Batman: Arkham Knight

I remember how Batman: Arkham Knight's PC version was a near disaster at launch. Warner Bros. had to temporarily pause its sales while the game was being fixed by Rocksteady and Iron Galaxy Studios (who did the PC port). I can't say that I'm surprised things didn't work out as was meant after playing the game: it is really pushing Unreal Engine 3's capabilities with the sheer amount of stuff that needs to be displayed and streamed -- the map is five times the size of Arkham City's. I can't name any other UE3 game with as huge of a single map.

Currently the game seems to run adequately. Not perfectly but it was quite playable for me. While outside in the streets, framerate was always traveling between 50 and 63 fps. It never felt smooth. I doubt the rain has any meaningful effect to it but I feel the rain animation accentuates the constant fluctuation. The insides of buildings were much more stable, as was to expected.

Introducing vehicular combat

A big problem at release for some was the now drivable Batmobile. Looking at footage from back then, to me it seems the stuttering was caused by the smoke clouds the car created. Probably some volumetric fog thing. They might have removed the whole effect as I don't remember any smoke trails while playing myself.

The Batmobile has been a divisive inclusion otherwise as well. Admittedly it is silly how colliding with people is supposedly non-lethal as the vehicle shocks and throws them away. But I did like driving the Batmobile. It controls really well. It was nice to have drifting after Mad Max that didn't have it (or I somehow completely missed it).

The car has a tank mode too which is even more controversial. Its weaponry is again supposedly non-lethal against thugs but I think people mostly dislike how much you have to do battling with it, even just in the main story. Enemy tanks and other drones are non-manned and there are hundreds and hundreds of them throughout the game. They're not spongy health-wise and I liked the fights but there's just so much of it. One should probably set the tank mode to be a button toggle in the options as by default you have to hold down LT to stay in it.

Later on there are tanks that are impervious to the Batmobile's weaponry with the exception of a small weak spot behind their turrets. You thus essentially get stealth tank battles which are not that great. The special tanks driven by a villain also lead to dumb fights as the winning strategy is reversing around a building and firing when the chasing enemy tank's front peeks from behind a corner.

Repeating tasks

If you decide to go for 100% clear, you have to do a lot more tank fighting. Every time you want to disarm one of the many bombs planted in the streets of Gotham, tens of drones come to stop you. It's silly how even after a main story fight where enemy drones supposedly run out, the bomb tank fights will still continue.

The bombs are one of the open world activities. There are also enemy watchtowers, military checkpoints, and flying drones to hunt. While I generally didn't find them worthless content, I disliked the effort it can take to actually find checkpoints and bombs. The towers at least have red searchlights on them, making them easy to spot in the city. I guess Riddler trophies weren't enough for Rocksteady this time.

They didn't exactly forget the riddles either, though -- there are 243(!) of them in Arkham Knight. I liked how in Arkham Origins, interrogating a Riddler mule would reveal all the Riddler data packs in a district. Arkham Knight unfortunately follows City's suite and you have to catch a bunch of interrogation targets to get every riddle location put on the map.

Sometimes the mules don't want to snitch. Way too late into the game I realized you can actually block their struggling and get the information after all. The ones that do the initial resist are always raised up high by Batman and the attack indicator is almost completely off the screen which is why it took me so long to notice it. You should always have a finger on the block button during cutscenes as the game likes to throw surprise attacks here and there.

I believe Arkham Knight is a good example of a game where less would've been more. 100% completion will become a chore and water down the story which I found well told. Doing everything is alluring because the game has two additional ending clips. The first one is shown if you have done at least 7 of the Most Wanted side missions and the second if you have done absolutely everything.

Entertaining narrative

Arkham Knight begins with most of Gotham's population having been evacuated after Scarecrow threatens to detonate a fear toxin bomb in the city. As Scarecrow's minion/ally is a new mystery villain, the game's titular character, the Arkham Knight, who commands most of the thug and drone army.

The game takes place a year after Arkham City and Batman hasn't apparently been completely cured from having been injected with Joker's infected blood. Scarecrow's fear toxin makes it worse and Batman starts hallucinating, thinking the Joker now exists inside his head.

It is amazingly clever how Joker appears in the world. For instance, you grapple up to the roof of a random building and there Joker is, ready to tell you something. The hallucinations get worse as the game progresses and eventually you see Joker suddenly replacing common thugs in fights after they have been momentarily off the screen.

I reckon Rocksteady could make a good psychological horror game if they wanted to. The Batman: Arkham series already dips into the genre quite a bit. It's too bad that it is very unlikely to happen since there's no money in it. A big horror game production is lucky to even break even, no matter how great it is. (See Alien: Isolation)

I correctly predicted Arkham Knight would end something like The Dark Knight Rises film when at the beginning Scarecrow in his monologue states this is how Batman died. I saw through the twists and turns of the plot in general -- with the exception of the Arkham Knight's identity. In hindsight, it's damn obvious but it just didn't click to me even at the face reveal until they said who it was.

The usual voices for Batman and Joker, Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill respectively, returned after Origins. Conroy I again found lacking and Hamill was as great as ever. It's amazing really how I can't imagine the latter at all when listening to Joker talk.

Enjoyable combat

Catwoman returns in Arkham Knight but only as a fighting partner in the Riddler mission chain. It's a shame as I would've liked to free roam the city as her. The partner fights are a cool feature, though. You can switch between the characters at will and even do a dual takedown. Another new gameplay feature are "fear" takedowns in stealth encounters. They're not silent but allow you to knock out up to 5 enemies at once. They make dealing with dozen plus assault rifle guys slightly faster.

Combat is back on rails after Origins misstep. Fights do get quite challenging towards the end, though. I particularly had trouble when there was one or more brutes and thugs whose attacks can't be blocked at once. It was such a hassle every time. Playing on Normal difficulty I was eventually able to power through them after two or three tries.

While Arkham Knight is now in a fairly polished state (no crashes in 65 hours), the save system is not completely perfect. The game doesn't save on quit or after every thing that should warrant it. You might have to redo some little things when resuming after quiting. You might get even locked out of something.

One should particularly be aware of spots like finishing the main mission which ends Poison Ivy's involvement. The game saves and then opens two new augmented reality challenges to unlock. If you quit right there before doing something that makes the game save, the challenges will never be available to you. The mission completion trigger evidently gets missed if you load the save made right after it.

The game does surprisingly keep two backup saves, of which the second is -- I assume-- your previous session's save. Thus you might still be able to recover without replaying from the beginning.

I wasn't impressed by Arkham Knight's story DLC. They're all short, just featuring a few fights with Batman's various sidekicks.