PixlBit

I finally got the game to work for more than five minutes. In fact, I played it until about 4:30AM today and finished it. 

It didn't run well after I had deleted some big memory items from my laptop, but I guess now it's doing ok since the computer had time to shut down and restart since I last formatted some of the disk space. That, or it was the port I was plugging my PC controller into, which I saw some weird shit in I hadn't noticed before the other day. I'll take a picture later if I feel like it once I'm back home today. It could also be that the laptop was just overheating. I had the floorfan going this time just in case. 

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the Arkham trilogy:

Overall, they're a bit like Jim Gaffigan's descritption of Mexican food: it's amazing, but when you step back and think about it, it is all kinda the same. Mexican food is meat, cheese, lettuce, diced tomatoes or whatever wrapped into different tortilla shapes for the mostpart. The Arkham series is about the same progression of stealth and combat action sequences in each installment as long as we're talking story mode. 

Having said that, here's what grabbed me most about each entry and how it differed from the others:

Asylum: feels the most like Metroid, since you're more dwarfed starting out than in the other installments. You really have to build that batsuit. 

It's also the most "tight" of the series. It's the only one where I decided to get all the Riddler trophies, since the map was small enough to make doing so fun and challenging, but not overwhelming. 

I would say it's also the most effectively creepy of the series, and I loved the tapes of interviews with the villains. 

My main issue with it is the ending, as is evryone's it would seem. Otherwise, it's just as big as it needs wo be while being compact enough that I actually had fun collecting all the extra stuff, which felt like a main part of the game anyway (especially the interview tapes). The only thing I didn't complete was the extra combat/stealth challenges once they became insanely difficult for me. 

City: I ... am not a fan of the dive controls when traversing the city. I really hated the challenge you had to do to get the grapple upgrade that let's you leap from buildings faster. Speaking of which, I still found traversing the city quite tedious and was not a fan of using a 2D map in 3D environments to find some of the extra missions, like where Mr. Freeze's wife was. Ran in circles before a YouTube video made it look obvious you were supposed to hop in the water a decent bit away from the spot the bat signal told you to go. 

With all that said, I probably will go back and get all the extras now that I'm not trying to move in to Origins. If for no other reason than I want to see all the mini-stories play out in Arkham City. This is in part due to City having by far the best overall story and use of villains of all the installments. I do want to see how that telephone thing with Mr. Zasz ends.

So I wasn't really a fan of the bigger area to explore and the mechanics of how you explored it at first, but an excellent story, a retention of the same excellent gameplay in the series, and intriguing side missions have me wanting to go back. 

As Batman. I don't really like how Catwoman controls all that much, to be honest. 

Origins: Had one of the better stories and I loved how Bane and Joker were used. But the ending I got was a bit anticlimactic, as were the ending boss fights. Also, where is Deadshot once the game finishes? The clip at the end tells me there's some extra thing with him in it, but do I just have to find him on the map or is there an Extra Game like there was after City's main story ended and I just don't see it?

This is also the entry where the gameplay really clicked for me, especially in the stealth sections. I was much quicker about isolating and disposing bad guys because of the practice I got with Asylum and City. Made me feel special. I also really liked the updated crime scene scanning that added a virtual reality element to the proceedings and let you see the crimes play out as you looked for evidence. Plus, I thought the overworld map was better laid out than City's and love the Christmas Eve setting. Batman Noel is actually the only Batman comic I own and have read all the way through. My older brother got me that for my birthday one year, maybe even last year. People complain about combat and stealth going downhill, but they felt the same to me. 

I was greatly appreciative of the batplane allowing you to fast travel between check points as well, and the list of criminals you need to stop in the pause screen has me really wanting to complete all those Wanted list missions. I do kinda wish I could just fly the batplane though. 

I also liked that it was an origin story of sorts, with Batman just meeting Jim Gordon and figuring out how Alfred feels about what he does. I liked that the story was grounded in Batman's emotional connection to other characters. I do wish we got to see the full transition of Harleen Quinzel into Harley Quinn though. 

Honestly, the only thing stopping this from being my favorite is the anticlimactic ending and final boss battles, as well as how fucking buggy it could be on PC. I'm really looking forward to completing the extra missions in this one. 

So what's your take on the series?