I haven’t bought (or even played) a video game in a long while, and I wasn’t planning to buy Arkham City, either. But a friend kept raving about it and its predecessor, Arkham Asylum, and in a moment of weakness, I forked over the fifty dollars.
I’m glad I did. Arkham City is an amazing game.
Granted, they didn’t make it easy to find that out. First, I couldn’t even run the game, because right after installation the Release Date Check DRM inexplicably failed (as did the troubleshooting procedure they tell you to try). I say “inexplicably” because I bought the game legally, new, from Walmart. I had to reboot just to get past that screen.
Then, even more inexplicably, the game demands you set up both a Windows Live account and a Gamer Tag. “Slow” is the word here, both for the initial setup and for the mandatory updates you get occasionally, and neither adds anything to the experience that I can see.
And finally, the game couldn’t figure out the input from my USB controller, and got the left joystick up/down signal backwards. I had to edit a damn INI file to get that fixed.
Computer games, man. I’m a console guy for a reason.
Lurking under all the technical frustrations, though, is a really incredible experience. You play most of the game as Batman himself. Superhero abilities are notoriously difficult to capture in a video game *cough, Superman 64* but this is where Arkham nails it: as you play, you really do feel like the Dark Knight.
Let me tell you, that’s a pretty cool feeling.
The controls are fairly complicated (probably would’ve helped if I’d played the first game) but once you get used to them, the city is your playground. You can use your grappling hook to get to the top of almost any structure you see. You can leap off a building and glide to the street, cape outstretched. You’ve got your batarang, your smoke bombs, and lots of other gadgets right from the beginning.
But it isn’t just the gadgets. The game actually makes you think like Batman. When you’re taking out a gang of thugs, you don’t just rush in and start punching. You watch them first, perched on a nearby gargoyle, hidden in shadow. You see who’s armed and who’s not. You listen to them talk, their nervous comments about what the supervillains are up to, and what they’ll do if “the Bat” shows up. Your reputation precedes you. And they’re right to be scared: you strike unexpectedly, leaping from the shadows, taking them out with quick, efficient moves while they shoot wildly.
All the villains are there: the big names like Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Bane, and Mr. Freeze, plus lots of lesser-known supervillains I hadn’t even heard of, like Zsasz and Deadshot. The game perfectly showcases their various quirks and psychoses. The city, too, is spot-on: pure Gotham, dark and moonlit and brooding.
And I’m only a few hours in.
As usual, I’m running out of time this morning. I’ll cut it off there. But, yeah: Arkham City, I highly recommend it.
Played anything good lately?
Brian D. Buckley 
“Computer games, man. Iām a console guy for a reason.”
Haha.
Actually growing up my parents weren’t about to buy me consoles — I only had (and still have!) an 8-bit Nintendo system from Taiwan that my grandmother gave me. So computer games were the alternative; we already had a computer, no extra working system required. My fave was probably Myst, and then Riven (but I never beat it b/c it was buggy, at least on the computer I played it on). There were a couple Star Trek (TNG and DS9) games that I loved too, and of course, Warcraft (but only the original, b/c I wasn’t cool like that).
I’ve never been a “gamer” though. I can’t get sucked in. I’d rather spend my time reading. Games were entertaining but had limits, for me.
Actually fave was sort of a cross between gaming and reading: back in the day (mid 90s) there was an online, text-based RPG called Modus Operandi, in which you created your character and then went around this island solving mysteries. Combined a lot of my favorite aspects: mystery, character, reading, gaming, “travel.” I stopped playing it when they started charging a subscription fee, though. Middle schoolers don’t exactly make bank. š
Text-based RPGs are a good time. I actually programmed one myself, in C++, back when the concepts of “functions” and “objects” were still pretty fuzzy in my brain. Never heard of Modus Operandi, but it sounds fun. I liked Myst, too, but never beat it.
It’s an awesome game. I recommend when you beat it that you go back and play arkham asylum – it’ll clear up any backstory questions you have left (or you could just explore around and read all the backstory stuff riddler trophies give you).
I just might do that!
I played Infamous a while back. It was a good time, giving you nice powers and making you feel like a superhero or supervillian, which you could determined based on what you did in the game- (If you stab a random civilian with an energy blade, you get bad karma. Too much and your character gets evil powers. Likewise, healing injures civilians gives you good karma). Also, the original had a good plot twist near the end of the game, which I thought made the game even better. In all, I was impressed with my time with the game, and even after beating it four times still occassionally find myself putting the disc into my ps3 to finish another few missions.
I’ve never heard of it, which just shows you how out of the loop I am on video games these days. Sounds fun though. Your description reminds me a little of City of Heroes, though I never played that either. Seems like more and more games now let you decide whether to be the hero or the villain.
Skyrim.
I played for only an hour or so and was hooked.
It lives up to the hype. In my opinion anyways. Check it out too!
I’ve heard good things about Skyrim. Had you played any of the other Elder Scrolls games before that one? My friend was really into Morrowind back in the day, so I’ve seen some of that.