Batman: Arkham Knight

[Hendo]

Restarted this after playing for about an hour last year.

The first thing that’s really taken me out of the experience is one of the voice actors. I see Jim Gordon but all I hear is Mike from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

[Maf]

“What kind of supervillain thinks a gunshot to the stomach and a handful of tanks can stop the Batman?”

 

This game is sick with it. I maybe underrated this. I’m enjoying this more than Spider-Man 2 so far. 
 

There are so many cool tricks and uses of mechanics in this game. There’s a bit where Batman interrogates a thug by remote control driving the Batmobile tyre on to the thug’s head, and you rev it with R trigger and roll the wheel on he’s noggin to make him scream. It’s so cool. 

[AndyKurosaki]

It’s not a bad game, far from it, but it’s my least favourite in the Arkham series. The Batmobile racing sections were a pain in the arse. And as for the Batmobile boss mission? Jesus tapdancing Christ, that was awful.

[Maf]

I dunno seems pretty sick to me

 

Spoiler

 

[one-armed dwarf]

I've not played this game for a single second, but looking at that screenshot I'm compelled to agree with Andy on principle

[AndyKurosaki]

Holy Liked Comment, Batman!

Indeed, old chum.

[Maf]

You ever play a game that reminds you of why you love playing games?

 

Just pressing buttons, doing stuff, fun action, fun puzzles, all the small objectives successfully gives you bumps of endorphins and the big moments are so pleasing and fun?

 

This is this game. They just kind of nailed all the gameplay stuff. 
 

There’s certain problems with the game. Some of the side stuff is too long/repetitive/shallow. The main story campaign is also so good that it’s hard to find time to stop for side missions and riddles without losing flow to the story and games overall. So as a big cohesive thing there are issues but just as a video game it’s excellent. 
 

This is definitely fighting for #1 superhero game in my book. I’m even doing all the DLC and riddler stuff 

[Nag]

Funnily enough I recently downloaded the Arkham trilogy and intend to play through them after wrapping up Cyberpunk... bought them ages ago and only played through Asylum... I'm quite looking forward to it tbf.

[Maf]

Damn, man, this game is so good.

 

Story spoilers 

 

Spoiler

The fucking bit where Batman saves Barbara from falling off the roof is amazing.
 

You think she’s dead from earlier in the story. The Batmobile gets destroyed. Then Jim turns on you. Then it all comes together when it’s revealed she’s alive, Jim shot Batman as part of his plan, and then after catching Barbara from falling they end up surrounded by tanks and she says “What happened to the Batmobile?” And Batman says “It was destroyed…but I have a spare” and then the new one comes fucking flying in and starts taking out all the tanks. 
 

It’s the fucking sickest shit

 

The Batmobile is also one of the best sidekicks/companions in any game. Firstly I think what makes me like it so much is it’s really funny. Whenever you call it there’s a 50% chance it will arrive really cool and stylish, or 50% chance it will fly in from the stupidest place possible and do something dumb. The second thing I like about it is the sound. The Batmobile sounds like somewhere between a car and a lion. The last thing I like is the effect of it. Batman is already super powerful obviously. But when in the Batmobile he is invincible. It’s such a good thing

 

It’s like when Tony Stark gets in the Iron Man armour. But that’s a normal guy turning in to a powerhouse. This is already a powerhouse turning in to fire. I actually think this is the best Batmobile ever. It’s so good. 

Now, in reflection even the way they introduce it is amazing. You summon the thing by pressing LB. So first time you use it the LB button prompt pops up with the sentence “Even the odds”

 

They’ve got the balance right as well where you use it all the time but still never too much that it takes away from the game or gets boring. 

This game is great. I sorely underrated this game. 

[Maf]

Finished the game including all 243 riddles. Oof. I was kind of annoyed at the riddle stuff actually. So in the game if you interrogate certain thugs that work for Riddler they mark the locations on the map. So I got all of them but the last 2 and spent about 45 minutes driving around to see if I could find one last thug to reveal the locations. Eventually I gave up and looked at YT. Turns out they were in this tunnel that I thought I already cleared, but because the tunnel is so small, the map is small as well, and there were a couple of question marks placed over lines of the map and I didn’t see them. So I feel dumb for not seeing them first time and having to look it up, but oh well. Got there in the end.

 

This game is brilliant and probably now my favourite Arkham game. In terms of superhero games I still think Spider-Man 1 is better. Part of that is bias but I also think the traversal, writing and characters are just better. But AK might beat it overall purely on gameplay. More variety, better punching, more complex stealth, having 2 games behind it they get good at subverting expectations with some of the mechanics and moments. But overall I think Spider-Man takes it. I hope with the next Spider-Man game they find ways to flex their creativity with gameplay like this game.

 

I think they’ll be a remaster or remake of this game some point soon. The fact it came to Switch + they put a DLC costume in all versions of the game means this game is rattling around at WB in some fashion. And once Suicide Squad flops they’ll want some easy money.

 

As much as I want the industry to steer away from remakes and such I think this game might just be good for one. In terms of how it plays it’s fine. It could be a touch tighter with the ledge grabbing and how slow the gadget wheel is but eh. Visuals could do with a good go over though. Even the PC version which looks great, still kind of frame-y, lots of visual bugs, textures are low detail faces are rubbish by today’s standards. Also if this game got ray tracing, with all the neon, water reflections and shadows it would be godlike. Also consoles getting higher res/fps. 
 

So even though a remake is not super necessary I could see room for modern improvements especially around visuals.
 

Or they could make a Batgirl game in the Arkham style. That would be pretty fantastic too.  

[Nag]

It has to be said that the final part of the Catwoman dlc story is some absolute utter fucking bullshit...🤬