Batman: Arkham Knight

Back in 2009, the industry was treated to one of the biggest surprises of the last generation. The arrival of Batman: Arkham Asylum forever changed AAA development of action-adventure titles, further instantiating a wide array of derivations surfacing as a result of its nearly perfect mechanics. Since then, additional games have been released under the subheading of "Arkham", comprising of two more by original developer Rocksteady and another installment by WB Montreal. Arkham Asylum's follow-up, named Arkham City, transitioned into a free-roaming environment and never quite left. WB Montreal's Arkham Origins was practically a reskin of the Arkham City open-world, but I still felt that the core game present was good enough to warrant another visit to Gotham. Rocksteady has arrived once again with Arkham Knight, the supposed final product in the series. While I still believe that Arkahm Asylum is the best entry with its tight level design, we now have four solid games under the "Arkham" name. Arkham Knight doesn't quite provide the balanced mix of quality content that its predecessors had, but the core gameplay elements sustained from those previous iterations have been expanded in ways that surpass the high bar they already set.

Gotham of course acts as the open-world environment, and while it's undoubtedly the most detailed version yet in the series, it also illuminates how the game is more of an incremental installment for the series, rather than a transformative one. When Arkham City situated its world as a literal prison and Arkham Origins provided the excuse of an overarching blizzard, Arkham Knight just has the citizens leave. To be fair, the game does give a somewhat decent explanation, but it's simply a shame that it needs to take on the role of "thug town" once again. Maybe the technology still isn't strong enough, but with this next-generation Batman game, I was honestly hoping for a lively Gotham with an abundance of NPC citizens.

Scarecrow is threatening to pollute the city of Gotham with his new fear toxin, and as a result, Batman begins a mission to locate and halt the villain's plans. After locating the source of Scarecrow's toxin at a local chemical factory, our protagonist encounters the game's antagonist; the Arkham Knight. From there, the plot devises a series of scripted events from these two comic book villains in hopes to kill the Batman. The plot itself is intriguing, and a constant mystery throughout a majority of the narrative is the actual identity of the Arkham Knight himself. A large amount of players have already criticized about how his identity is rather obvious, but I'll admit that it was personally a surprise for me. Keep in mind, the only exposure to Batman that I've personally had are basically these games, the Nolan film trilogy, and Six Flags Great Adventure, so don't solely base your judgement on me. The remaining story elements are serviceable and largely entertaining thanks in large part to the world's ambience, but just don't come in expecting it to be on par with the ending of Arkham City.

If you've played any Arkham game previously released, chances are you generally know what to expect in terms of gameplay. Sure, barely anything has been altered mechanically, but a few key additions to the general frameworks make the core experience improved. Its masterclass melee combat is back and better than ever, now with a complete dual-takedown system. While in the midst of a chained together combo, if the fighting situation scripts an additional character present (whether it be Nightwing, Robin, Catwoman, etc.), then you have the ability to perform this new move. Not only does it further increment your multiplier, but the entire perspective morphs to that other character - essentially, you can control these characters, all while keeping the free-flow combat in sync. The entire implementation can described than better than with the word 'awesome'. Predator situations have mostly moved to outside areas, and the huge addition here is the multi-fear takedown. It's inarguably an awful title, but it's also inarguably the best new feature. Essentially, if there are multiple enemies close enough in a stealth situation, you can take them out quickly in a succession as time comes to a near halt in between. It can become a tad annoying when armed enemies shoot you in between segments, but the ultimate payoff is almost always satisfying.

Traversal is also largely the same as what was incorporated into Arkham City and Arkham Origins, but this time with a somewhat improved grapple hook. It seems you are able to grapple onto a wider assortment of objects around the city, which ultimately makes movement and gliding faster, but it comes at the cost of the fast-travel system from Arkham Origins - a great addition from WB Montreal that I wish Rocksteady incorporated here. Instead we get the batmobile, which has been coined by Rocksteady as the "ultimate fast-travel system." However, the batmobile sees a much larger emphasis than simply getting around Gotham quicker. In many instances, the game situates an influx of drones in which you must control the batmobile to shoot down in a third-person shooter style. Not only are these instances by far and away the weakest portions the game has to offer, but it's repeated just way too much. The actual mechanics it utilizes is merely sufficient; it isn't particularly bad, but rather just uninspired - especially for this series. Perhaps the absolute worst use of the batmobile comes in the form of the drones that can only be destroyed from the back, forcing an awkwardly implemented use of the vehicle that personally became more akin to trial and error for me.

Extras also flood the streets of Gotham, but this time with a vengeance. There is a total of 243 Riddler challenges to complete, and a ton of other side-content to go through as well. While it is a bit annoying that the ending is specifically locked behind finishing all content, I saw it more as actual motivation to go back and do everything after the main story-line. Replacing the infamously difficult combat rooms from previous iterations is a larger focus on the Augmented Reality challenges...half of which is batmobile-related. That said, these challenges are notably easier and overall less time-consuming, which I see as a positive because I personally couldn't get those perfect scores from Arkham Asylum.

To put it lightly, the PC edition of Arkham Knight is an absolute monstrosity. When placed on normal settings, the framerate drops massively and many people have reported constant crashes on the best builds. When I placed the settings on low, the game ran good enough on my machine (GTX 760) for me to play to completion, even if it would hitch every now and again in between certain animations. That said, even though I never once experienced a crash myself, this is no doubt a significant issue that is unforgivable. Even though my graphical settings were set to the minimum, the game still looked great. Rocksteady has completely nailed this gritty aesthetic to their best ability, and Gotham has never looked better.

Arkham Knight is the series at its best and worst. Desperate for features, it's clear that the large emphasis on the batmobile was only implemented as such for fan service and its starve for new content. Many aspects of the batmobile aren't particularly bad but just painfully mediocre, and ultimately tedious as a result. Regardless, Arkham Knight still didn't leave me a bad taste in my mouth. Its combat and stealth sections have never been better, and the game is one of the best times I've had with video games so far this year, despite its apparent flaws. I'm still very excited to see what Rocksteady will be doing next, but I'm hoping they step aside from Batman. Here's hoping it's something completely new.