I’m going to look deep in to the hateful reservoir of darkness that is my soul and admit some uncomfortable home truths; the quiet things that no one ever knows, the things best left to yourself or maybe uttered on your death bed, as you drop the mic and ascend to the realm of the elder gods.
I have never completely liked a Rocksteady Batman game. Now before you jump to your keyboards (assuming anyone is actually reading this) hear me out!
The Batman games are dope, just straight up dopeness but there is always an undercurrent of freshly squeezed wackiness and wackosity in these games.
In Arkham Asylum, everything that took place in a “level” was great. It was tight, well designed and well paced. However, it was all the fucking busy work and bullshit in between areas that annoyed me. Those lame-ass plants farting out bullshit-gas, and the odd ‘zombie-dude’ scattered here and there was just pointless busy work that padded out the game.
I didn’t like that shit at all, it got in the way of what I really loved about that game, ruining people’s shit until the moon and stars were one again.
The combat in that first game was so revolutionary in the way it finished what the Assassin’s Creed games had started. It created a challenge that was so simple to wrap your head around but took time and concentration to master. Most importantly the combat looked so fucking good.
So eventually we jumped back in the well for the second game, which improved on the first game in almost every way. The scale was crazily impressive and the world that was created looked absolutely gorgeous.
But annoyingly they had increased the bullshit filler content ratio by a factor of 50. There was so much pointless flying about between different zones before you could start a mission. So much annoyingly optional bullshit that I had no interest in ever touching. Oh and that Mr Freeze boss fight doe...
Regardless of that shit, it was still a fucking awesome game but if I had really thought about it at the time, I was satiated and I really should’ve stopped with the series there. I’d had enough Batman.
I skipped Origins after hearing from multiple sources (ok, a couple of my mates) that it was ass and I should allow it and wait for that Rocksteady good-good.
So after waiting patiently, Arkham Knight had been released and it was time to fucking do this shit. The first impressions were mind blowing, the visuals had been dialled up to an almost ungodly level. The game was spitting in the lords face, an affront to the maker himself, it looked so good.
The more I played the more I realised the new gloss meant fuck all. We’ve established that I do not like the open world portions of the Batman series, so this was like being stuck in my own personal First Wave style Gulag (holler if you’ve seen the episode!). The open world has been increased a thousand-fold and littered with even more shit I could not give a flying fuck about. But this is all small potatoes when it comes to annoyances, the main problem with this game is the fucking tank.
THE FUCKING TANK. Oh lord above, the tank stuff in this game is like stabbing yourself in the dick hole with a rusty needle.
It started off well enough, in fact I was quite enjoying it. The issue came when they tried to awkwardly shoe-horn stealth into the tank mechanics. Yes the most sneaky of all motor vehicles the TANK, THE FUCKING TANK FOR FUCK SAKE!
Then there was the constant prompting to do side quests. Bitch, fuck your side quests! There was the story, that anyone with even a mere passing interest in Batman knew what the ‘twist’ was going to be from the off and the super grim-darkness pervading every cell of the narrative. I just felt miserable playing this game, or interacting with its characters; everyone is so miserable and dour and unlikable, it was too fucking much.
The thing is, the combat and predator modes are more or less the same. I’ve never really been jazzed up to do predator modes because I’m a wimp and some times they can be a pain in the ass but these were too easy and too routine. Yes I know there are challenge modes that are harder but I ain’t bout that life. I just want to play the main story and pretend I’m Batman without ending up in jail again. I just can’t go back there…
What makes it so disappointing is that some of it is damn fun. There are tandem fighting and predator modes that are awesome and leave me thinking, why didn’t you just make this the core feature of your game? Why did you make me do stealth and fucking platforming puzzles... IN A FUCKING TANK!!!
All that said, I know I’ve just shit on this game for as long as I have but it isn’t the worst game in the world. I think I’ve just got to a point where this formula is done for me. The combat system is just as good as it has ever been but I just don’t fucking care anymore. The predator mode is the same as it has always been but once again, I just don’t want it anymore. The world is bigger than ever etc etc but bigger isn’t necessarily better.
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