Batman Arkham Knight Review: This is how the caped crusader dies

Platform: PC (Rs 1,499), PS4 (Rs 4,400), Xbox One (Rs 3,499)

Those who have seen the trailers had been forewarned by a brooding Commissioner Gordon that this where Batman meets his end. We kept our fingers crossed, hoping that Batman can defeat the odds yet again and that the developers at Rocksteady deliver yet another apotheosis in the Batman Arkham series.

Now that we have played the game, we admit that if this is what the future of the iconic Arkham series looks like, we are glad that this is the last installment in the series.

Don’t get us wrong. Batman Arkham Knight is the apogee of the next gen gaming, packaged with killer graphics and relentless gameplay. However, one can’t help but begin to feel like the developers are here to serve the masses and in the process, deliver a wishy-washy game which is not as well planned out as the predecessors, which severely undermines the persona that is Batman.

Story: Will the real Arkham Knight please stand up?

The Batman Arkham series was heavily inspired from the storylines of Frank Miller and other legendary writers. The Arkham Knight, however, looks like it is co-directed by Christopher Nolan and Michael Bay. Batman no longer feels like the world’s greatest detective, striking form the shadows and scaring the be-jeezus out of the street thugs. He feels more like a former G.I.Joe, happily coming down on the goons with unabashed explosions and his Bat Mobile, which feels more like a tank-on-wheels than a swift mystery machine. More on that later.

We won’t divulge much on the story, but say this much that this is probably the best plot since Batman: Arkham City. We can lay out the skeleton out for you though. So, it goes like this – just when we thought law was returning to the city of Gotham and nothing could ever go wrong, the Scarecrow unleashes mayhem on the city through his deadly Fear gas, promising to destroy Gotham once and for all. This eventually leads to an exodus, which conveniently puts all the citizens of Gotham out of the city and out of harm’s way as Batman answers the Hero call, laying hard justice on all the goons and thugs in the city (which seems like double the population of the city itself). During his fight against the Scarecrow, Batman comes across his former enemies (Two Face, Penguin and Riddler), teams up with his former sidekicks (Nightwing and Robin) and manages to woo two beautiful enemies into allies (Catwoman and Poison Ivy). Sounds like all the other Arkham games? We can’t argue with that.

The writers have thrown in a new threat in the form of a terrifying new character who calls himself the ’real’ Arkham Knight. He is the reason why Batman is chased down the streets by hulky tanks and steroid junkies armed with bazookas. The game plays around determining the true identity of Arkham Knight, so much so as we also begin to get intrigued by the man behind the Knight mask. However, when we finally saw the disappointing reveal, we can’t help but go – Meh! We really couldn’t care less.

A little spoiler ahead. Joker is back! He is not dead (as depicted in the end of Arkham City) and he is not alive too, per se. He comes back to haunt Batman in a few sequences of excellently scripted flashbacks. These little storylines offers the most memorable moments in Arkham Knight and is probably one of the few reasons why you should definitely try out the game.

Gameplay: Ride your Bat Mobile…..though obstacle courses? Seriously?

There has been a lot of hype around the Bat Mobile. Arkham Knight is the first game which features a fully playable Bat Mobile. The developers have even promised a bigger and badder Arkham city map, specially designed for the Bat Mobile. What we got in reality is a Nolan-ish tank which feels more like an extended bat-gadget rather than Batman’s favourite vehicle.

Most of our initial game time is focused on learning the sticks of the Bat Mobile, which conveniently switches between a rocket-propelled speed machine to the world’s most efficient battle tank, armed with 60-mm machinegun, missile launchers and guns that shoot rubber bullets at enemies (Batman doesn’t kill his foes, remember?). However, let’s face the fact, it is much more fun to glide and grapple around the Gotham skyline than to maneuver through city streets in the Bat Mobile. The vehicle handles like the humongous tank that it is, blasting through walls and ploughing through enemy vehicles like Grand Theft Auto. This did not make us feel anything like being the Batman. Where is the silent crusader with cunning ninja techniques, who pounces on his prey like a predator and finishes off half the enemies before the boss thug even realizes something’s wrong? A severe disappointment, this.

As we said, the Bat mobile feels like an added accessory and you can use the vehicle’s speed to gain an incredible boost to launch Batman straight into the air as you glide through the rain soaked Gotham, which helps you reach a destination much faster than driving around in the Bat Mobile itself.

The game tries hard to make you care for the Bat Mobile. More often than not, the vehicle feels like a hindrance than help. There are elaborate puzzles, which needs the Bat Mobile to be driven around marked courses in a certain order to solve. Even the super villains seem to sit up and notice the presence of the Bat Mobile. I wonder if the Riddler thought, ‘Hmm, I need to kill the Batman. So, let’s make him drive around endless obstacle courses and maybe I can bore him to death.’ One can’t help but wonder why Batman has to drive through the tedious obstacle courses littered throughout the city and not walk around it. Completely unnecessary.

The smooth combat-combo chain is back and feels better than ever. Batman seems more fluid and much more lethal as he land punches and kicks on his enemies, who would attack you as they are wont to do. You also get to team up with an ally in co-op beatdown missions, which sets the stage for epic takedown moves, easily making Arkham Knight’s Hand-to-Hand combat the best in the industry. Oh, you can also call the Bat Mobile to lend a helping hand in fights, as it would happily toss enemies up in the air for you to bash them up and neutralize them with rubber bullets in case you bite off more than you can chew. About time that vehicle came handy, we say!

Graphics: Magnum Opus of next gen visuals

We need to admit that we have not seen a more gorgeous game on next gen platforms since Infamous: Second Son. The rain looks great, in fact, it looks so real, you can’t help but find the tallest building in the city and simply stand there for a few seconds, looking down an idyllic city that is so visually captivating, you can’t help but take screenshots and post them on social network for your friends to see. The water physics and the pattering sound of rain are simply astounding, reminding us of the likes of Mafia 2 or Viet Cong.

Verdict:

Batman: Arkham Knight had a lot riding on it, but sadly, it couldn’t deliver. It doesn’t help that the PC version of the game is facing a lot of performance issues and no proper fix is made available by the developers yet. Most developers tend to forget the PC gamers when they launch their games. What they do is directly port the game from the console to the PC system, which leads to glitches and ridiculously low FPS (unless you have a mammoth gaming system).

However, we faced the same problem when the first Batman Arkham game was launched. A fix was made available soon and Batman: Arkham Asylum is easily the best PC game out there today. Let’s hope Rocksteady will come out with PC fixes soon enough.

Batman: Arkham Knight has some glaring cons but some of the pros make it worth a try. We don’t yet know if it’s really the last installment in the Arkham series, but if it is, this is no way how the Batman must die. We are hoping for yet one more, to reclaim the glory of the series.