I just finished Batman:
Arkham City last night, and after completing it, I can easily say that it
is one of the most enjoyable experiences that one can have on a platform. But throughout my playthrough, I
continually wondered what it is that Arkham
City does right that superhero games up to this point haven’t been able to
do. True, there have been a few
good superhero games that have been released (the Spiderman games of the PS2
era come to mind), but for the most part, many of the releases that were tied
to superheroes were just uninteresting.
After finishing the game, I started to realize what makes the Batman
games (especially the ones made by Rocksteady) so intriguing.
One of these realizations was the fact that Batman is
essentially just a smart guy that just happens to have cool gadgets and a way
to self fund new ventures. Because
his powers come from his tools and intellect, Batman lends himself very well to
a progression based game, such as Zelda,
where he can get another weapon in his arsenal at a set period that opens up
much more of the world. Yet even
when he does have something like the line launcher, he still feels powerful
enough as to where he is fun to play as.
Also, because he is a regular guy, the dynamics of the game can be much
different. Throughout Arkham City (and even in Arkham Asylum), the bosses are tough to
beat, but the much more difficult battles are when you find yourself fighting a
group of 12 different guys. Unlike
someone like Superman, Batman can fairly easily go down to a group of 12 guys
if you do not keep your guards and counters up. Rocksteady was able to realize that this was the case,
developed accordingly, and made an exciting experience from it.
