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 The fourth installment in the Arkham series sees the Dark
Knight more tortured than ever as he seeks to rid his beloved
Gotham of crime and tyranny, and it is a worthy finale.
In a sign of the evolution of videogames, and their burgeoning
budgets, the visual artistry and storyline are better than many
Hollywood movies.
And the gameplay, while not innovative, nicely refines features
from previous episodes of a franchise that reinvented the
comic-book crusader in videogames, much as Christopher Nolan's
"Dark Knight" trilogy did in films.
To the uninitiated, Arkham refers to Arkham Asylum, a prison
that has housed the city's most infamous villains and around
which the series is centered.
The new game takes up the story of Batman about a year after the
events of "Arkham City". The demise of the Joker has left a
power vacuum in Gotham's underworld and the remaining
supervillains form a somewhat tentative alliance, led by
Scarecrow, to eliminate their nemesis.
Among the sinister syndicate is the eponymous Arkham Knight, an
original character created for the game.
OPEN WORLD
The final chapter in the critically acclaimed series, published
by Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, has been under the
industry spotlight for months. It had originally been scheduled
for release last October, but was pushed back because developer
Rocksteady Studios wanted more time.
Even after release it was plagued by technical issues which
prompted a temporary suspension of all PC sales, and led to some
complaints about glitches and crashes from PlayStation 4 and
Xbox One users.
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Nevertheless, the graphics are a sight to behold.
Arkham Knight is an "open-world" game - where players can roam at
will through the virtual landscape and have freedom to choose how
and when they approach objectives - while an overriding main mission
keeps the pace frantic.
This freedom allows you to explore and appreciate the incredible
detail of the gothic-style city and its denizens.
Combat flow and the variation of moves are better than the previous
games, and there are enough side missions to ensure hours of play
time, even if some are a bit bland and repetitive. And the Batmobile
is a blast.
On the downside, boss battles - end-of-level fights against the
biggest bad guys - that were a feature in the previous titles are
sorely missed. Many of this edition's encounters involve wave after
wave of thugs.
But it is the writers who deserve the greatest accolades for a plot
which masterfully ends the series and - without giving too much away
- sees the Bat win and lose before the night is out.
(Renan Fagalde is a Reuters employee. The views expressed are his
own)
(Editing by Pravin Char and Larry King)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
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