Batman: Arkham City

[Roderick]

Ohhh, that's a question. I don't believe there's a point of no return. You just do your thang and then when you load the save you can do whatever you want in the city.

[Gwardinen]

Nah there's no point of no return. Obviously at certain points you're locked into story missions for a bit, but once you've finished the game, you just go back into the open world.

[Merus]

There's only one missable thing as well, and that's only an achievement you need to do while one of the side quests is still going (the one where there's a creepy dude standing on the rooftop watching you). Everything else can be done at your leisure.

[Erkki]

Augmented Reality Training Activated

Augmented Reality Training Failed

I'll never hear those words again. Whew!

[Roderick]

Hey at least you managed to dive into a petite tunnel with your bulky cape this time. Once you get there it's magic city.

[Erkki]

So the main mode 100% completed, is there anything interesting in the Campaign or whatever the extra game modes are? I did like the ones in Arkham Asylum somewhat, but if this is more of the same I'm not going to bother.

[Roderick]

Truth be told, I never attempted the challenge rooms. Barring Harley's Revenge, you're pretty much done.

[SecretAsianMan]

I'm late to the party, but I finally started playing this.  Man this game is super fun.  I'm not normally into open world games because I find them too repetitive but I'm really liking it in this game.  Granted the tasks are fairly repetitive here too, but in this case I'm actually enjoying them enough that I don't mind doing them again (except for those Augmented Reality Training ones, those suck but thankfully I'm done with them).  The combat is really quite satisfying, which is a dumb thing to say about any game but whatever.  The controls are a little complicated because of how many moves/gadgets you have but it's fun coming up with weird combos.  My favorite thing to do is use the claw the pull a guy toward me then clothesline him.

 

I'm also liking the Catwoman segments.  The way she moves is so fluid in comparison to Batman, especially the way she climbs buildings by leaping from one perch to the next.  I'm not a big fan of her design though.

 

This game is doing a good job of getting me excited for Arkham Knight.

[eot]

If you like City you should grab Asylum as well (I think it's on sale for a few more hours). It's more of a metroidvania instead of an open world game, personally I thought that worked a lot better. For me the best parts in City are when you're inside a 'dungeon', the actual city mostly feels in the way as you have to travel from one end to the other for the n-th time.

[SecretAsianMan]

I've played Asylum before.  The systems in City feel more refined than Asylum and so far I'm enjoying the open areas enough that traversing them isn't bothering me.

[Zeusthecat]

I enjoyed Arkham City and I felt like it was a really solid environment to traverse. As fun as the combat was though, I found it pretty difficult to fully grasp everything I had at my disposal and ended up not really using much more than my fists during most combat encounters. My typical strategy was to use a handful of tools to disarm and take out as many thugs in a group as I could pre-battle and then swoop in and finish off the remaining ones with good old fashioned punches and kicks.

[SecretAsianMan]

Fists are definitely my number one used thing.  I do wish the gadget use was a little more streamlined, it feels like every possible combination of two buttons is being used for one thing or another.  It gets confusing, there's been more than one instance where I've tried to KO a guy on the ground and did something else entirely.  But having a fight where I use a bunch of gadgets is extremely satisfying so I'm encouraging myself to use them more.

[JonCole]

Arkham City is one of this month's free PS+ games on PS3, for anyone who still hasn't played it. Starts tomorrow in the US.

[Architecture]

Arkham City was the Batman game I always wanted. I enjoyed Asylum well enough, but City finally felt like it nailed the tone and style that Rocksteady was reaching for. Other than the abusive language thrown Catwoman's way, I was very impressed by the game overall.

 

Almost bought Origins this weekend, but decided against it.

[JonCole]

Arkham City was the Batman game I always wanted. I enjoyed Asylum well enough, but City finally felt like it nailed the tone and style that Rocksteady was reaching for. Other than the abusive language thrown Catwoman's way, I was very impressed by the game overall.

 

Almost bought Origins this weekend, but decided against it.

 

It'll be $5 in the Summer or Winter Steam Sale, I'm sure. That's my impulse price for it.

[Bjorn]

But having a fight where I use a bunch of gadgets is extremely satisfying so I'm encouraging myself to use them more.

 

There's definitely a learning curve, but once you start getting the flow down, it's really an amazing combat experience. 

[SecretAsianMan]

It'll be $5 in the Summer or Winter Steam Sale, I'm sure. That's my impulse price for it.

 

I picked it up for about that price during a previous Steam sale.  It's easily worth several times that.

[Architecture]

Arkham Origins?

 

I bought Arkham City at full price three years ago and did not regret it.

[JonCole]

I was saying that Arkham Origins would probably be $5 soon. The sale price of those games goes down like a rock, usually $5-10 within a year of release.

[SecretAsianMan]

Ah, I misunderstood, I thought it was referring to City.  I haven't played Origins but from what I hear, it seems pretty skippable.

[undermind9]

ive been playing through Origins on PS3, i got it ~$30 on a black friday deal but held off playing since it was essentially broken

 

I think the story is actually pretty interesting, the side-quest villains are neat, and combat feels great still.  As to the broken-ness of the game ive only had one lock up in ~10hrs

 

i'll likely report back when finish the game as to the story as a whole.  i tend to 100% these games so might be a while - except challenge rooms, im not nearly good enough at the fighting to earn those massive score medals

[eot]

I couldn't resist Origins for €10, I think that's a pretty great deal for a game that came out last holiday season.

[miffy495]

I bought Origins during the holiday sale and beat it last month. 100% completion. I know this is largely considered heresy on the internet but... I preferred it to City. Yeah, they're pretty much the same game, but I really thought that what they did with the villains was kind of interesting. Mechanically, there is almost no difference, so if that's all you're looking for it's totally skippable. The window dressing in City made me feel like a sleazebag though, and Origins did not. I got a game that is equally fun to play but less gross. That's a win in my book.

 

As for technical, it crashed to desktop like 3 times in the time it took me to get 100%. YMMV.

[Architecture]

I vastly prefer the design of Batman's outfit in Origins to the previous games...given my druthers, I'd like to see Bruce Wayne doing some detective work in the late 1940s. A post-war noir thriller featuring Batman just sounds so insanely awesome, I would probably have a stroke if such a thing, regardless of medium, were ever announced.

 

I understand that Origins is sort of an also-ran, but at the same time, I've got a lot of love in my heart for all things Caped Crusader.

[SecretAsianMan]

The window dressing in City made me feel like a sleazebag though, and Origins did not. I got a game that is equally fun to play but less gross. That's a win in my book.

 

Can someone explain this to me?  I don't mean just you miffy, this is a sentiment I'm hearing from multiple people about City and I kinda don't get it.  What exactly is so bad about it?

 

In other news, I fought Mr. Freeze last night.  That was a fun boss.  I like doing the environmental stuff and I really enjoyed that they make you use different methods to attack him rather than finding a single weakness and doing it over and over.  I don't really like his design though, which is a thing I'm saying a lot about various characters in this game.