Batman: Arkham City was one of my Christmas gifts this year and now that I've played it enough, here's the review. I should mention that I don't own Batman: Arkham Asylum, but I will probably review it once I get my hands on it. Batman Arkham City is a third person game where you play as Batman in Gotham City, but part of the city is sectioned off for former inmates at Arkham Asylum. Thus you have Arkham City. The campaign involves Batman trying to put a stop to Protocol 10, a plan devised by Hugo Strange, while also trying to find a cure for the Joker's illness, since he also poisoned Batman's blood with the same disease. The gameplay for this game is just so much fun. For one thing, you're playing as Batman in Gotham City. That alone should get you to buy this game. Batman can glide with his cape and grapple buildings and once you master the dive-bombing, it's almost like you can actually fly. Beating up criminals is a really gratifying thing to do considering that Batman is a fighting expert. The controls for fighting are really only two buttons, one for main attacks and one for countering enemy attacks. Despite onyl two buttons, Batman still kicks some serious ass by doing these fight moves that we as regular people can only dream about. When you're not free roaming Gotham, you'll be playing the campaign and that's just as fun. Almost every Batman villain you can imagine appears in this game, whether it be a side-mission or the regular story missions. I was really surprised that the game didn't end up being a bloated mess with all these villains. You eould think it ends up like Spider-Man 3 were there's just too much going on, but no, this game has a great balance to the events that are happening. This game also has a lot of emphasis on gadgets. Batman is given stuff like the batarang, explosive gel, batclaw and stuff like that and you use those gadgets to solve all these puzzles and that's another thing that makes this game fun. All the stuff in the game isn't just handed to you, you have to solve all stuff. There were times when I had no clue what I was doing and I just looked it up online, but I solved some stuff on my own. Once the campaign is finished, you can roam Gotham doing side-missions and collecting Riddler Trophies. During free roam, you can play as Catwoman and she gets around with her whip and crawling up buildings. Catwoman is just as fun to play as because she does her own things like different fight moves for example. I do have some minor gripes with the game though. There'll be parts where you're Batman and the room is full of guys with guns and you have to hide and take them out one by one using stealth. I was never good at those parts and they were frustrating at times. There are also certain bad guys who are kind of difficult. Some bad guys will have a stun stick or a shield and there are combo moves that you have to do to take them out. The controls for the moves are flashed on the screen, butI still found the guys to be a pain in the ass. However, Batman: Arkham City is a great game and it's the best Batman game we can hope to get. It transcends you into Gotham and you actually feel like Batman, going around fighting crime and stuff like that. I just need to play Arkham Asylum and then I'll feel even more pleased if a third game comes out.

Rating: 9/10