a few days ago. That playthrough is actually the one that made me want to write up something like this. I felt like Arkham Knight was missing something, but it didn't really hit me until the NG+ run when I was just straight shooting right through the game. I noticed how so many people disappeared, how there wasn't really an ending. I mean, I don't want to get too blue here, but the fucking name of the game is ARKHAM KNIGHT. YET YOU DON'T EVEN FIGHT THE ARKHAM KNIGHT. WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT.

Imagine you're there, swinging around the city. Alfred has just informed you of a mission location and you're either swinging towards it via grapnel gun or you're driving in the Batmobile and then BOOM, you get the shit kicked out of you. Oh boy! It's the Arkham Knight. "EAT SHIT BRUCE WAYNE AKA BATMAN HAHA THAT'S RIGHT I KNOW YOUR SECRET!" And BOOM. Final boss is the tables being turned on you with the Arkham Knight hunting you, the Batman, down.

But no. "I'm Jason Todd :( Bye! Hope you preordered at Gamestop!"

Indeed. When Deathstroke got out of his tank I was like "Ohhhhhhh shi-hey WAIT IT'S OVER NO". I mean, man, the game opened strong. Great presentation with the officer in the diner but... those stealth based Batmobile tank battles...

Also, Troy Baker voiced fake Black Mask during the early parts of the game where you're after him. Brian Bloom voiced the real Black Mask who takes a back seat and doesn't really do much because the surprise twist was this was another Joker game, not really a Black Mask game.

Cutscene here. It's totes T. "Shake n" Baker.

From now on I'll probably just refer to him as Giby Mispo. Got a nice ring to it. Sounds like the kind of guy to try to kill his dad to prove a point then get flustered and run away.

@n7:

Oh wow, I never caught that. Troy Baker you elusive bastard,you.

Speaking of T-Bake, I he really isn't all that great in this game. His Jason Todd is has way too "anime-dub" and his Dent is absolutely silly. He does a great Hamill in Origins though.

It's funny you say that because I immediately heard Kanji before I heard Troy Baker. "Oh hey that's Kanji! OH HEY THAT'S TROY BAKER". My Bake-dar is off the charts. I can hear that guy a mile away. It took me a while before I realized Robin wasn't being voiced by Troy Baker in this game. As many times as I've heard Matthew Mercer you'd figure I'd hear him a mile away. I've got Bake-fever, and the only cure, is more video-games-where-he-voices-multiple-characters.

I was really surprised to hear that Hush was in this game since Hush and the Arkham Knight are basically the exact same thing, story-wise. That is to say, they could have just made Hush the main badguy and not have lost anything.

Personally I have never played any of these games for more than 10 minutes and I knew the Arkham Knight was going to be Jason Todd. The fact of the matter is, there simply isn't anyone ELSE he could be. They always try to write that same story, ala Hush, but they have to introduce a character itno Batman's life just so they can "surprise you" by having him be the villian. It's about as surprising as an episode of scooby doo.

Yeah, this all sounds about right. The ending part (you know, with the whole play as Joker in FPS mode thing) was pretty neat, but I think that there was so much that could have been done better. And I 100%'d this game. ON PC. (ever since Asylum, I've had a major soft spot for the Arkham games).

How Hush was wrapped up, considering how he was handled in City, was criminal.

The lack of any challenge maps was annoying. Considering the amount of playable characters (and the amount that will be added through DLC, such as Quinn and Red Hood), this game is crying out for a 'The Mercenaries'-style game mode. You know, like in the previous installments. It's just so weird that characters that have clearly so much work put into them, with custom battle animations and gadgets (seriously, did you know that Robin has a bullet-proof shield?!) to be so incredibly under-used, and only ever playing second fiddle to Batman.

They really should have had at least one more of the side missions be based on actual detective skills, like deconstructing a crime scene, something which I'm fairly certain only happens once in the game (the car crash with Oracle). Hilarious that Origins now seems to be the game that makes the most out of that side of Batman. I don't know, maybe the DLC will aim to deliver on that.

The cynic in me says that the 'true ending' is purposefully very obtuse and difficult to piece together just so that people will talk about it. I have doubts that there is an actual explanation for what happens at the end of the game in that ending.

The Oracle is alive fake-out was just a bit dumb, and almost completely breaks the logic of how the fear gas works, especially since Detective Vision identifies her as a deceased Barbara Gordon after the vision.

The Deathstroke "boss fight" in Arkham Knight was one of the most disappointing ones I have ever played.

I mean Deathstroke is like Super-Batman. He's Batman +1. Deathstroke is what you get if you take Batman and combine him with Captain America and the Punisher. The guy has taken down the Titans and the Justice League on his own but when it comes time to fight him it's a crappy tank battle and a quick cut scene sucker punch. Weak sauce Rockstedy.

There's a lot about this game that I enjoyed, but so much that I'm disappointed with as well. The gameplay was fun. It looks stellar. I loved the GCPD's easy camaraderie with Batman. I even enjoyed the Batmobile stuff, up until right at the end where they just decide to swarm you with tanks.

But then there's the other stuff. When I heard about sidekicks being in the game, I got so incredibly excited. It was probably my main reason for getting the game. I pictured them popping up in the middle of combat "Mysterious Stranger"-Fallout style, so I guess I was setting myself up for disappointment from the start. What they do end up doing with them feels like such a waste. I get that it would probably be a hassle to use them out in the open world because of the way city traversal works, but limiting them to those little closed-off gameplay environments felt kinda pointless. The dual combat stuff was lot of fun, I just wanted more of it. I'm fully expecting them to be incorporated in DLC, but I don't think I'll be buying it. Well, unless Kate Kane shows up or something, but I guess I should be thankful just for an easter egg voicemail.

So much of the story was predictable and then the ending sequence with Joker totally fell flat for me. I started shaking my head right around the time the "Kill Joker" button prompt showed up and I don't think I let up the whole way through. I understand that they had to close it off somehow, but from about halfway through the game I was just fatigued with the Joker, so putting in a little segment where I had to play as him killed off the momentum for me.

Honestly, I was flipping back and forth for the Arkham Knight as I played the game. I was like "It's so obvious! It can't be Jason Todd because they're spelling it out clear as day!" and I thought oh boy, what if it's the lady from Mask of the Phantasm or something, orrrrr Talia Al Ghul, or someone I'd NEVER expect, like The Joker. But I see now it was my brain trying to subvert being disappointed by coming up with new and dumb ideas.

I knew Oracle was alive from the get-go because it was such a terrible death scene. There's no way they'd change her voice actress and then kill her off in the dumbest way possible. I was just waiting for the reveal.

Honestly I was setting myself up for disappointed because I got this idea in my head that they added in that dual-play stuff as a sort of fakeout. Like, you do it so many times with just two people that after doing all side missions and getting the true ending, you'd get a huge fight with all of the bat family. Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Catwoman, Azrael because he's total "you-sunnova-bitch-handshake" bros with Batman now. I honestly expected you to kick the ever loving shit out of the Arkham Knight like this. But no... it's nothing that exciting. Nothing was that exciting.

Not to mention it doesn't even make sense for Deathstroke to have a tank. This is the guy who brings down tanks. He's agile and tactical, total spacial awareness badass super soldier. Why is he going to limit himself to a tank?

I honestly thought that it would be a trick and you'd shoot the tank, then all of the sudden ol Slade will somehow manage to EMP the Batmobile, causing you to fight him or something. I should have known by the lack of human bosses in this game that it just wouldn't happen, but still. It seems like there are so many missed opportunities in this game. Such a shame.

It was massively disappointing to see how Robin was treated in this game. In Arkham CIty Robin shows up and Batman's all "Go fuck yourself". In Arkham Knight he's basically a child that was grounded for the whole game. Ironically the part where you team up with him is probably one of my favorite moments and one of the best moments in the entire game. It felt like Batman and Robin. It was great.

But nope. "You're grounded Robin".

It's such a strange thing. They delayed this game an entire year. They didn't have to rush to get this stuff out, so why is everything so weak? What happened in development that caused so many missteps? Arkham Asylum and City were fairly on point for this kind of stuff, yet the big finish was weak and mostly disappointing.

I dunno. Maybe it was supposed to be analogous to Batman. Constantly stumbling and falling and coming to the realization that it's just not possible to live up to its own hype.

That's what makes it so frustrating for me. The interactions that they actually have in the game are awesome and nostalgic, it just felt like there was so little of it. They show you this fun toy and let you play around with it for like a half hour and then shelve it for the rest of the game. And, yeah, Robin totally got the shaft narratively. Hearing Oracle call Batman on his bullshit at the end almost made it worth it.

It was a problem with the direction. It was supposed to show how overprotective Batman was after the death of Jason. But it just doesn't come across like that. It makes Batman seem more like a dick(ha) than anything. Some change in dialog would have solved the problem, but it just doesn't work as is.

This is probably the only incarnation of Batman where he never really "breaks" down. He's seen as stern and unwavering through the entire franchise. Even when his head is all fucky he's still "I AM BATMAN". It's even stranger when you see these terrible events like Jason dying and Oracle dying and he's just like "meh whatever". Whereas most other incarnations would have him open up, letting these people in if not just for a moment. "Getting real", if you will. I was waiting for the scene where he opens up to Robin and calls him his son or something. But it just doesn't happen... like a lot of things.

So as harsh as it may be, I will reiterate what I said before, it felt more like Rocksteady was just trying to be done with this game. So much left in the air. So much completely untouched. So much wasted potential.

@n7: Again, I totally agree. One of my favorite moments in the game is actually totally missable. I went into the evidence lockers at GCPD and pressed a button prompt in front of the display case for Talia al Ghul's sword. Batman placed his hand on the case and apologized while this somber music played. Just stayed there looking devastated until I moved him. That's just a little moment, probably inconsequential, but I felt like it let me peek into his head for a bit and gave me something to connect to. I'm not saying I wanted them to beat me over the head with angsty manpain for the whole game, but like you said, maybe having him open up to these people that he considers his family could have been a good way to get more stuff like that.

I liked the Two Face missions, I thought it was a cool twist on the predator rooms with it having progression of being able to be loud but then moving to be more stealthy to take the backup out. I do agree with the fact that taking him out felt rather lackluster, I took him down in a fear takedown and expected it to be like the end of City where you have to attack him multiple times before he's done.

I also agree with the Deathstroke boss fight being shitty, just recycling the Arkham Knight tank battle. And Deathstroke, this master assassin goes face to face with Batman...in a tank. That being said, I played Origins somewhat recently and I didn't like the fight against him there so I don't know how I'd have liked them to handle it other than not have the tank.

The lack of VR rooms is annoying too because of reasons you stated, for me because I really liked playing as Catwoman in City in those rooms, but I have to assume they'll be including some challenge room things in dlc, right? If not it's such a waste, because I thought the Batman and Robin missions in the studio were great, they weren't hard at all but it was really fun to be able to switch characters with the takedowns in the stealth section.

I'm not gonna lie, I totally forgot that Talia even died until Arkham Knight. Most of my memories of City were raging against the challenge maps. But it was a very sincere moment in Arkham Knight to see that. You press the button on all these other displays and hear the descriptions and whatnot, but when it comes to Talia, Batman actually lowers his guard for a second. Considering how soon you can see that in the game, I thought it would be a good sign of things to come. But before long it's back to stern 'n stoic.

Imagine that. After the line Jason delivers. "I was just a boy! You turned me into a soldier! Sent me to war!" it would have been some Stone Cold Steven Austin glass shattering shit if Batman said "No Jason, I never thought of you as a soldier... I thought of you as a son" and then they hugged and boom credits hit to the tune of When The Children Cry by White Lion. Now THAT'S an ending!

It's just so bewildering to me, that the Arkham games' bread n butter, the challenge maps, are mostly absent. That's what got me hooked on the games. I remember doing the challenge map demo in a Walmart and going "Yep, this fucking game is incredible". I mean that's what you do, right? Beat the story then dive headfirst into challenge maps and try to get higher on the leaderboards. At least that's what I did. And it was a never ending timesink for me. I put soooo many hours into those things.

Now, I really don't have that option. One, because the leaderboards were completely broken on the PS4 until a few days ago, and 2, because there's like 4 predator maps. What. Arkham City had like... a million of them.

Is it bad that i'm looking forward to picking up the fixed version? :3

No. The game is super fun. It just kind of sucks in some areas.

It's really fun to zip around the city. And Founders Island is pretty to look at.

This review was pretty spot-on. Good work.

@n7: Do the leaderboards work for you yet? I can't work out what's going on with them, sometimes I log in and see the 2 people on my friends lists scores and others it's just completely blank.

I agree about the challenge rooms completely, I loved the predator maps in Asylum and City as they were easily the best part for me, I even bought the somewhat underwhelming dlc characters just to get more of them for new characters. It baffles me a bit that they kept the stupid number of riddler trophies in the game which I never heard anyone praise, but they got rid of a feature that was bloody great. It makes it more frustrating for me when playing the Harley section that they made all of these takedowns and gadgets for her but you can only use them in this pointless story bit. I also don't like how you unlock those maps in this game, maybe because I'm rubbish with the batmobile combat but I have a few still locked that can only be unlocked by getting so many perfect or critical shots with it and I don't really know what that means.

Oops. My bad bro, I didn't get a notification for this message.

Thanks. I feel like if I want to get serious with my own website and try to actually be someone unique, I need to fix my reviews. I feel like I only say good things and conveniently forget all the criticism. I think it's safe to say I got that taken care of here! But it was also good to be able to actually put into words clearly what I have an issue with.

The leaderboards worked for the first day and then were completely broken across the PSN. The recent patch they put out was supposed to fix it but I haven't played any more Arkham Knight to know.

I think it's insane that they put almost more effort into the Batmobile's combat stuff than the actual predator missions. It's probably because you don't really do that many of them in the main game, which I realized when I went through on NG+.

It seems this game skimmed over a lot of things. In theory it should have been the game with the most amount of things, but it seems to be the game with the least amount of things.

The game does have actually quite a bit of predator missions. Most of the military watchtowers are predator type missions. Though there are a couple where you just have to wade in and try to survive. The two face missions are also predator type missions.

Though there are a lot of vehicle based combat missions. Especially the disarming missions were pretty crazy towards the end. Played the game on hard and I wouldnt have survived if I didnt have almost every vehicle based skill maxed out. The game puts you into really small areas with vehicles spawning from every possible direction.

I guess that I am one of the few people who didnt guess the identity of the Arkham Knight before the actual reveal. I think part of the reason is that the last time that i read comics was when i was about 16 years old which was a long time ago. At the time there was only original Robin in the Batman comics.

Yeah I mean you've got options when it comes to the predator missions, but when it comes to the challenge maps there aren't very many at all. And the ones that are there are pretty basic. I expected to see some that really put your skills to the test but they are just general "Hey go take those guys down". The ones in City were really fun. I mean hell even the ones in Asylum could get hectic.

When it comes to the identity of the Arkham Knight, they really played the whole "it's a totes new characters guys, like legit!" but as long as you've read at least one particular Batman comic then it wouldn't be a surprise at all. It was so disappointing because out of all of the characters it could have been(Hush, Damien Wayne, Talia Al Ghul, some actual new character, Superman for the lulz) they chose the one that most Batman fans were already aware of.

And that's the thing. There's nothing wrong with it being Jason Todd, but when they brought him into the game with the Joker mindfuckery scenes they pretty much spoiled the reveal all by themselves. I was honestly ready to be surprised, even though I knew who it was, but when they bring him in suddenly after 2 games then it's pretty clear what the ruse was going to be.

On that level I can accept it, I won't make a huge deal about who he turned out to be, but then to just get rid of him for the rest of the game is the real crime. I mean the name of the game is ARKHAM KNIGHT. And not only do you not even fight this guy, he just straight up leaves. It should have been called "Arkham Absence". It's like, yo, I'm Jason Todd. Credits. No resolution.

Absolutely loved the game's main story. I haven't cleared out any of the side stories, so it's disappointing to hear the other members of Batman's rogues gallery get the figurative shaft.

The big sticking point for me here is the lack of alternate playable characters--which, @N7, you note in your original post. The effort was clearly invested in rendering Robin and Nightwing and Catwoman and, hell, even Azrael. Unique striking techniques, unique gear, unique takedowns. The works. But to only see that stuff in glimpses, that was the most disheartening pitfall for me.

The game's best sequence, wherein Batman and Robin coordinate to eliminate the three infected, leaves the player on this bittersweet note. It's like looking into an alternate-but-cognate dimension to see the Arkham Knight-that-could-have-been, an Assassin's Creed Brotherhood riff that pits the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder in a two-man corner against the coming onslaught. It's so, so, so damn cool for the ten minutes you're in that sequence of events. And then it's over. And Robin is naught but a footnote for the remainder of the game.

Just finished this last night (non-Knightfall ending). I was forcing myself to get through it. I don't know what it was. I felt it was a lot of rinse and repeat stuff. Maybe more rinse and repeat gameplay from the previous games. Stuff like:

- Batman: "I need to do this one specific thing to get to my next objective."

Person on other end of radio: "You need to do these 3-4 other, more boring objectives in order to complete that objective."

Me: "Uuuugggh... fuck."

- Anything to do with the car was not fun for me. I found myself loathing it whenever it came up... and there was a lot of it.

- Every fucking person Batman talks to says that he'll never succeed and he can't beat Scarecrow. He then make some snide comment about how he will. That was charming in the first game when it happened seldom, but seriously, it seemed like every person Batman talked to in this game had a similar exchange multiple times.

I think I just found myself getting tired of the formula a lot quicker this time around. I played the first game about 5 times, but whenever I got to Ivy's part in the story, it just started to drag for me. That was always the part I hated the most. I just slogged through collecting samples from Croc's lair to get it done with. I had that same feeling a lot with this game.

Well put. It's funny how my favorite moment form the entire game is immediately put on the shelf and nothing resembling that ever happens again.

As I said above, I really thought the fact that there were different endings would end up having some sort of "true ending" where Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Catwoman, Azrael and others would all be in this massive mutli-play assault against the Arkham Knight. How great would that have been? So great.

Absolutely with you on the Jason Todd reveal. It would have been endlessly more exciting to see Bats interact with the Red Hood, especially given his relationships with Nightwing, whom Bats treats as a close friend and equal and Tim Drake, who gets the cold shoulder from him all the time.

Thematically, I get why the various Batman allies are so sidelined - it's his trust and guilt complexes going into overdrive, which ties in neatly with Todd and the ending. However, the are two problems with it: first of all, like you said, those moments where you fuck around with the Batfamily are just too damn fun to pass on and secondly, we've been over this shit already. Origins' aesop for Batman is that he can't go at this shit alone. City is the same thing. Bruce Wayne is one dense, stubborn motherfucker, but it doesn't work in a separate, coherent continuity of a video game trilogy.

I agree with pretty much everything stated here. I wish there was a bit more of Arkham Knight even if it was obvious/cliche who he was. I am not a big batman fan at all, I have watched the Nolan and movies and like them a whole lot, but I had no idea there had been three Robins, yet I knew right away when they started introducing the story of Jason, that he was the guy.

For the record I am a bit bummed out that you spoiled Origins, which I haven't played, but I guess that's what I get for reading spoiler threads about Batman, even though it only says spoilers for Arkham Knight.

As for spoiling Origins, that's my bad. I probably should have known better.

Having said that, trust me, it's not too big of a spoiler. I probably shouldn't say more than that, but that particular element reveals itself to you relatively soon into the game. It's not an ending twist by any means. But still, that's my fault. Sorry about that.

Late to the party here, @n7, but I just finished the game and I think you nailed it on all counts. The Jason Todd reveal was astoundingly obvious to any Batman fan with even a passing knowledge of the comics. The boss fights were either non-existent or batmobile centric, one area in which it falls way, way short of Arkham City.

Also, can we all agree that scarecrow is super lame and does not have the necessary gravitas to be the main villain? I could not take him seriously at all and really hurt my perception of the story. I think Nolan got it right in the movies by making him a pawn in Begins, and reducing him to a cameo in TDK. Not a mastermind plotter of Batman's downfall complete to every last detail and variable.

The sidequests are numerous, lazy, and ultimately forgettable. The fact that they don't give you a marker the majority of the time until you get intel somehow (go fly around the city and listen for criminal chatter where they mention a firefighter! fun!) is infuriating. And that ending, oh man. It's like they ran out of money, ideas, time, or all three.

And that's the funny thing, in regards to the last part of your comment... they delayed the game an entire year. They had one additional year to work on the game and everything still came out weak in numerous regards.

I feel like Scarecrow had the most potential to be interesting. The Arkham series is no stranger to mindfuckery what with the Scarecrow stuff in Asylum and the Ra's Al Ghul drug party in City. It seems like Scarecrow was just included to find an excuse to bring The Joker back. Not to mention his entire ploy goes something like "I'm going to bomb an abandoned Gotham to prove how useless you are! Haha, I've bombed an abandoned Gotham! I win, right? NO? I don't? Well then I will make you afraid! Haha, now I've made you afraid right!? Wait, no? You're not afraid?" CREDITS.

Honestly, maybe I'm just an idiot but I don't really understand what he was going for... unless this was supposed to be a metaphor for something, which seems to be the thing nowadays, but Scarecrow's plan made no sense. Maybe if they got rid of the Batmobile and put more effort into including civilians and actually had consequences, but that's the thing in Arkham Knight: There's no consequences. Everything just sorta happens and no one cares.

I was hoping the DLC would have been decent, but that Batgirl stuff was shit. What a way to end the Arkham series.

@n7: You pretty much hit the nail on the head of everything I don't like about this game, so I don't have much to add there. I'm about 95% complete with just the Riddler trophies to do before I initiate "Operation Knightfall", which I can only guess is the "end" of Batman. I would rank this as the worst of all the Arkham games, and that includes Origins which I actually really liked and would rank second only to Asylum. None of the story beats in this game ever pay off like you would want them to. The side missions, which have never been the series' strong suit, are especially bland for the reasons you mentioned. The best part of the game was going through Panessa Studios with Robin fighting as a duo. Why couldn't that have been the hook for the whole game instead of the batmobile/Arkham Knight business? Ugh.

@hippie_genocide: Thank you for the comment.

Honestly, after posting this and playing the Batgirl DLC, my opinion has shifted more to "You know, I just didn't like this game". There are positive aspects to the game that I enjoyed, but that doesn't mean the game is good. At least in my opinion anyway.

I remember reading interviews during the Asylum days and the guys at Rocksteady seemed like such intense and deeply passionate Batman fans. They talked about wanting to get deep into Batman and celebrate him and his mythos in a way that no other video game has even attempted. Then when City rolled around they multiplied that. Now they could do a lot more with the world, add even more detail and go places that they couldn't before(A somewhat-Gotham). The passion was still there, they still seemed excited about it.

But with Arkham Knight, it hits you right out of the gate: The love is gone. It's a much more straight-forward "Go here do that" with allies against villains that usually falls flat. Batman's wooden dialog and refusal to even humor his friends in taking down the big bad, the Batmobile being forced down your throat - and I LIKED the Batmobile but let's face it, it sucks. The world is huge and beautiful, the Batmobile is... there. His allies are fighting with him elsewhere in the city. It just falls apart due to a lack of direction to put all of that together. It's like they went through a checklist of what to put in the game and then said "Okay, wrap it up". Maybe I'm being too harsh, but, man, I was really waiting for this badass conclusion to the series. And I didn't get it.

I wonder what this game would have been if it focused more on Batman and his allies kicking ass and taking names instead of Driving Mr. Brucey. Like you said, the part with Robin is easily the best part of the game.

I wonder if some developer at Rocksteady is having the biggest "soup or salad" moment of his life in regards to this game. "Batmobile or Batfamily? Hmm..."

I didn't have much problem with the story, arkham knight's identity was predictable even before i started the game up. I was just hoping it wouldn't be since he's the red hood, not arkham knight but whatever i can forgive it. Boss fights sucked in this game even more than the others, i think origins had the best boss fights out of all the games Deathstroke in particular. This had me kinda geeked after the disappointing fight with arkham knight but it ended up just being ANOTHER boring batmobile fight.

All around though i feel like this is the best game in the series, even if i feel it should have gone all the way with some of the deaths in the storyline.

###@n7: Good points all around. I concur.

Oh, and I'm right there with you HistoryInRust. The Panessa Studios bit totally gave me a "what could have been..." vibe, too. It was focused, well paced, and admittedly felt like a bite-sized portion of Arkham Asylum. After all the relentlessly tedious drone-clone tank fights, it was like a breath of fresh air. Then I finished it and went back to batmobile / bat-tank stuff. *sigh*

I've ranted about this before, but I really wish that Rocksteady hadn't gone for "bigger is better" game design. Scarecrow is an awesome villain whose myriad chemical cocktails can drive people insane in innumerable ways. A game like Arkham Asylum with Scarecrow as the big bad would have been amazing and, thanks to linearity, have bypassed the need for yet another contrived reason to expel all civilians from Gotham. I'm not saying that Knight's version of Gotham isn't aesthetically pleasing, and each island is very cleverly designed to function as bat stomping ground / batmobile race track / bat-tank battle arena at a moment's notice. That takes skill.

There's a lot of "polish" to this game, if you'll pardon my use of the term. The systems work, and the game itself looks pretty doing its thing. It's just... so repetitive and surprisingly disappointing as you grind out the APCs, explosive devices, riddler trophies, checkpoints, and watchtowers. As others have mentioned, even the supervillain-based side quests are just the same thing done three or so times (or once in the case of Hush and Deacon Blackfire). Oh, and the game somehow takes Kevin Conroy's personable Batman and turn him into a moody, taciturn, prick. The final conversation with Catwoman in this game was so dick that it left me incredulous. I know Batman's has intimacy issues (among other things), but jeez. I don't even want to imagine their sex life. He probably rolls over to the side of the bed when they're finished and curls up into an angst ball, passive-aggressively mumbling about the cab fare on the dresser while hoping that she takes the hint. *cringe*

Edit addition: by the way, the weirdest thing to me about this game was actually how it peaked early at the ACE Chemicals Factory. Scarecrow is going to spread fear toxin over THE ENTIRE EASTERN COAST. New Brunswick to Florida and from Gotham to the Appalachians, baby. He's graduated from terrorizing a city to potentially rendering a million square miles of territory into an oversized, murderous luney bin. It's amazing. Even Joker never dreamed this big. When you are finally fulfilling Batman's martyr complex, I thought "wow... I'm going to die and the rest of this game is going to be me playing Robin as I try to take down Scarecrow and his boy toy while fending off my murderous lust for revenge. Subversive mother%&$%$%s. Color me impressed." Then Joker popped up and I literally frowned, haha. :-D Nevermind. Everything after that felt like me just whittling away at hastily cobbled together back-up plans that Scarecrow and Arkham Knight hashed out over cups of espresso while nervously wringing their hands together.

@lazyimperial: The interaction with Catwoman afflicted me, man. That shit was so poorly done that I should have made a point of it in my initial blog. This is all the proof you need at the lack of direction in this game. Catwoman makes an advance on Batman and he tries to respond like Han Solo, only without any charisma or personality, or charm, or gravitas, or bravado, or... etc etc. I don't get it. Kevin Conroy is perfectly capable of emoting, yet they do zero of that in this game. He is in, from beginning to end, "100% fuck the world" mode.

But, to back it up a little, the interactions with Catwoman in the Riddler stuff was great. They really play up the Odd Couple(Well, actually, everyone is an Odd Couple with Batman in the picture) and work well off of each other. Then the Riddler stuff ends and it's all "Call me if you need me" and "MY PARENTS ARE DEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD". HOW DO YOU FUCK THAT UP.

That and Hush are the biggest cardinal sins in Arkham Knight.

Hope you like the Batmobile, because there are going to be a bunch of Batmobile challenge maps based on certain different eras of Batman, like the Michael Keaton Batman. It's got it's own trophies and everything. Oh, you don't like the Batmobile? You want to hang out with the Batfamily and fuck some shit up Gotham style? I'M AFRAID I'VE GOT SOME BAD NEWS...

It's a shame I find it pleasing to hang out with the Batmobile, considering all the times they shove it down your face. I'd have been perfectly fine never seeing a Batmobile, or having it function in the same way the Batwing did in Origins, just there, not an actual component to shove stupid boss battles into.

@n7: Yeah, the interactions before the final Catwoman cutscene were really good. One of the neat things about the Batman franchise is the very psychotic family dynamic at play. It's not "Catwoman expressing alarm at The Riddler's tactics." No, it's "Selina getting nervous because 'Eddy' is really off his rocker lately." All his defeats at the hands of Batman have finally pushed him over the edge, which is saying something considering "Eddy" in general. :-P There is such an oddly playful vibe to those sequences, and the familiarity among all the players involved sells it. It reminded me of the Batman / Dr. Freeze interactions in Arkham City. "Victor, this is not the time [to be &%&$ing with me]."

Then they tried to have Batman go for stoic and aloof (you're right, a total botched attempt at a "Han Solo" moment), only for it wind up cold-hearted and dickish. The final Riddler fight was the last thing I had to do to get to 100% and see the true ending. When I was done watching Batman be a total jerk, I just bee-lined to that spotlight to be done with it. :-D I'd had enough, haha. Ugh.

But... he wasn't stoic enough to resist a butt grab and deep kiss before pushing her away because hey, he's The Batman. Wah wah.