Review: Batman: Arkham Knight

Available On: Mac, PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One

Story: On Halloween, Scarecrow forces an evacuation of Gotham City after threatening to unleash his potent new fear toxin. You must stop him, or die trying. Going into this game, I had very little knowledge of the "Arkhamverse" being I had played Batman: Arkham Aslyum, but had not played the other games in the series. Batman: Arkham Knight came with my Playstation 4 and it was the only game I had so I gave it a try, plus the Red Hood (Jason Todd) is one of my favorite Batman characters and they hyped him being in the game. I was not prepared for how quickly all hell would break loose in this game and all the twists this game would take. 

Game Play: This is an Action Adventure game that puts you in the role of Batman. You glide, grapple, run, and drive your way around Gotham, hunting down the Scarecrow and a host of other Batman villains. There are a ton of missions to complete, and in order to get the true ending you must complete all the missions.

Look: I love how this game looks. Being a fan of Batman comics, this game is like seeing the comics come to life better then any movie has done yet. There were some classic Batman comic scenes that were remade into this game, like the infamous Killing Joke scene involving Barbra Gordon. I also love the design of the Arkham Knight in the game.

Sound: My biggest gripe I had with this game was how much dialogue was reused with the thugs. I can only hear the same lines about Two-Face, the Penguin, and Scarecrow so many times before it gets repetitive.

Replay Value: The game's main story clocks in at about 15 hours, and all the side missions add another 10 hours. That brings the game up to 25 hours, which isn't terrible. The current DLC of Harley Quinn, Red Hood, and Batgirl add about 2 more hours to your play time. There is also a DLC mission staring Nightwing but it has not been released at the time of this review. Finding all the Riddler's Trophies and Challenges will take the most amount of time to find over any of the other missions.

Pros: The story was great, and your "Spiritual Guide" helps keep the game flowing. I had a great time hunting down some major Batman villains but I do wish that a few others were included (at least the ones they picked were great). It was also fun having the A.I adapt to your take-down techniques (If you used grates to take down guards, they will try to flush you out with grenades).


Cons: Besides the reused dialog, finding all the Riddler Trophies and Challenges (over 230 to find scattered all over the city, in every possible place) to be able to fight the Riddler was an annoyance more then a challenge. At times the Batmobile's turning felt sloppy, especially during the Tunnel Chase with the Arkham Knight, which caused some unneeded annoyance. The last thing that I felt was a problem with the game was the Cobra Tanks. These are tanks that you must track from behind to destroy, that's not the problem the problem is when they have 6 of these and they all stay in the same area together (this seemed to happen more when Batman had Alfred raise the bridges to prevent a person from escaping the area), so every time you go near them to try to destroy one, you get blown to hell instead. 

Overall: I really enjoyed playing Arkham Knight. I was not expecting the twists that happened in the story, so I was always on edge when a cut-scene happened.

Score: B+