I was initially excited for this game when it was announced. It seemed like Super Metroid/Shadow Complex meets the Arkham series. I love Batman so I figured I'd love this game. Then middling reviews came out and I lost interest. However, when it was on sale for $4.20 a month ago I could not resist. I did not play Shadow Complex, but what I saw of it seemed great. It was "2.5D" and it worked. Batman is "2.5D" but in the worst possible way. There are random places in which you can go more than just forward or backward, but that is not communicated on the top-down 2D map. Moreover, the map doesn't really differentiate between walls and doors. Also, though there are multiple floors on each area, the map only shows one level. I was lost for 80% of this game. I could never find where I was supposed to go despite there being icons on the map because there's no real way to tell which level it is on. The other 20% was pretty good. The boss fights were actually pretty enjoyable and a lot of them were unique puzzles rather than the traditional battle. I liked that part. A lot. Catwoman and Penguin were both battles I loved. Joker was a little disappointing, but that's fine. The combat is as solid as it is in the other Arkham games. Anyway, this game was fine, but they needed to do a much better job of helping the player out in terms of figuring out where to go. Games where you need to explore or fun, but when the map is utterly useless and the level design is confusing the fun gets sucked out pretty quickly. In the end, the 20% was not worth suffering through the 80%.
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