"Why don't you run?" my wife asks, puzzled by my slow pace towards saving the city. I pause and ponder for a second and internally ask the same question. Except it's not really me asking myself, it's me asking the question to the man I'm playing as.
Conjure up times you remember him running aimlessly and it's always when he's most out of character. It's Adam West in 1966, running down a street at 60miles an hour with a greenscreen. It's the end of Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, where this Batman runs towards the fourth wall with Batsignal behind; a stark contrast to the neon nightmares before it.
Then I remember Batman '89 with Michael Keaton's iteration of the character walking up a bell tower; in stark contrast to the above, he's slow and methodical. Surely too far behind to save Vikki Vale and stop the Joker, but you know he'll catch up, because he's Batman.
As I step through the airship, the answer is clear and simple
"Batman doesn't run, the danger always waits"
I remember back in 2009 with Arkham Asylum; a game that should have failed miserably as a stereotypical licensed game but somehow turned out to be great. I never ran, not only because it looked weird, but because I was so enveloped by the atmosphere that I felt it an injustice to rush through it.
The same can thankfully be said for Arkham Knight, although, another factor enters the equation.
Why run when you can drive?
To say I was hyped for Arkham Knight is an understatement. I'd go as far as to say it's the most hyped I've been for a game since Metal Gear Solid 4. Similar to MGS4, Arkham Knight promises a lot. Not only is it the next generation jump of a franchise, it's one built around the destruction of it's protagonist in an event that offers very little hope.
Hope is a buzzword, along with fear that's at the core of Arkham Knight's story. Months after the events of Arkham City, the Scarecrow makes his dramatic return to the series, this time teaming up with several of Batman's other big foes along with a new character dubbed the Arkham Knight to plunge Gotham into fear and chaos, all while promising to rid Gotham of it's last hope by eliminating the legend of Batman.
Surprisingly, developer Rocksteady moves away from long-time Batman scribe Paul Dini and produces the story internally and, much like the non-Rocksteady effort Arkham Origins, it's a much better affair.
Unlike Asylum which was relatively simple and City, which felt like two smaller stories taking place at the same time and occasionally bashing into one-another, Arkham Knight is easily the best story of the trilogy, even if some of the twists are too predictable for anyone with even a minuscule amount of knowledge of Batman lore and things like Batman fighting manned tanks rather than drones would have made the villain's plan more difficult.
The gameplay is more of the same of the previous Arkham titles. Well, half of it anyway.
Batman is plunged into scenarios where he either has to sneak around enemies and dispatch of them using a steadily increasing arsenal of gadgets and a steadily increasing amount of enemies or enters a room where you have to knock out everyone using a combat system which rewards well timed counters and combos.
Occasionally, the game will add one of Batman's partners for team-ups and each time is just as thrilling as the first. It's a shame these encounters are so few and far between because they add a much needed boost to the tried and tested formula and the ability to partner zap means you have a brand new character to try out whilst an AI-controlled Batman decimates enemies.
The biggest change introduced to Arkham Knight is, of course, the Batmobile. Playable for the first time ever, the vehicle is a fairly nippy tank that decimates crowds of henchmen like they're nothing and is more than capable of blitzing through Gotham at a relatively quick pace.
At the beginning, I loved it. It smashed through everything without missing a beat, cars would panic and try to flee it and radio chatter from criminals always feared what the tank could do and whether it was around the corner (which it always seemed to be).
It's around the first segment at Ace Chemicals and the first few skirmishes with the Arkham Knight's drones that the combat gets a wee bit tedious. Enemy lines of fire, which at first seemed too easy to dodge are suddenly everywhere, with inescapable killzones. Then the much loved Riddler side-quest begins to add racetracks which seemed a bit too far-fetched for his normal modus operandi.
Then more battles with never ending armies of drones take place, the controls for normal driving are a bit clunky, like I'm steering it with the world's biggest handlebar and I'm suddenly wondering when I'll next get to a room and beat-up some bad guys, something I should be doing and had been doing prior to this entry as the Batmobile blows up from missile fire, again.
Thankfully, Arkham Knight looks beautiful, so the slow-mo detonation looks impressive each time. Gotham on the whole is a much more distinct and less dreary entity than the titular Arkham City. Chinatown is a vibrant, neon-lit section which reflects off the metallic finish of the Batmobile, whilst Founders Island is a stereotypical metropolitan area, skyscrappers and modern touches reminding you why people may live in a city where your average criminal kills five for breakfast.
The main character models look utterly fantastic too and world's apart from previous entries in the series. The voice actors also help create these characters, in particular Kevin Conroy's Batman who sounds haggard but a believable hero whilst John Noble's turn as the Scarecrow creates a soft-spoken, well articulated monster of a man who serves as a notable foil to the chaos unfolding.
At the sum of it's parts, for the pieces of the Arkham formula that have been present since Asylum, Arkham Knight is easily the best entry of the series and it's difficult to find fault in the hand to hand combat and Batman playing detective.
But it's the Batmobile that unexpectedly holds the title back from perfection. You can never shake the impression that you were spoilt with the jump from Asylum to City and the developers realised that a bigger sandbox with more enemies simply wouldn't cut it this time.
The Batmobile, not Batman, is the main entity of the game; a bulk of the riddles involve the vehicle in an awkward physics puzzle, the majority of side quests involve the Batmobile either chasing down and blowing up the same entities over and over or creating further access for the vehicle to drive.
Then it's things that sometimes don't even involve the Batmobile like the boss battles being another let-down. The fact that the title doesn't really have any replay value once you finish it (especially if you got 100% on your first play through to get the full ending), that, the touted big villain team up is mostly left to side missions and the unannounced villains don't offer any real surprises and things preluded to in Arkham City are cast aside in, unforgivably, five minute side quests.
Maybe it's more my own fault of getting too invested in the title, because again, the staples that involve Batman have never been better and I did finish the title without getting bored and maybe more importantly, I never ran to get it over and done with.
For fans of the series, whilst the Batmobile over-stays it's welcome and constantly crosses the line of infuriating gimmick than innovative gameplay, it's hard to not recommend Arkham Knight as it's most I've ever felt playing as the dark knight.
Batman doesn't run, the danger always waits and after four years, the conclusion to the Rocksteady trilogy is more than worth waiting for, it's just a shame that with a bit of tinkering, it could have been perfect.
8/10
H
@Retcon_Nation
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