By far and away, the Batman Arkham series is the best Batman video game series ever made. The fights are fast and aggressive, the gadgets are cool and clever, and Batman is a machine for kicking . But in Arkham Knight, that much better than the games that came before it? In short, yes, it does. And to show you why you’ll love Batman’s new game, I’ve listed the top ten reasons you’ll like it. Check it out.
Batman is even stronger.
We met Batman for the first time in Arkham Asylum in 2009, which makes me feel a little old. Thankfully, he has continued to change and become an even better hero in the last six years.
Batman is in better shape than ever before for his latest adventure. The ways to fight in the game have been tightened up and made more flexible, giving him even more ways to kill the many enemies he will face.
Gotham is a wonderful place to play.
Batman’s new play area is a dark, brooding masterpiece with curtains of rain lit by oily moonlight and black, ominous thunderclouds on top. It’s hauntingly beautiful in a perfect gothic way.
Arkham Knight has never done a better job of capturing the true dark side of Batman than it has with this game. This city full of criminals is on its knees, crumbling and empty, and this sense of poverty and loss is shown perfectly by the fact that many buildings are just left to fall apart.
But it’s not just the outdoor parts of the games that are beautiful. There are a lot of well-thought-out interiors with dim, flickering lighting that gives the game a great edge as you sneak around desperately trying to avoid some other fistfight.
Everything here is meant to make Gotham seem like the really scary place it is meant to be, and it does so in a spectacular way. It can make your heart race when it’s dark, raining, and the lights are strange.
Combat mechanics have been improved.
It’s not a big secret that among the best things about the Batman Arkham series is its bone-crunching combat. Batman is a real powerhouse when he’s fighting gangs of enemies, and honestly, they could have left it the way it was, and everyone would be happy. But they couldn’t leave it alone, so they returned this time with an even better fighting system. I thought it couldn’t get any better, but I was very wrong.
Again, the fights are a mix of sneaky takedowns and hand-to-hand fights that break bones. What the devs have done here is give Batman’s ability to fight his enemies hand-to-hand more animation and depth.
Instead of a few simple counter moves, they gave him the ability to throw his opponents face-first into the ground with enough force to make the gamer wince, or at least they would if they weren’t already doing the same thing to the next bad guy waiting for Batman’s unique brand of Justice.
Every aspect of the combat in Batman: Arkham Knight is made to give players the same core fun they’ve come to know and love, with enough new options to keep things fresh and make Batman more dangerous than we’ve ever seen him before.
The Batmobile is cool.
It’s best not to think of the new Batmobile as a car because it’s more of a sidekick, albeit a beautiful sidekick that can carry missiles. Your brand-new weapon has been built into almost every part of Arkham Knight. It can lift cargo, climb buildings, and speed to your location with a button, which is very helpful when you’re in a tight spot.
It can also switch between a superfast roadster and a missile-shooting tank with the touch of a button. This lets you speed up most of the game’s obstacles and blast through them. Luckily, it’s also a very pretty machine that looks like Christopher Nolan designed. This is the best Batmobile to be based on.
New takedowns of “Fear” look awesome.
One of the new things in Arkham Knights is the “pinball KO” move, which lets you quickly take out two or three enemies with amazing animations that will make the player want to drool in delight. Who doesn’t love to see Batman smash his way through a group of bad guys like they’re dolls? No one, that’s for sure.
This new takedown system is pretty automatic, making it feel like you’re cheating. However, the strategy and stealth needed to get the men close enough to pull it off more than makes up for how easy combat is.
And the lovely cinematic takedowns are animated and choreographed with such care that you can’t stop watching them. And let’s face it, the idea of making our enemies scared before we beat their bones to dust is just too tempting to resist.
One can be a Villain.
In Arkham Knight, you don’t just play Batman. You can also play a lot of other characters, both good and bad. With Robin, Nightwing, Red Hood, and Harley Quinn at your disposal, you’re unlikely to get tired of Gotham. This means that this time you can live out your darkest supervillain dreams.
If you ever get tired of flying around the buildings of Gotham, saving innocent people, and defending the name of Justice, you can try something new. Luckily, none of these characters feel inferior to Batman. They’re all beautifully made and have tricks and weapons that make the game even more fun.
More Intelligent Opponents
Batman has sometimes felt too strong in the last few games, even when fighting a dozen enemies at once. In Arkham Knight, though, Batman’s enemies start giving him a bit more of a challenging task than they have in the past. First, sneaking up on guards through floor grates is no longer a foolproof way to take them down.
Now that the enemy has thermal charges, they won’t think twice about throwing them down there to kill you, and they will kill you if you don’t run back the way you came. Because it’s now harder to get past guards, you’ll need to plan your move even more carefully before you try to carry it out.
Even the slow, quiet approach isn’t as sure to work as it used to be. You can’t just sit back and kill enemies at your own pace anymore. Now, thugs will actively try to wake up their fallen comrades, which will let them all know you’re nearby and bring more help.
