When this game was announced, many people cried out in pain. Without Rocksteady, this can't be good! Yes, it was not as good as Arkham City, but let's face it: How many games are as good as Arkham City? This game is some solid work with a great finale. It didn't really reinvent the weel, you basically get more of the same you got in Arkham CIty, it's not very original in any way. The gameplay is just fine, but the environment feels more real than in Arkham CIty. At least all that snow is a good explanation for the fact that - again - there are no civilians on the streets. It's not much of a living city, its' quite, because everyone stays at home. You could say that it's a bit melancolical, it reminded me a lot of the feeling I had when watching Batman Returns. In this game you actually have less gadgets than in the previous two games, which makes sense, since it's a prequel. But you DO get some new gadgets, some of them work just like the ones you know, but with a different back story (for example glue instead of ice, if I remember correctly. But I might mix up something here). The story is solid, the finale however is very tense. Making your way through that building ... great work, WB Games Montreal / Splash Damage (... do they still exist)? It had some bad environment/geometry bugs for a while, you could get stuck in a elevator shaft and not being able to get out again. Over time these were fixed. Gladly I never experienced those who would actually stop me from being able to go on. The game received mix receptions first, but after the desatrous launch of Arkham Knight many people talked a lot nicer about this game. Now that I think of it ... I think I never played through all DLCs. I guess it's time to do so. Christmas is coming and earth is getting warmer ... at least I can see snow in a game :)
... wait ... what? A tank? Yep, it's a tank. What so many people waited for in Arkham City became a twisted reality. We wanted a living city to drive through and got a city full of bad guys (good guys were hiding) in which we had to use a tank to solve some gameplay riddles and fight drones. When released, the PC verion had some serious problems, but those were not solely Rocksteady's fault. This game would fill most of the memory of the common graphics card back then, the most common Nvidia card at that time however would not adress all of it's memory at full speed, so we had some very severe frame rate drops from time to time. But there were also some opportunities for random crashes which had nothing to do with the hardware. But after a few months and quite a few patches later, the game was running just fine. The public reception was ruined however. It was also recommended to use a dedicated graphics or Ageia PhysX card to run hardware accelerated PhysX. Is Arkham Knight a bad game? No, not at all. It still has most of it's predecessor's strengths, there are not too many skills (yes, at some point you are actually done and don't worry about XP anymore). The story is still guite good, the gameplay is just the same as before. There are more annoying enemy types which were really frustrating when I played this game the first time. Some of the battles I had to play multiple times. But at some point you figure out how to beat them and then you are glad not to see these buildings ever again. As long as you don't need the tank for riddles, try to use another Batmobile skin from the DLCs. You can use the 1989 version and als wear a skin that resembles Keaton's suite. I liked playing the game, but in the end I must say that Arkham Origins felt more fitting to the Batman francise.
I have a hard time telling if I liked this game more or Arkham Asylum ... in the end I think it's Asylum, even if this one from a tecnical point of view is clearly better. But Asylum has tighter storytelling. I loved to play in the the open world and hated the VR events. The activities in the open world are limited, the game still focuses mostly on the storyline. But the immersion was not quite as good as in Asylum, I didn't feel so close to what was going on. Still ... the improvements and gameplay will probably make up for it for most people. Also the gadgets were improved a bit, for some riddler trophies you really had to get your brain working. I can reccomend this game without hesitating.
I loved this game when it came out and I still do. Of course, if you compare it to newer games you see clearly that they evolved since then, but still I think this one has the better story telling. It's very straight forward, you are much close to what's going on. There are a few cool gadgets to find in time, but not too many, the same goes for riddler trophies. Other than it's successors, this game focuses strictly on the main story line. Why it made me buy a new graphic card? ** spoiler ** Those who know the game, know a certain Scarecrow scene ... yes, the one, that breaks the 4th wall. What's a gamer's greatest fear? Let's just say: They got me, I fell for it. When it happened, I quickly pressed the reset button on my computer to avoid further damage (yes, I am the generation who experienced system crashes with bad hardware which damaged hard disks or had similar bad effects) ... and not just once. After 3 of 4 tries I gave up. I already planned on buying a new graphic card anyway and after this experience I preponed the buy. I WAS a bit surprised then that it didn't help at all so I started googleing ... and then smacked my head hard and repeatedly.
I love and hate this game at the same time. It played like walking with sticky chewing gum under your feet. So while playing Ep2, I stopped and didn't touch it for more than two years. Recently I continued playing. First it was just as bad as I remembered, but at some point the storytelling became a LOT better. And when I finally arrived at EP5 ... well, it was worth it. Depending on how you treat John, EP5 has two completely different story lines and I might even play a good part of the game again to see the second storyline. Still ... this game has no "right" choices. No matter what you do, you always get something negative out of it. I have no idea what they were thinking by not ever rewarding the player (except for the second storyline in EP5). The evaluations of each episode are completely pointless. Comparing with the community? What for? And at the end of the game you get some text boxes telling you what char did what as a consequence of your choices. I would have prefered to see a cutscene more instead of text. **slight spoiler** And I was a bit disappointed by Alfreds ultimatum. That's SO out of character. In every version of Batman I ever read, he was always supportive. He would encourage Bruce to certain ways of behaviour, but never ever force him.
Again, this game was released a year after it's successor. But this time they added more distinct locations and characters. But again ... no big surprises, you get quite exactly what you expected after the first 2 parts. Good humor, solid story writing, mostly logical not too hard riddles, good controls, a sometimes a bit jumpy camera. And again ... the german version is missing. Would be nice to get it.
Just like the predecessor this game invents nothing new, less even. As it was released only a year after the original game, a lot of resources seem to have been reused, the engine feels exactly the same (maybe there have been minor improvements). But does that make it a bad game? Not at all. Solid story writing, funny jokes, mostly logical riddles and even for a 3d adventure of that time not messed up controls make it a Point And Click adventure worth playing. Make sure you play part 1 first. Storywise it doesn't really matter, but many characters from par 1 will return. At some points in the original version of the game a code wheel (like in Monkey Island) was used for copy protection, but that patched out at some point. Hopefully GOG will also get the excellent german version at some point which in my opinion should be possible, as Deck13 is listed as publisher for Germany, Until then, I'm sure the community will help out with a patch.
Yes, we all know that episode games are bad and that no one makes games like LEC did. Still ... I had a very good time with this game, enjoyed it a lot more than I enjoyed Escape from Monkey Island. The humor fits, the puzzles are just right and the controls are quite ok for a 3d adventure. The story is a LOT better than it was in MI4. There are two bad things about this release and Telltale games in general. 1. EP1 came without LeChuck's original voice which was then used for later episodes. The DVD version of the game however DOES use his original voice. However, Telltale never bothered to update the online version of the game, so you have to keep your eyes open for a fan made patch which replaces Le Chucks voice. 2. DirectInput: Also, Telltale games from that time have a problem with Windows 10 if you have a Microsoft XBox 360 gamepad connected: They crash at start. The reason is that betwen Windows 8 and 10 the directinput.dll was changed, the Windows 10 version is not compatible to the game. Solution a: disconnect your gamepad Solution b: get a Windows 8 DirectInput-DLL and put it into the games directory. This would have an easy fix, but again, Telltale never bothered to update their games.
