Arkham City: aftergame thoughts

[Fiach]

Well I never tried with a KB/Mouse, dunno if I would be comfortable with it, but tbh, the kicker is....I'm not the only one with the problem, the game is on the 360 and the 360 controller is probably the most popular controller on the market, if they cant get that right, there is a serious quality control issue, Any way, its uninstalled, it cost only 20 quid, but its the last time I buy a PC game, console games just w@&k, no faffing around with configurations, 18 gig downloads and redownloads, installs, re-installs, life is too short for that crap.

So, I'm back playing a modded Dead Island, Its great  :-X, Batman can wait until WB get off their asses and patch the feckin game (console and PC). :)

[Binnatics]

First aftergame thoughts: Wow, how about replay value :o
But also.... all the killing at the end... even the Joker.... ain't he Batman's reason to live? The Caïn and Abel stuff... Confusing. They give an awful lot of extra playtime, which I like, but in return they seem to completely terminate the chance of any sequel or continuance as Batman what so ever. Wonder how that fits in the original storyline...

There's one thing I got to get off my mind... these boss fights are incredibly easy compared to Batman AA. I'm very glad they took away the weird view they used to use for boss fights, but I had expected more of a challenge when meeting Clayman, the immortal assassin guy, the Joker...
I just couldn't believe it was all over. These last videos were kind of 'taking over, killing everyone' where I'd expected more fights.

Well, now I can start to explore Arkham city with both Catwoman and Batman which is good. Too bad I didn't finish the side missions first, gotta start over with these :-\\

[JRD]

You surely commited yourself into playing through City Binn... that was fast!  ???

I took my time doing lots of side missions which extended my first playthrough a lot. Chasing some Riddler's trophies were a very nice distraction between main missions... I still have lots of things to do in Gotham and a NG+ ongoing to keep me coming back for a long time!  8)

I too think the boss fights were very easy compared to Asylum, which I found a relief to be honest. When it comes to boss fights where you have to put him down once, twice, three times and every time he finds a way to stand back up, stronger than before, and keep fightting while your energy drains out is a bit annoying to me, so doing it too many times is a game breaker imo.

As for the killing in the end I also found it weird and not in accordance to the comic books... Batman just don't kill people, never, period. Maybe it's just a loose end to tie another story in Batman 3, who knows? There's this Lazaru's pit, where Rãs, the master assassin guy, ressurects over time in the comics so maybe the Joker can be brought back to life in the future  ????

[Binnatics]

I was having similar thought about resurrecting the Joker somehow. I think Batman exists by the grace of having jokers around. Anyway, I found out I didn't lose my sidemission progress and riddler stuff, so I have, like you, an ongoing game NG+ and the rest of the sidemissions and riddles to solve. I really like the riddles, some are very tough. But you got to think in possibilities, with all the gadgets you have and techniques. Like that ^-^

[JRD]

I like one Riddler trophy where you have to dive bomb over a question mark to unlock it. It works like those games in old amusement parks where you have to use a sldgehammer to hit a seesaw to send a weight up till it hits a bell on the top of a pole. If you don't hit it hard enough the weight doesn't reach the top and you loose. Same goes for that trophy. You have to glide as high as you can and dive bomb on the question mark with enough power to light up all the Riddler signs and open the cage where the trophy is.... that one was great!!!  :-X

[Binnatics]

wew, indeed great! Didn't find thatone yet! I've been busy with all sorts of riddle trophy's and some of them are really tough. Remember that huge question mark on the wall on the right side of the map? Somewhere at the docks? Took me ages to find the dot. In the end I find out by accident, lol

I remember the challenge where you had to save the hostage who was held in a cup; one of three. He moves the cups and you have to pick the right one. If not; sorry. Hostage dies. I knew he was cheating but couldn't get a grip on it. Until By accident I turn on Bat vision and saw how he changed the place of the hostage somewhere out of view. There I got him >:D

Now I'm scanning whole arkham city for green thugs holding info on the riddle locations. There are so many :o

[Binnatics]

I found all riddler challenges. I was a bit confused because I thought it were all findables and/or breakables, but it turned out that there are also movement-, fight- and gadget challenges. I've been searching for the last 30 'findables' for the entire morning, until I found out that there are more things to collect.
After-riddler thoughts are that I really liked it searching for and solve the riddles. A welcome way of putting extra content to an open world game. Much better than the usual findables in other games, usually without any clue. The hardest riddles imo were in fact quite simple. Both consisted of 2 groups of 3 lightened question marks. The first riddle I'm talking about was below a building/bridge, accessible through the railway of the abandoned metro. The other one in an alley near the big church. For the one near the church you had to use explosive gel + rapid fire of the battarang. This rapid fire was my biggest problem. Didn't know that the quick battarang could fire that fast. When I found that out, the one below the building was peanuts. All together these 2 have caused me headaches for over 2 days :-D

I liked the ones where you had to press various buttons without touching the ground in between. These were hard to accomplish, but I leart flying pretty well by completing them ;)
One thing I got to say is that the riddle challenges for Catwoman were far easier than Batman's challenges. Allthough tough to find here and there, it was just a matter of crawling towards them and collect. They could have made that more of a challenge for the Cat ;)

[Binnatics]

I've been pretty busy with the "Riddler's Revenge". So far, I managed to get all ranked challenges, which is a good start and something to be proud of (I am :-D). That gave me some nice achievements, including the "Perfect Freeflow 2.0" achievement. Man, if only Art could see the moves he would get the game >:D
The hardest challenge imo was "Top of the world extreme". The last one of the predator challenges. Didn't expect a predator to be that hard, had foreseen more trouble with the combat challenges, but it's like skating or swimming with the combat part; once you learnt it, you won't forget. Some practice and a little 'getting used to new moves and buttons' was all it took to master all these new challenges :)
Top of the world is the tower where you meet Strange in the storyline. In the extreme challenge version of the tower you have to perform a "human cannonball", a "Fists of Fury" and a "Cold war". After some practice I managed to do the first and the last spoken tricks in the beginning of the map, on a balcony. Just freeze some guys and attract another (3 frozen guys is cold war) and then launch the armoured guy into another with the REC gadget (Human cannonball). But then it gets hard. Take down all other Henchmen without getting killed. Lol, that's hard. The night-vision is jammed, so you got to be very careful. After, no lies, 5 hours of trying, I finally did it and could perform a "fists of Fury on the last left Henchman (Armoured).

I made a start with the "Campaign challenges". Nice change of pace there. A selection of challenges with some extra difficulties like 'limited time' and other 'handicaps' and even helpful things like health replenishing. The first 2 weren't hard at all and gave me a good idea of what it's about. It's hard, will get hard, because you only have 3 lives. If you f@#k up one challenge, you can only get 3 more chances. And if you keep fooling round, you'll loose all 3 challenges. Wonder how that will w%&k out once "Top of the World Extreme" pops up again 8-X

All together I'm having loads of fun with them challenges again. I found a way to easily obtain massive points in the combat challenges. Just build up combos 'til 5 or more, and start performing batswarms. Very effective, and giving you loads of points plus room to breathe. 3 more hits and you can perform a batswarm again. That makes it quite easy to get high points. Of course there are some special enemies who won't be fooled with the swarm, like armoured ones or stun-baton guys, but as long as you keep the rest busy with the swarms, you have plenty eyes left for those freeks. I love fighting with Titan Henchmen now. Once you get a hang of dominating them, you can cumulate huge amounts of combo-points and even the batswarm temporarily incapacitates them, which gives you plenty of time to perform the super stun move.

Well, time to go to bed now. Tomorrow it's an early day again at w%&k, and I want to keep some energy for the night, when I will start with the NG+ :-() :-()

[JRD]

Cool... you are milking every little drop of action from Arkham City.  :-X

I was deep into the game and also fooling around Portal 2 when suddenly something changed in my graphics card drivers so both games begun to stutter and freeze. I interpreted it as a signal to move back in time to 15th century Italy and now I'm deep into Ezio's last adventure!!  I'll go back to Arkham soon (hopefully) to my NG+ and to finish those challenges too!!  8)

[Binnatics]

That doesn't sound good, about your graphics card. I hope it will be temporarily, due to win or driver malfunctioning. Didn't know AC takes place in Italy ????

I'm moving ahead in the 'campaigns' and must say; it's less hard than I thought. Once you know the predator maps they aren't such a challenge any more, and the handicaps are manageable in a way that it won't be too much of a pain in the @$$.
I worked my way through the second row of campaigns, so only 4 left. The ones where you only have one of a kind. 3 predators, or 3 combat maps. When I finish those, I can take it up where I left it in NG+, right at the start in fact. I'll be ready for the challenge there I guess >:D ;)

In fact, I'm beginning to long for the flying between the rooftops again. Damn have had a lot of fun there :-X This game is complete. The Devs really left nothing undone or unpolished. Everything is fine and balanced out. What more could we want? Well, of course, DX11 to w@&k, but that's a minor thing right now

[Binnatics]

I just checked; it took me about 27 days to get all achievements. That was quite fast, but it was 4 weeks of intense gaming. Some things were easier then I'd thought. Other things were harder. All together it was some well dedicated time :-X :)
I liked doing all the challenges with the Cat. She has a great way of fighting and it gave another look at predator situations. She has less gadget abilities and you have to get smart in some situations.
There are more DLC's (well, Catwoman was a DLC for the Xbox gamers, but wasn't for the PC'ers) containing more challenges to be played as Robin and as 'Nightwing'. No idea who that last guy is. Anyway, I think that'll be a bit too much for me. I've had my portion already.

Final thoughts: I missed scarecrow a bit, and the Joker as well. Got completely fed up with the Riddler; "How utterly, utterly, predictable"  :D
The game is great. NG+ is a nice extra. I'm so glad they skipped the weird scenario-view in the boss-fights. The challenges were great and challenging. Everything is balanced and worked out into perfection. The way they gave birth to Batman in an open world environment is perfect. Couldn't have been better.  :-X
I liked the story; I'm actually getting more and more curious for the comic books.  ;)
I really hope for a Batman 3 and I do think there will be some sort of sequel :)