Batman: Arkham City

Incredible. Astounding. This is the perfect game in the history of all games in all the known universe... and even unknown.

Reading that statement over again, I think I may have gone a little over the top. Let's try again. Batman: Arkham City is fun.

Ugh... Still not doing it for me. Whatever. Let me just explain my experience and allow you to judge the game for yourself.

First combine the movies Crank and Escape from Los Angeles (Escape from New York actually works a little better for this example, but the sequel had Bruce Campbell in it... enough said) and throw them into the Batman universe. You've got the premise to this game. Wait. Any hands for those that have seen either of John Carpenter's Snake Plissken movies?

I'm going to assume there's a "no" out there somewhere. Let me explain: There a series of films about one bad-ass dude with an eye-patch (Kurt Russell)...

BOO-YAA!

...who's consistently sent into these giant, urban prisons to rescue something valuable the government wants but can't get. Do your best to ignore that, though, it's the prison you should be interested in.

Like in those movies, Gotham, under a police-controlled state, has sectioned off a portion of the city to be essentially a giant prison with very little to no security within it's walls. The first scene in the game has Bruce Wayne arguing out against this design before he's suddenly arrested by Big Brother (I forgot the organization's actual name... uh, the government?) and thrown in Arkham City. You run around as Bruce for a while - beating up thugs and learning the controls - before Alfred drops some equipment your way and you begin to find the dude (Hugo Strange) who had you locked up here as Batman. Oh, Hugo knows that Wayne is Batman - not sure how. That might play an important part in the motivation or something or other?

On route you stumble past a dying Joker. Poisoned by the Titan formula in the previous game, the Joker is on his death bed. While Batman goes to check on - what looks to be - a dead Joker, he's tricked as stabbed with a syringe injecting him with the same poison - see the Crank reference at play here? The only thing worse is that Joker is also in the process of dispensing the Titan formula into they city's drinking water. Joker needs a cure for this disease and now Batman has no choice but cooperate to save his own ass and Gotham's.

The game unfolds a lot like many sandbox games. You zip around the city (gliding from building to building is extremely satisfying) looking for the main storyline or side-quests to activate allowing you the chance to level up Batman and make him more badass while fighting... and you need to look bad-ass while fighting. When you get to the combat in this game, it becomes more like God of War. It's blazing fast hack-n-shlash that's not too difficult (I was on normal difficulty), but I don't feel that the challenge is what's important here. It's how cool look as you ram your elbow into some goon's temple while simultaneously round-housing the two gents behind you. Once again... satisfying.

Wait-a-tic, Batman. One of those fellows has a gun! RETREAT!

Yes, guns in this game will kill you very fast - even when fists, knives, and baseball bats don't. Time to go all Metal Gear Solid stealth. You go classic scary Batman and pick off enemies one-by-one without being seen. From what I can tell, all of the combat systems are actually similar, if not identical, to the last game. If you've played through Arkham Asylum already then I apologize for wasting your time. Just scroll down and I'll explain the true reason this game bowled me over.

Growing up I was an avid fan of The Batman and Superman Adventures. It was on every afternoon on the WB when I got home from school. This cartoon was the shit and I'm going to assume you all agree with me. Well, like the last game this one is still voiced by a majority of the same vocal talents (i.e. Mark Hamill as the Joker). In fact, Hamill supposedly came out of retirement to do this role one last time finishing the Joker's story. Does that means he dies? Does Batman finally break his own rule and kill that damn Joker?

Fuck spoilers. Yes. Joker dies by his own hand and it's a very moving scene.

In whole, that game is fast-paced, not too difficult yet still challenging (especially when trying to 100% all side-quests), and fun as all hell. Oh, and although I found this to be fairly small and insignificant to the majority of the game you do get to periodically play as Catwoman. It's only four simple, easy missions. Don't even bother leveling her (you do have that option), it won't matter. Just focus on making Batman more bad-ass. Remember... BAD-ASS!