Welcome to Arkham City

Last week Warner Bros Games, Rocksteady Games, and DC Comics unleashed what could possibly be the best Batman game ever; quite possibly the best video game based on a comic book license as well. This was no easy task considering how great Arkham Asylum turned out to be. It might be early and there's still a ton of games left to be released in the next month or so but I'm confident that Arkham City is already a major contender for game of the year. In the following write up of the game you'll find out exactly why I feel this way. I'll try to keep this spoiler free outside of mentioning some plot threads that carried over from Arkham Asylum which was released in 2009. If you haven't gotten around to playing that yet, I highly suggest doing so but there's enough going on here that's fresh that you could probably pick up Arkham City and still understand what's going on. On with the review.

Lets get up to speed real quick before we dive into this thing. In Arkham Asylum we followed the Dark Knight into the compound that housed Gotham's most dangerous criminals after the Joker set a plan into motion to take over the Asylum. This led to encounters with an assortment of villains ranging from the likes of the Scarecrow to Killer Croc. Of course in the end the Joker's plot was foiled by the world's greatest detective but not before other plans were set in motion, leading to our sequel. The warden of Arkham Asylum, Quincy Sharp manages to use the breakout and chaos to his advantage. Sharp launches a successful campaign to become the mayor of Gotham. Once elected he sets in motion the plan to section off a portion of Gotham as the new correctional facility dubbed Arkham City. And that is where things begin.

First Impressions - Batman: Arkham City

We all know that first impressions are extremely important. First impressions can make or break any given situation depending on how they go. Despite the success of Batman: Arkham Asylum I still reserved judgement of Arkham City based on the track record of licensed property titles; something I covered in my blog post yesterday. As I stated then, and I'll reiterate now, more often than not a licensed title will end up just being completely terrible. After spending some time with Arkham City last night I can safely say fans of the series will not be disappointed. Without spoiling anything I'll say this; things pick up fairly soon after the end of Arkham Asylum. The inmates of the asylum and Blackgate prison are now confined to a sectioned off portion of Gotham now referred to as Arkham City. Naturally when you assemble Gotham's most wanted into one city state there's bound to be some problems and tensions definitely do run high. 

Of course this requires the dark knight to drop into the thick of things to investigate. Though you're no longer confined to the spaces of Arkham Asylum. Instead a large portion of Gotham City serves as Batman's stomping grounds this time out and to put it simply, it's amazing. While Arkham Asylum allowed Batman to prowl in a small space and usually from within the confines of a building, Arkham City sets Batman loose in his natural habitat. When you take into account how great the visuals in this game are it can be stunning sometimes to just creep along the rooftops of Gotham's unique landmarks, surveying the skyline. It perfectly captures what a dystopian Gotham would look like if all the criminals finally took control and were allowed run amok.

Licensed Property

On the eve of the release of Batman: Arkham City I thought I would touch on something that seems to be a problem in the gaming industry; licensed property. While all signs point to Arkham City being a wonderful experience(based on reviews that have been released already), games based on licensed properties are still a tricky obstacle to tackle. The inherent problem with licensed properties is that a high percentage of them are used simply to cash in on something else. To put it bluntly, you get a blockbuster movie that's being released in theaters like say, Avatar, and more than likely the company will option the rights to a publisher to create a game based on the property. What ends up happening more often than not is a sloppy game that's put together in time for the release date to coincide with the release date of the film. 

I bring this up because this is something that never seems to get resolved. In recent years Hollywood has seen an increasing amount of comic book franchises launched in theaters. Not only have there been at least 4 comic book related movies released this year, there are many others in the pipeline for years to come. And while these characters and franchises range from the pages of DC Comics, to Dark Horse, to Marvel; most of them have one thing in common. They'll have a terrible movie tie in game attached to their theatrical release. This doesn't have to be the case though and we know this to be true. Surprisingly there are good games out there based on existing franchises. Some of them even date back to the 80s.

For instance, does anyone remember those kick ass arcade games Konami made in the 80s? Several of them were based on hot properties at the time but didn't tie into anything specific. Instead the games were made with a stand alone story for the game itself and out of it came greatness. I can't even remember how many quarters I dumped into that X-Men Arcade machine all those years ago. Same with the similarly designed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Simpsons games. These games were designed with fun gameplay in mind. They weren't simply there to make a quick buck off the property and saturate the market with merchandise for a high profile marketing campaign.

Anticipation, I Has It.

Yes my friends, 2011 is upon us and with it comes a new slew of titles and expansions for us gamers to enjoy. Unfortunately there are far too many of them for me to name check them all. Sad, I know. However I can still countdown a list of the ones that are garnering the most interest from me. So without further adieu, here is my list of games to keep an eye on in 2011.