Yes, I played it. 2 days ago to be exact, and to say the truth, I couldn’t get my hands off of it. My friends, this is the best superhero game of all time, the best fighting game of the year, and quite possibly the best game of the year yet. Although it’s not perfect, this game is really great with only a few noticeable flaws that keep it from being probably the best game I’ve played this year and in a long time. Lets begin our quest through Arkham.
I’m going to start off the review by telling you guysabout the storyline. You see, Joker issent to Arkham yet agin, but this time, him and his goons have decided to take over the place. Your job, as Batman, is to control and defeat Joker and ALL of his goons before Joker destroys Arkham and then Gotham in its place. The storyline is not really all that new to hardcore Batman fans. You come in, fight the Joker, and get out. But something about the storyline is this game is justso addicitve, you can’t help but get pulled in. It’s also very reminecent to past Batman comics. The Joker looks, sounds, and feels like the Joker we would all remember and love. He’s funny, yet deadly. Witty, yet gruesome. A genius, yet a menace. This Joker has it all. Batman also has a bit of an attitude in this game, but I feel that he can act abit too much like the Batman we see on all those cheesy cartoons. Although Batman has always been quite q serious fellow, he has cracked a few jokes here and there in the comics. Here…nothing. He has no emotions except for anger, and a lot of Batman fans will love that. But me…no, I really found that dissapointing. Overall, the storyline is nothing new, but it’s not at all bad. the farthest from bad actually. And after you beat the story mode, you have plently of challenge rooms to keep you busy. At least 40 hours of gameplay I’d say.
The combat systems is actually one that takes some growing into, but once you have, it’s a fun system to control. You see, you’ve got your square button that inflicts a normal punch attack, and if you hit the square button more at one time, you inflict a combo move. Simple, right? then you have your triangle button, which can be used to do various things throughout the game, but during combat is used to counter enemy attacks. The circle button is used like the square button, andyou can also combo with triagnle to inflict a takedown move. So that covers the hand-to-hand combat portion of the game. Then you also have the battarang, nightvision / heat vision sensor controls, and much more. The overall combat system and control scheme is very vast, too vast to get fully into. But you’ll love it.
The voice acting was quie nice to say the truth. Sometimes Batman’s voice would be saying something, and his mouth would be saying something else though. A lot the voice acting in my opinion was off-key and somewhat mediocre when compared to what the character is trying to mouth-out. And to me, that was a very large let-down. It was robably the largest disspaointment in the game. Although I love the cast of voice actors, the game wasn’t doing them justice.
Character designs varied from excellent to just plain stupid. Batman and Joker had excellent character designs. Batman looking like a muscular hero, and Joker looking like a menace to behold. The true essence to both characters. But the largest con about the character designs came when you began to see Joker’s henchmen. These guys were more ripped tan Batman, they almost even resembled Killer Croc! Their designs were also completely un-imaginative. I mean, a couple guys with shaved heads, mohawks, and masks? And all wearing basically the same exact clothes? They could have done much better in this field. But I guess the characters that actually are seen most in the game are done nicely, or the main characters.
The graphics and physics engine was phenomenal. The game runs on the Unreal Engine 3, the same engine that runs Unreal Tournament, you know, one of the best looking games that ever existed? Yes, this game looks and feels fantastic. The graphics are phenomenal. You can actually see the sweat on Batman’s face, you can actually see the paint wearing off of Joker’s face, and you can actually see single strands of hair, pebbles being kicked on the ground, and individual water droplets coming from the ceiling, or when you run through a puddle. the physics were amazing. You punch someone, their face gets messed up. You hit someone with a battarang, blood flies and stays there. You hit someone so hard they fly, their body twists and turns. I was fantastic. The only thing I didn’t like about the grahpics were that sometimes the graphics looked a bit bland and out of there, like the wall texture looked exactly like the floor. But hey, not everything is perfect..right? But something that was really nice was that Batman gets beat up and scarred as you gradually procede in the game. Which was pretty cool. The game also sounded great.
Overall, the game was an achievement. Like that many have said, the game did what The Dark Knight did in the film univesere. It was near perfect, with only few flaws. It’s a great game that any batman fan needs to pick up.
Scores:
- Graphics: 9.5/10
- Gameplay: 8.5/10
- Story: 9.5/10
- Sound / Music: 9/10
- Voice Acting: 7.5/10
- Realism / physics: 10/10
- Lasting Appeal: 9/10
- Replay Value: 9.5/10
Overall Score: 72.5/80 = 91% (Outstanding!)
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