Batman: Arkham City

[Aus]

Shit is fucking sweet. All the best shit from the first game with lots of expanded combat features and true free-roam. Highly recommend.

[Cyniel]

I'm batman.

[greekrefugee]

Yeah, I never played Arkham Asylum, but this looks pretty awesome. Unfortunately the PC release date is the same day as the new Assassin's Creed :/ Batman is cool and all, but AC: Revelations looks SICK.

[Aus]

I haven't been reading much about the new AC, Im excited for it but to be honest Arkham City is better than either of the newest AC games (II and Brotherhood). I dunno, maybe I'm just a Batman fan but the game play (specifically the combat) is *way* better than AC 9-guard-counter marathons. I also love the arcade style challenge maps, tons of replay value for me.

[greekrefugee]

Yeah, I was kind of in the same boat as you about AC. I felt the first one had some cool ideas, and looked awesome, but was WAY too repetitive. I finally got around to playing the next two a few months ago, and I played them back to back, so my overall impression was that they got a lot better. The new one looks to be continuing the trend of improvements, but we'll see. Something about the AC story seems more epic, perhaps because so much of it is based around historical events. (Not to knock the Batman mythos, especially the darker storylines.)

I dl'd Arkham Asylum last night and started playing. It's too early for me to have a real sense of it (only like 2% in), but it seems easy. I'm guessing it ramps up after it gives you a chance to learn the moves/combos. Not sure if I should bother continuing on normal, or just restart it on hard. I usually play hard, but decided on normal since the game made it sound like hard required an understanding of the game mechanics. So far though, it seems close enough to an AC style game that I'm guessing the skill-sets transfer over?

[Aus]

The combat system in Arkham Asylum is pretty simple, the big difference between Normal and Hard is that the Counter indicators don't show up at all (the yellow lightning bolts over the heads of the thugs). While the combat is a lot of fun, it isn't all that complex. Arkham Asylum only has like 3-4 different abilities that can be used while fighting. Basically you're just gonna be learning to time your attacks for the critical strike to kick in and using takedowns + counters as available. However, Arkham City has like 12+, incorporating all the gadgets and various enemy disarms / counters.

It does start out pretty easy, though once you get a feel for the combat system, don't expect too much of a challenge except for a few specific points in the game. That is also addressed in Arkham City, which I thought was significantly more difficult than the first game, both in terms of the complexity of riddle challenges, dealing with various types of enemies in the predator modes and combat modes and just having a steeper learning curve due to all the new shit you can (and are expected to) do.

To be honest, before the first game I was never really 'into' Batman. I liked the movies but never read the comic books or anything. The games kinda jump started an interest, been reading about the comics and shit lately. Still, I can see your point about the AC story, I think it's really cool also. The basis in historical events definitely adds a depth to the game most others don't have these days.

As far as a direct comparison, I think as story telling goes, AC takes the upper hand. Most of Batman is just "Joker/Riddler/Ivy/Bane/Whoever is doing some stuff and I need to stop them." It's engaging but not groundbreaking. However, the combat, both the stealth and action, are for more in depth in Arkham City (though maybe not Arkham Asylum, I'd say your arsenal of items and abilities is about equal in AA as compared with the AC games).

Run through Arkham Asylum to get a feel for the style of the game, but don't expect to be blown away by it. It's fun but comparatively dated. Arkham City is another story, lots to do and lots of cool shit to do it with.