2011 Game of the Year #02 - Batman: Arkham City

As we edge ever closer to the coveted first place position on my list, I feel sad that I couldn’t give joint-honours to Batman Arkham City and the winning title. For me Arkham City holds significant value across a variety of areas; first as a terrific action adventure game, second as a brilliant exemplar of dialogue / story driven gameplay and finally as the best comic to video game crossover we have ever seen. Arkham City certainly has it all and I’m proud to say that one of my favourite gaming experiences of 2011 was shared with the Dark Knight.

Terrific game design by Rocksteady is really the key to Arkham City’s success. Building off the critically acclaimed Batman Arkham Asylum, not much was changed when moving into the sequel, but there’s good reason for this decision – why try to fix what is not broken? Indeed many gamers welcomed the nostalgic and familiar gameplay mechanics making a return from Arkham Asylum, allowing most players to pick up Arkham City and get stuck right in.

The major difference between the two titles is environment. While Arkham Asylum was confined to Gotham’s mental hospital, Arkham City spreads its wings and allows players to roam all of North Gotham. This expansion was criticised by some who argued this change made Arkham City loose the focus Arkham Asylum held so well throughout the entire campaign. Others believed free-roaming capabilities were exactly what Batman needed to round off an already perfect game. However you choose to look at it, traversing the city as Batman is bloody brilliant.

The praise doesn’t stop there; Arkham City continues the brilliant story started in the original, with old voice actors including Matt Hamill returning to reprise their roles. Another terrific script full of iconic characters including Two-Face, Mr. Freeze and The Penguin makes this an even more exciting affair than Arkham Asylum.

For me Batman Arkham City was a complete success, a well-rounded package that included great gameplay mechanics, beautiful visuals, the right amount of replay value and a terrific story intertwining this whole experience together. Games need a direction and I thought Arkham City held that direction very well, giving gamers exactly what they wanted – an opportunity to walk in the shoes of the Dark Knight.

Favourite things about Batman Arkham City:

Roaming the streets and climbing rooftops as Batman was brilliant.

A phenomenal cast of voice actors who performed a brilliantly written script.

Gameplay was satisfying throughout.

Lots of cool extra content and bonuses to find if you spend enough time roaming North Gotham.

Most annoying things about Batman Arkham City:

Catwoman sucked.

Boss fights were too easy unless playing on the harder difficulty settings.

The larger setting made the game less focused than Arkham Asylum.

Thanks for reading and check the blog tomorrow as I finally reveal my favourite game of 2011.

As always check me out on Twitter @ss4Igor