Return to Darkness: Arkham City (360)

Arkham City feels like a greatest hits collection of not only everything great about Batman, but everything great ever. The Catwoman free opening (more on that later) reveals itself like Dead Space 2; an unexpected dash through enemy territory that serves not only as a tutorial but as exposition and exploration of character.

Comfortable yet fresh, the melee combat and grappling gun traversal mechanics return from Arkham Asylum. Subtly refined, they serve as the foundation for ever more gadgets to unlock through the story and side mission progression.


Picking up six months after the end of Arkham Asylum, an Escape from New York style prison city has enveloped a small chunk of Gotham. Prisoners are unleashed into the prison and left to fend for themselves. Naturally they fall into fiefdoms following each of the resident villains and gang wars erupt as Batman swings over the city. Joker is suffering from blood poisoning due to the venom overdose suffered in Arkham Asylum, and has shared his blood with the hospitals of Gotham. Finding a cure sends Batman travelling through the cream of his rogue’s gallery crop, and he even punches a shark along the way.

While the main story is propulsive enough to require completion in 8-10 hours, I kept getting distracted by the equally compelling side missions, that all have self-contained narratives. Building on this embarrassment of riches is a massive expansion on the Riddler challenges from Arkham. Exploded to an insane 400 separate trophies, challenges and riddles, they pepper the entirety of the city creating an OCD nightmare. With a new game plus mode as well the ability to continue to explore the city after completing the main story, Arkham City is a game I will be playing for the next year.

Visually beautiful and expansive, the 360 version had extreme dynamic range, where wonderful color design would fall immediately to the darkest of shadows. I look forward to seeing it on PC.




The only unfortunate aspect of Arkham City is the deplorable and entirely unnecessary addition of Catwoman missions available only as a downloadable add-on. Using the code provided in new copies of the game prompts the download, or it can be purchased as DLC in used or rental copies. Not only are these sections apparently unnecessary to the main narrative they appear to serve only as secondary methods to complete the Riddler challenges. A crass and blatant attempt to force day one purchases conversely robs the game of value, as these missions appear to have been created specifically for this purpose only and did not occur organically from the creative process.

Despite locking single-player narrative behind an online pass scheme, Arkham City is an amazing compulsive gaming experience that shouldn't be missed.