The Nerd Reviews: Batman Arkham Knight

Batman: Arkham Knight is the conclusion to the Arkham trilogy of games that brings together the villains of Gotham in a way that forces The Dark Knight to come face to face with his biggest failures and fears; and the game, much like Batman himself, also faces it's biggest failures but does it rise above and become the game we need or does it burn along with all of Gotham?

The game starts off with you in the role of a no face detective (no not the question) who encounters a sample of the Scarecrow's fear toxin, which leads to Batman's pursuit of Scarecrow and run-ins with some of the most notorious criminals of Gotham, including newcomer Arkham Knight. The Arkham Knight is unlike the rest of the criminals because he seems to have intimate knowledge of Batman including his armor's weakness, his tactics and even his allies and this is used again and again throughout to story, much to the detriment of Batman. Personally, I found the story to be a tad bit on the weaker side simply because it reminded me of the plot of Arkham City(mostly with the whole "villains teaming up under 1 villain to take out Batman")  and due to the size of the game it also suffers from the lack of focus between the main story and the side missions (although it isn't so disjointed that it ruins the experience). The biggest weakpoint of the story is the fact that if you know your Batman history, the "reveal" means nothing to you because you already knew who the villain was like 2 mins after his introduction and the game doesn't do enough to build up to that reveal.

On the gameplay side of things Rocksteady seems to have it down to a perfected science; the control scheme is near identical to that of the previous games so there's no learning curve to overcome, the introduction of the Batmobile (while at first is very much forced on you, it becomes very natural to use) opens up the game by means of a faster way to travel and also allows for new puzzles to be made. All of the tools you're accustomed to make a return in "Arkham Knight" but Rocksteady has made them even more accessible during the combat portions which allows you to move more seamlessly during the free flow combat; and speaking of the combat, you can now fight alongside

Some Dual Takedown action

your allies in certain situations. I really do love this addition because it allows you to be someone other than Batman for a bit without having to download an entire separate chapter. The combat is just so fluid and fun that you will never get tired of beating people up, not even once. It's also implemented in a way where the a.i. won't mess up your combo so you don't have to worry about them getting hit and it resetting your counter (in fact you can switch out before you get hit and never lose your meter). There are new takedowns, you can counter more enemies, the batmobile can assist you in outdoor encounters, just a slew of many micro additions that greatly improve upon something I thought was already flawless. The case file system from Arkham Origins is brought back too so you can do the Most Wanted cases and reconstruct crime scene to your heart's content, oh and they already have dlc (for those who preordered) so expect to have even more game to play after the main story because both Harley Quinn and Red Hood.

Batman: Arkham Knight is truly a good game but I can only say it's good because there are a host of issues that keep this from being truly great in my eyes. I've been playing the Arkham series since inception and have played every game that has come out for the consoles so it was very disappointing and shocking to see just how many game breaking bugs are in the game. First I had to wait for the game to install on the PS4 which is no biggie because a lot of games do that, but then I had to wait for another 20+ mins for the game to finish installing while I waited in the game menu, it was annoying but I got over it, then I was streaming the game and it went all to hell; multiple times it hung on me, the audio would cut out, cutscenes wouldn't load, the ps4 would shut off, hell it even froze loading up the character skins. I had to wait 30 mins for a game to install and it was like this was the beta version with all the bugs, never in my life have I've seen the PS4 error screen so much...it happens every time I play the game (here is me trying to do a firefly mission) and this is completely unacceptable for a game of this magnitude to be released, especially after it was delayed, with so many problems. I know it isn't the case for every copy of the game but it is a big enough issue where Warner Bros suspended sales of the game on PC and their forum is full of complaints from console users too.

Maybe the glitches were his fault?

"Arkham Knight" is a fitting end to the Arkham Trilogy; the story, while a bit weak, does a great job of pulling from the source material and giving us something new, the voice acting is superb as always, Scarecrow made for an interesting choice for a villain and actually succeeded as a worthy opponent for Batman, and all of the additions make for an extremely enjoyable game; but, you'll have to contend with a host of issues that make the game range from frustrating to unplayable if you were unfortunate enough to get a bugged copy of the game. Not only that, but they really dropped the ball on some key emotional moments and ultimately held the game back from being a truly masterful ending. Don't get me wrong, it is still a massively enjoyable game but it is definitely not without it's faults. All that being said I am gonna say you should definitely play this game because even with all the glitches ( I seriously feel like I should get a trophy for playing this version) it is still a well put together game that any fan of the series must have.

*I am totally looking forward to the Batgirl dlc and if it's long enough I will be doing a review on that content too*

**Also you can go here to see some of my gameplay of Arkham Knight (you'll see the bugs I mention)