Batman: Arkham Knight Review

©Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Inc. ©Rocksteady Studios

Available on: Windows, Xbox One and PlayStation 4
Players: 1

"This is how the Batman died." From the moment the game opens up, you know you're going to be in for a rollercoaster of a ride. As the final entry to the Batman Arkham series, Rocksteady delivered a worthy conclusion to the series.

The game opens up with a scene presenting the burning of Joker's body, who had died in the previous game. From there, we flash to Commissioner Gordon, who is in a diner when there is a Scarecrow fear toxin attack. You play this section in first-person, which is a first for the series and really helps add a very heavy impact to the beginning of the game. The game eventually gives you control of Batman, and you jump into an exciting adventure. The story revolves around a trio of concepts, all of which collide together in a beautiful set of storytelling: it takes a focus on Batman's deteriorating condition due to the Titan formula (from the previous two games); Scarecrow's return and obsession with his fear toxin terrorism; and this mysterious new villain (the Arkham Knight) who seems to know everything about Batman. The story progresses with some nice developments and a couple of unexpected (or expected, if you're good at predicting this sort of thing) twists.  I was especially happy with the way that most of the major villains that have been presented in the series thus far were given reasonable closure through this game.

©Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Inc. ©Rocksteady Studios

To help propel the story forward, the game features an amazing cast who does a beautiful job in their roles. The sound effects are extremely exciting and the music is on point as well. The only downside, which seems to be a common problem in most any open-world game, is the slightly repetitive dialogue from normal grunts who you will often be caught fighting with. The game also looks absolutely stunning. From the detailed animations of Batman's cape to the vast environment to the amazing effects, the game usually never ceases to amaze. There are some occasions where the game's amazing detail is contrasted horribly against some low resolution textures or a low resolution backdrop, but this doesn't happen often enough to be a complete hindrance.

Arkham Knight follows the same overall format as Arkham City. You are presented with a main story to which you can pursue at your leisure, while given a multitude of side-stories to seek. Each side-story revolves around a certain character (generally a villain), such as the Riddler, Two-Face or Penguin. One of the things I really enjoyed was the fact that each side-story has a different type of gameplay quirk in order to add variety to the game. To help propel these stories forward, you are given the ability to explore all of Gotham City, which is a bit larger than Arkham City (which only covered a part of Gotham). For you collectors out there, there are over 200 Riddler trophies to acquire, which rewards you with a final showdown with the Riddler himself. In fact, you can't actually get the complete ending unless you finish all the game's quests, including capturing the Riddler. I found this a bit irritating that seeing the complete ending requires doing something that many people would rather not do. The worst part is that this ending actually adds a lot of clarity to the conclusion, rather than just dropping a fun easter egg. This is great (completion actually rewards something substantial to the player) while being terrible at the same time (for people who just want to play the game for the story, the somewhat tedious item collection will be frustrating in order to see the complete conclusion). On the bright side, the challenge maps are plentiful, fun, varied, challenging and do not reflect on actual story completion requirements. You can even compete for scores with others if you feel compelled to do so.

©Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Inc. ©Rocksteady Studios

In order to traverse the city, you are given a couple new tricks. The first, is the ability to do a faster and further gliding grapnel boost. When you use your grapnel to traverse the side of a building you can press the dodge/run button twice to boost yourself over the ledge straight into a glide. You can upgrade this ability a few times to increase the height and glide length as well as speed. The second is actually the main dynamic that sets this game apart from the others: the Batmobile. The Batmobile takes on a similar design and function to the one presented in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. It functions as a sort of tank-car hybrid. This means that not only do you have the ability to travel on the ground faster, but you are also given the ability to participate in vehicular combat as well as vehicle races. In fact, most of the major boss battles in the game are actually done via the Batmobile. This does not mean that face-to-face battles are missing, it merely means that the majority of the new types of fights are done in the Batmobile. While some may complain that this takes away from the experience, I really enjoyed this new dynamic and it really helped add a new breath of life into this franchise. The first two games covered a pretty good variety of boss battle situations, and it would be challenging (and likely boring) to try and keep that as the focus again. Having the Batmobile as the focus opens up doors for all new types of situations. While I may sit here and praise the Batmobile, the normal combat situations did get repetitive pretty fast. Even though the normal combat is pretty repetitive, the Batmobile combat (which has the same amount of variety as normal combat) got stale faster. I don't understand why it felt this way and I really can't explain it.

Regarding the normal Batman combat and scenarios, the game takes what was presented in the previous two entries and refines it to perfection. The free flow combat is precise and beautiful; the stealth is varied and satisfying; the traversal is simple and responsive. There are, of course, a small handful of new abilities and gadget uses, but for the most part the Batman sections are merely a refined version of what we got in Arkham City. This is in no way a bad thing, but it is not exactly new or fresh (hence why I welcomed the Batmobile sections). One thing I did like was that there were more partner sequences than in the previous entry. There are a few quests that pair you with Robin, Nightwing and Catwoman which makes for some really fun and flashy fight sequences.

©Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Inc. ©Rocksteady Studios

The controls for both the Batmobile and Batman sections are actually as good as I imagine they could be. Everything is responsive and there is a very seamless flow between combat and movement and stealth in both Batman and Batmobile modes. It's actually quite impressive how perfect the controls are in the game. Of particular note, especially for veteran players in the series, is how much better the gliding controls are. As fair warning, though, I played this game completely with a controller. My experience with the previous game's keyboard and mouse controls made me not even want to try that control style for this game. I ended up not regretting my decision even a little.

While Arkham Knight doesn't reach the same pinnacle of innovation, balance and narration as its predecessor, it still manages to create an extremely alluring adventure that will leave you satisfied. It's an extremely worthy conclusion to an extremely top-notch series. The addition of the Batmobile helps keep things fresh enough to keep the somewhat familiar gameplay from becoming stale. For Batman fans or narrative driven open-world fans in general, this is definitely a game worth checking out.

©Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Inc. ©Rocksteady Studios

NOTE: I played this game in its entirety on the PC using an Xbox One controller. Having played it after the big updates, I ran into no technical problems. As it currently stands, your experience should be similar across all three platforms.
 
Graphics: AMAZING
Sound: PERFECT
Gameplay: AMAZING
Value: PERFECT
 
OVERALL: AMAZING
 
- Teepu