Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)

Past the point of no return now and finally understand all the complaints about the Batmobile in this game. I loved zipping around Gotham in it and didn’t mind the occasional vehicle battle or side quests as a way to break up the game flow. But the heavy emphasis on vehicular action in the final stages of a game, seemingly to convey a sense of bigger scale, always leads to frustrations (see: me almost breaking my first controller during my recent play through of Jak 3). Vehicles are inherently more restricted in their movements, and the more you ask a player to do with said vehicle in an action setting the more frustrating the experience will be. It’s one thing to ask a player to just shoot a bunch of other vehicles, it’s another to have them fight the cloudburst tank or excavator in the ways Arkham Knight does: forcing you to outrun the predators in addition to accomplishing multiple tasks while doing so.

Ok, gripe over. Otherwise I really love this game. With the addition of the Batmobile and with all of Gotham at your disposal, this game gives you the full Batman experience for the first time. I can already sense that I’ll have some minor complaints with the thinness of the Scarecrow plot, but there are more than enough moments from side quests and the Titan plot to keep me enthralled. Hoping I can finish up the main story this weekend and then pick up collectibles during the coming weeks as I wait for Jedi: Survivor.

I think, personally, aside from the story being unnecessary and poorly written thanks to the firing of the writer of the first two titles, the real issue with this game is its lack of direction. Allow me to explain what I mean.

In Asylum, you're in a very contained space, and you are forced to progress to each area in order to eventually make it to Joker and, hopefully, escape the Asylum. This means interacting, whether you want to or not, with characters like Ivy, Scarecrow, Croc, Bane and more, because it's quite literally necessary for you to do so in order to progress.

In City, while you're in a much larger area, certainly, you're still at the utter behest of the enemies who control their own areas within the city. For example, you might be trying to get to Joker again, but you're also dealing with Zsasz's phone calls, and in the middle of that, you'll be pulled into an utter mad sequence thanks to the Hatter deciding he wants to screw with you for 20 minutes. Then, when you finally escape that, guess what, here comes the Riddler with another person for you to rescue, and oh also Mr Freeze needs you to save his wife, who just happens to be captured by Penguin. You are never given downtime, because someone always wants a piece of you.

But in THIS title, you have nothing but time. Sure the plot gives you a sense of urgency at times, having to rescue so and so and whatever, but overall the side enemies are rarely seen or interacted with outside of your own accord. Now, YOU have to find THEM. For instance, I was given the task of meeting with Hatter to find out why he's locked himself in the police department. It's not required. It's just a thing you can choose to do. But being given the choice is the problem. I want to be FORCED to do this. If I am not, why would I go do it? This game removes all the ownership the enemies have over your time, and now, interacting with everything is merely an option, instead of a necessity.

The problem with this game isn't the Batmobile, as many have said. It's actually the core mechanics of how to story works, and the poor story at that.