Hello everyone,
the game of this week is Batman Arkham Knight.
Batman Arkham Knight is an action-adventure game developed by Rocksteady Studios. It is the fourth of the Arkham main series and unfortunately the last one.
Being a fan of stealth games, I couldn't leave Batman out of the experience.
This was for me the first Batman game I've ever played. I know I should have started with Arkham Asylum, the first of the series, but I couldn't resist after seeing the trailer of this one.
Despite the fact that I didn't play any of the previous Batman games, I didn't face any issue following the story.
It is quite obvious that events and facts are connected to previous ones but that doesn't affect at all.
I played the game on PC using the gamepad. Playing using the keyboard was in my opinion hard. You need to arrange the key bindings wisely oryou may feel like playing the piano rather than playing a video game.
The stealth experience of the game is great. Taking down your enemies coming out from the grates on the floor or through breakable walls was really cool. You can even crouch down on gargoyles and perform knockdowns from the above. The stealth is very well done.
The combat is great too.
I actually ended up voluntarily in lot of fights, just for fun and to improve the fighting skills.
You can perform different knockdowns using various key combos any in some cases even using the Batmobile or the help of a wingman.
Each fight will end with a slow motion of the last knockdown which will indicate that all enemies have been incapacitated.
A suggestion: improve the fighting skills from the beginning as later on in the game it can get frustrating to be surrounded by tons of enemies and fight for several minutes ending up dead anyway.
In Batman Arkham Knight, Rocksteady introduced the Batmobile as playable vehicle too used for transportation, puzzle solving and combat.
The concept behind was really cool but but unfortunately not entirely enjoyable.
While using the Batmobile remotely to solve some puzzle or to perform assisted knockdowns was really great, few of the missions where the Batmobile was required were a bit repetitive.
I honestly didn't use it so much as transportation as I enjoyed way more to fly around the city. I even found easier to locate places and people while flying than while driving.
Despite the critics for the tanky look of the Batmobile, I found it awesome.
The detective mode feels great cool but I think they could have added more of it. I really loved using Batman gadgets to investigate, analyze or review clues. Using CCTV cameras recordings back and forth to discover missing pieces or rebuild a scene from the tracks left around was amazing.
Side missions for me are a "crucial" point. When in a game there are too many side quests, I often spend so much time on them that i loose track of the main story and the entire game starts to be frustrating and boring.
Fortunately for me, in this game the side missions they are reasonable in numbers but also connected to the main story. If you don't finish them, you cannot see the end of the game at all.
That was an incentive for me until I ended up finishing all of them but one.
On of them requires you to find all the Riddler's trophies and Rocksteady decided to spread too many of them.
It is really insane to think about locating each one of them.
I don't wanna ruin you the fun so I won't say the number of trophies but I can tell you that I spent more than 40 hours on the game and I didn't even get half of them and I couldn't see the real end of the game because of that.
So, to sum up
Pros:
Stealth mode is well developed;
The combat is fun and enjoyable;
The detective mode give a great experience on solving puzzles;
The Batmobile is cool to drive;
Not too many side quests and they are connected to the main story;
Cons:
There could be more part where to use detective mode;
The Batmobile missions are repetitive;
Too many Riddler's trophies to locate.
Personal considerations:
The game is great in the overall. On PC the game runs good although I experienced some lag when driving the car. As I stated previously, I completed "almost" all the side missions and I really enjoyed each one of them. I purchased the Premium version of the game at less than 8$ so I could access also all the DLC. Differently from DLC in other games, they do not add side missions to the main game. The DLC's missions are kinda "outside" they are anyway cool as they allow you to use other characters, such as Nightwing or Catwoman. I honestly didn't play all of them because I got bored after the first 2.
The DLC gave me access anyway to the different Batman and Batmobile skins and I really enjoyed to change the look every once in a while.
For the price of the Premium versions, it was really worth to purchase Season Pass and all the DLC with the game.
If you check here my post on how to purchase games for a cheaper price. I guess you should still find the deluxe version of Batman Arkham Knight at a great deal.
Not being able to see the end of the game is a real bummer and that lowered the score on my verdict.
It still remains a cool enjoyable game.
Verdict:
I give Batman Arkham Knight a 7 out of 10.
