Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Batman Arkham City

Was a bit anxious after reading terrible reviews of the PC version of Batman: Arkham Asylum.. but i had no choice, i'd already preorderred it months back.. so just had to wait and see what i got.(all screenshots were taken from my machine using Steam's Screenshot feature)

The technology:
Was a bit painful to begin the game.. Mainly because of the DRM.. Games for Windows Live had to do a few updates before i could actually start the game!..

the menu is fantastic..its made up of freeze frames from a shot of batman leaping off a roof.. when you click a button it plays through a few seconds and freezes at the next screen

i quite enjoyed going back and forth.

i played a few minutes in the default settings.. which looked pretty decent.. but there was a terrible audio stuttering issue. Not to mention some jerkyness during the fight parts. So i restarted the game.. but with a reduced resolution.. left all other settings switched on default. That did the trick.

The Storytelling
the story blew me away from the start. You start with catwoman fighting some thugs near a vault somewhere in Arkham City.. and then she gets captured by Two Face. The story then shifts to the entrance of the prison city, where Bruce Wayne is holding a press conference and protesting the existence of the controversial prison.

He gets captured by some stormtrooper/commando types(working for Hugo Strange) and is taken to Hugo.


the following screenshots will be enough to prove that all batman fans need to play this game! The game looks great on my 2-3yr old dell! ...

anyway after HUgo's monolog you find bruce wayne tied to a chair and in front of a mirror.. and you get to make him break free and attempt and escape..complete with rocking the chair till it tips over and crashes to the ground..etc.. real adrenaline pumping action..


then you realise that your just going into arkham city anyway :)


after a brief skirmish with Penguin and his thugs you cimb to a roof and have Alfred air drop your bat suit and gear.




Its a nice cinematic that happens. The good thing is that you already have all the tools and weapons you had unlocked in the last game.. so now you unlock new stuff! won't tell you anymore of the story or it will spoil your experience.

Other Characters:
Catwoman looks exceptionally stunning and has her own unique way of jumping and swinging across rooftops..


She has her own special vision mode called "Thief Vision".. but the most surprising and awesome addition was the fact that she can crawl on ceilings! Its really trippy!






Two face looks spectacular! that scarring and eyeball is just beautifully rendered. The level of detail is incredible!


Harley and Joker are pretty much the same..


Ivy looks pretty much the same as the last game.. still don't like the way her character turned out.. Theres just something awkward and unsexy about her in this series.



Have just seen Deadpool's in-game character Bio.. the pic of him in there is pretty unique.. can't wait for the showdown with him.

Movement and Combat:
The controls are pretty much the same as last time.. However you do a lot more gliding and swinging since you now have an entire town-size level to travel across.. its not like the cordoned of regions that the older game had..




the grappler also seems to be able to reach really far away objects..at times you feel like spiderman!


Levels load up really fast! The camera behaves a lot better as well.. Theres also some basic physics puzzle gameplay thrown in.. interesting mix..

lets see what more i discover in the days to come. So far this looks like the best Batman Franchise Entity ever!

UPDATE:
generally whenever i start the game there seems to be a 15min delay.. while these random processing/updating screens happen





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