A video game review by: Lee Sonogan

(2015) Action, adventure

Based on the DC Comics superhero Batman, it is the sequel of the 2013 Batman: Arkham origin, and the fourth instalment in the Batman Arkham series. This is the final chapter in the Arkham series and also the first of the series to allow the player to drive Batman’s iconic vehicle, The Batmobile. An open-world game with many missions over one night in Gotham against a toxic explosion and chaos.

Gotham City was redesigned by building on the previous games’ Gothic architecture while making a more believable and dense city by adding minor elements like neon lights, billboard advertising, American-styled cars, and shops. Art director David Hego described the final design as: “feeling a little out of time. You couldn’t pinpoint whether it’s twenty years ago, now or in ten years’ time,”.

DC Comics Writer Geoff Johns was brought on to the project to create the game’s new villain, Arkham Knight. The overall villain is the scarecrow who returns after an absence since Batman: Arkham city. His poison/gas creates some brutal scenes as the fear toxin makes people hallucinate and go mad. This concept also affects Batman as he keeps getting visited by a former interesting character.

The only Arkham game and the first to be released on the eighth generation console. The reason why this had to be released on the eighth generation console is due to its lot of memory of the state of the art graphics and the size of Gotham City in detail. According to character designer Albert Feliu, a single character model in Arkham Knight could contain the same amount of polygons used to render the entirety of Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009)’s environment.

Widespread performance issues with the PC version of the game caused heavy backlash from players. Shortly after launch Valve pulled Arkham Knight from the Steam store and promised to re-release it in Fall 2015 after the issues have been fixed. Gary Schaal of WB games issued an apology and asked for patience while the issues are being resolved. However, the PC version still suffered from many bugs and WB games had no choice but to give full refunds.

Playing this and comparing it to the other Arkham series games, there is a big upgrade. The story is always amazing in these games, there no denying that. The gameplay is similar to the old games, but many more moves and combos you can do. The batmobile is a good feature, tho it gets a bit repetitive in a mission when you fighting tanks and that. In saying that, all the imagery is epic on my PS4. (81% complete on the main mission) I have not finished it yet so I can not tell you anything about the ending. You can only assume it has something to do with the Arkham knight. I still recommend it as one of the best Batman games out there and you should get it if you want an epic solo game to play.

7.7/10