The Last of Us

The Last of Us stands tall as one of the defining experiences of the PS3 era, known for expertly blending survival horror gameplay with deeply humane storytelling. Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic adventure follows Joel and Ellie across a ruined post-apocalyptic America, and the gameplay balances tense stealth encounters with quiet, character-driven moments that keep you glued to the edge of the screen at all times. Combat feels desperate and grounded, emphasizing judicial use of resources and quick thinking. What truly elevates the game, however, is its writing and performances, which help it be relevant to this date.

Cyberpunk 2077

Stuffing an open world with overabundant icons and waypoints usually hinders immersion, but Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City is such a superbly designed game, that constant signposting doesn’t affect the experience. It’s dense, labyrinthian, a steaming cesspool, gorgeous and bleak; its a city with many mysteries. Night City teaches us that regardless of cyber-genetic augmentation, its citizens are still people with thoughts and feelings. The same can be said of V, who through companions met during Night City’s plentiful and varied main missions often displays tenderness and empathy beyond their chrome. How V resolves side quests and the choices they make, it all impacts the conclusion to their story too.

]]> 606237 https://gamingbolt.com/15-single-player-games-that-made-you-feel-unstoppable Tue, 06 Aug 2024 13:43:28 +0000 https://gamingbolt.com/?p=595036 Games have an incredible ability of letting us step into the shoes of characters who are, in a nutshell, way cooler than we’re ever going to be. Through the use of their mechanics, these games have us doing things that feel incredibly empowering to pull off, and that remains true no matter how frequently you do them throughout the length of the experience. This is a feature dedicated to games that are able to do just that.

GHOST OF TSUSHIMA

What if we got a Batman game set in feudal Japan? Ghost of Tsushima would literally be it. The entire point of Sucker Punch’s samurai epic is to give players a vast and versatile toolset to use in both stealth and combat, which you then use throughout the game to strike fear in into the hearts of your enemies. No matter how many times you clear out a camp with lethal precision, it just never loses its luster.

There were legitimate reasons for not liking it, from the Batmobile sections and tank battles to some underwhelming boss fights. The less said about the PC port, which led to an unprecedented suspension of sales and widespread refunds, or the shockingly short Red Hood and Harley Quinn DLC packs, sold separately, if you didn’t pre-order, the better.

However, it’s all the more interesting to look back on in hindsight, especially after the launch of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. The latter has received mixed reviews for its boring mission objectives, a short story that falls off heavily past the few hours, underwhelming boss fights, etc. The fact that it’s a live-service title, which will slowly drip-feed content over seasons while pushing microtransactions (cosmetic-only, but still), is all the more disappointing.

What happened to Rocksteady? How did it go from delivering a trio of excellent superhero titles, setting the bar for the genre and arguably video game trilogies, to floundering so badly?

Think back to Batman: Arkham Asylum’s launch in 2009. Rocksteady wasn’t well known back then, but it knew what it wanted to do. It took inspiration from Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, crafting a darker version of the prison than most have known while presenting an original story.

Batman wasn’t treated as tacked on – the game revolved around his ethics, emphasizing hand-to-hand combat when necessary and stealth when possible. Everything, from the Metroid-like exploration and gadgets to the rhythmic combat and direction, is pitch-perfect. It’s almost difficult to believe that it was developed in 21 months with a small development team and looked as incredible as it does.

Within three weeks, Batman: Arkham Asylum sold almost two million units. A sequel was already planned before its launch, with a secret for Arkham City cleverly hidden away. In 2011, Batman: Arkham City launched and went even bigger. This time, the goal was to incorporate Batman in Gotham or a cityscape close enough to allow encountering familiar villains. Rocksteady also wanted to focus on grappling and gliding for traversal while ensuring the Dark Knight had his gadgets from the previous game ready to go.

Arkham City also allowed for a scenario where Batman was effectively isolated from the Batcave and thus had to rely on his wits (and some supply drops) to survive while uncovering the mystery of Protocol 10. With the location serving as a city-wide prison, it made sense for familiar villains like Two-Face, Clayface, Mr Freeze and of course, The Joker to appear. Investigations into different cases, stopping random crimes, collecting Ridder Trophies and much more all fit seamlessly within the setting’s context.

Couple this with the addition of new moves, further refinements to the combat, even better-looking visuals and tons of things to do, and Batman: Arkham City achieved even greater heights than the original. Sure, some of the boss fights could have been better, but when everything else was this great, it was a small blemish (which is ironic, now that you think about it).

The sales reflected fans’ enthusiasm towards the title, with two million sold within a week. It was the 10th best-selling game of 2011, which is worth noting when the competition includes blockbusters like Gears of War 3 and The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. Over 12.5 million copies were reportedly sold by 2020, which is insane.

From that perspective, it’s easy to understand the disappointment some had with Arkham Knight. This time, Batman was in Gotham City, which allowed for the Batmobile. There was no fast travel like in Batman: Arkham Origins, and the story focused more on Batman’s psyche, especially after being confronted by the resurgent Scarecrow and the (laughably) mysterious Arkham Knight. Criticism aside, many still agreed that the combat and overall gameplay remained incredible.

Gotham City and the characters also looked fantastic, while the added power of that console generation allowed for more enemies on screen, and real-time cutscenes. Then you had features like Dual Play for switching between Robin, Nightwing and Catwoman in some situations. Less than four months after its launch, it sold over five million copies – slightly less than Arkham City, no doubt due to the problematic PC version, but it was still the fastest-selling game in the franchise and the second-best-selling title of the year.

Which brings us now to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

It’s no secret that Rocksteady wasn’t meant to develop the title. WB Games Montreal had that role, following the launch of Batman: Arkham Origins (and hinted at in a post-credits cutscene). Following a reportedly underwhelming reception to the title, it was allegedly cancelled in 2016. Rocksteady was tasked with development and reportedly began working on it in 2017. The rumor that the developer pitched a Superman title was false, but at that point, it was unknown whether the Suicide Squad title even existed.

When 2020 rolled around, rumors suddenly emerged of the title (with Gotham Knights also cropping up). Both titles were officially announced at DC FanDome 2020, and the rest is history, but while little is known about the development of Gotham Knights, Suicide Squad is a somewhat different story.

Around the time that the latest previews for the title dropped in January 2023, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier revealed that Rocksteady was working on an unannounced multiplayer title that was also an original franchise and a Batman VR title. After being assigned to Suicide Squad, it allegedly had “several false starts” and multiple delays because the studio was transitioning into an unfamiliar genre.

In 2022, Rocksteady’s co-founders, Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker, left the company. With Hill serving as a director on the title, his departure caused some concern. Axel Rydby, who worked at Massive Entertainment from 2006 to 2016 and helped create teams for projects like Tom Clancy’s The Division, would take over as game director.

Two other directors, Rasmus Hoejengaard and Adam Doherty, also worked on the project, and considering the sheer length of time since Rocksteady’s last game, some assumed that the development team had changed completely. Clearly, Suicide Squad isn’t good, because many of the people who made the Arkham series great are gone. Right?

A brief comparison of staff between the releases somewhat says otherwise. Martin Lancaster and Ian Ball, who worked as writers on Arkham Knight, are still around. So are designer Ian Ball, programmer Ben Wyatt and artist David Hego. Granted, these are a handful of names from a studio with 250 employees, but they’re those who had major roles on Rocksteady’s best titles. Was the departure of Hill (who also contributed to the writing) really enough to cause such a drop in quality?

Even if WB Games decided to shift to a live service approach, causing Hill and Walker to leave in October 2022, the controversial gameplay reveal occurred in January 2023, confirming the existence of a battle pass, store, microtransactions and whatnot. These elements would have been in place for a long time prior, along with the barebones endgame, lackluster writing and underwhelming mission types.

We may never know what happened behind the scenes, but Rocksteady may have been out of its depth for this type of game. Going from a beat ’em up style game with stealth to a looter shooter isn’t easy, especially one that needs more content over time.

It’s not the first time that a studio skilled in single-player titles failed when working on co-op centric titles with live-service models or leanings – see Arkane Austin with Redfall and BioWare with Anthem. Even Bungie’s Destiny suffered many issues at launch (and again with Destiny 2) before rebuilding into something successful, and it still struggles to stay relevant.

While it’s not entirely accurate to say that the Rocksteady of old is dead, it currently faces an uphill battle to support a title with extensive time and money sunk into it. Hopefully, one day, it can return to what it does best with its soul intact.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Of the three games included in the Switch collection (sadly, WB Games Montreal’s Arkham Origins is overlooked once again), it’s no surprise that Arkham Knight fares the worst. When it first launched on 2015, it was already pushing the limits of the PS4 and Xbox One hardware, so significant compromises were bound to be made to get it running on the significantly weaker hardware of the Nintendo Switch. We have, however, seen in the past how something like The Witcher 3 made the jump over to Nintendo’s platform, and even though it was very clearly a significant step back from a visuals and technical perspective, it was still a perfectly serviceable and surprisingly playable version of the game. Arkham Knight, however, is far less successful in its attempts to make that jump. It is, in fact, an unsalvageable mess.

"Of the three games included in the Switch collection, it’s no surprise that Arkham Knight fares the worst."

The game barely runs. It’s plagued by constant frame rate drops, which range from being consistently annoying to rendering the game downright unplayable. During combat, the performance stutters frequently, which ruins the whole rhythm-esque flow of Arkham Knight’s action, while the frame rate drops are even more prevalent when you’re gliding around in Gotham City, which means two of the game’s best aspects have been heavily compromised. Meanwhile, when you’re in the Batmobile, things are somehow even worse, to the point where the performance issues can be legitimately nauseating. At times, the game can even freeze entirely for several seconds, and though there are times where it does recover to finally start running again, sometimes it just crashes altogether.

Beyond its performance foibles, Arkham Knight takes a massive visual hit on the Switch as well. Draw distances are laughably bad, and distant details of the city’s iconic skyline have been replaced by ugly looking generic blocks, while up close, details in the environments have been replaced by shockingly bland and muddy textures that would have looked out of place even on a PS3 or Xbox 360. Animations are often stiff and jerky, character faces frequently look horrifyingly bad, and all of it comes together to rob Arkham Knight of so much of its very distinct visual identity.

Given the obvious limitations of the Switch hardware, I absolutely wasn’t expecting the game to look anywhere close to as good as it still does on last-gen consoles even now, but even with low expectations, the drastic drop off in quality is astounding, which is exacerbated by the fact that even with all of those many significant compromises, the game still barely manages to function the way it should. That WB Games looked at this port and thought it was in any fit state to be released, let alone be sold for money, is shocking, to say the very least.

"Given the obvious limitations of the Switch hardware, I absolutely wasn’t expecting Arkham Knight to look anywhere close to as good as it still does on last-gen consoles even now, but even with low expectations, the drastic drop off in quality is astounding, which is exacerbated by the fact that even with all of those many significant compromises, the game still barely manages to function the way it should."

It’s particularly disappointing to see because, really, viewed on its own merits, Arkham Knight is a legitimately great game. Sure, it is probably the weakest entry in Rocksteady’s trilogy, but with its stellar combat, stealth, and traversal mechanics (among other things), it has more than enough going for it to overcome its weaknesses in areas like its narrative stumbles and its overreliance on the Batmobile. None of those strengths are able to shine through on the Switch, however, because that’s just how disastrous of a port this is. Sadly, Arkham Knight is no stranger to being let down by technical problems, and just as it infamously did on PC back when it first launched, it has buckled under those issues yet again.

Thankfully, Arkham Asylum and City fare much better, which was to be expected, seeing as both of them were made for the Xbox 360 and PS3’s hardware, something the Switch is more than capable of handling. That’s not to say they’re perfectly spotless ports- for instance, both of them also have notable and not-infrequent frame rate drops, though thankfully, they’re nowhere close to being as significant as they are in Arkham Knight. Asylum and City both still look good on the Switch, and ultimately, both are still pretty playable, while their inherent strengths also make it much easier to push through the technical problems they do run into.

And obviously, there are plenty of inherent strengths to speak of here. Personally, I’ve always felt that Asylum was the best game in the series, thanks to its linear, more focused approach and its excellent Metroidvania-esque design sensibilities, but Arkham City obviously has its own unique appeal with its open world structure, which is also much less bloated than Arkham Knights. Meanwhile, regardless of how they’re structured, both games also feature excellent combat and stealth mechanics, compelling characters and storytelling, and authentic portrayals of the Batman universe that fans of the IP simply cannot miss.

"Asylum and City both still look good on the Switch, and ultimately, both are still pretty playable, while their inherent strengths also make it much easier to push through the technical problems they do run into."

Ultimately, however, Batman: Arkham Trilogy is a bit hard to recommend. Asylum and City are definitely worth playing on the Switch, but there are better versions of both games available on multiple platforms. Arkham Knight, meanwhile, is a broken mess, to the point where it’s hard not to be shocked by WB Games’ audacity to actually let it release in the state that it is in (not that the company has any issues with releasing hilariously terrible Switch ports- we got Mortal Kombat 1 just a few months ago, after all). Given all of those caveats, in spite of the fact that Asylum and City are essentially still the same excellent games on the Switch that they always have been, I find it hard to recommend the trilogy to Switch owners, especially when it costs $60. Yes, the package combines all three of Rocksteady’s games and all of their DLC together in a single package, but when the package stumbles in as many ways and as significantly as Batman: Arkham Trilogy does, it’s hard to afford it any sort of respect- which is a shame, because these games respect all the respect in the world when they’re allowed to exist in the form they should exist in.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch.

BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM

The one that started it all. Batman: Arkham Asylum launched at a time when no one expected much from a Batman game, a superhero game, or a licensed game, but it proved all doubters thoroughly wrong. Arkham Asylum is the only game in the series that isn’t open world, instead adopting more of a Metroidvania-esque structure, and it’s still an absolute masterpiece. Set in the titular correctional facility, it begins with Batman transporting the Joker to the asylum (who are voiced excellently by Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill respectively), but quickly finding himself trapped amidst a mass breakout orchestrated by the Clown Prince of Gotham himself, after which it falls to Batman to slowly and methodically retake control of the facility and deal with a series of infamous villains.

BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY

Batman: Arkham City heads in a very different direction from its predecessor, but it, too, achieves similarly spectacular results. It adopts a fully open world structure, and takes place in the titular Arkham City, a section of Gotham City that’s been walled off and turned into a massive open-air prison for all the former inmates of Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Penitentiary. From the Joker to the League of Assassins to psychiatric doctor and Arkham City orchestrator Hugo Strange, Gotham’s Dark Knight faces off against some truly formidable foes in this game, while an uneasy alliance with Catwoman also has a significant role to play.

BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT

Batman: Arkham Knight continues the trilogy’s trend of expanding its scope with each new entry. Instead of just a section of Gotham City, Arkham Knight covers the expanse of its entirety. Set nine months after the events of Arkham City, it kicks off with a devastating attack on Gotham by Scarecrow on Halloween night. With deadly bombs and strains of his fear toxin spread throughout the city, all of its six million inhabitants are evacuated, and Batman is left behind the clean up the mess, with criminals and supervillains running riot across what’s left of Gotham. In addition to Scarecrow, the Joker once again has a major role to play (though not as a traditional, conventional, straightforward villain), while Batman also locks horns with a new villain in the form of the titular Arkham Knight. If you have familiarity with Batman lore though, you’re probably going to be painfully aware of his supposedly mysterious identity right off the bat.

COMBAT

One of the Arkham series’ biggest defining characteristics is its combat, which is evident in the fact that its rhythm-esque brawler style mechanics have been aped endlessly in countless games since Arkham Asylum first came out. Punching enemies is your primary verb in Arkham’s combat, but just as important is paying attention to visual cues that appear over enemies as they’re about to attack you, which is your cue to counter. The constant back and forth between attacking and countering creates an almost rhythmic flavour for every combat encounter, while of course, things also grow increasingly complex throughout the series when additional elements are sprinkled in, like enemies wielding firearms, shields, knives, and much more.

STEALTH

Stealth is one of the core pillars that the Arkham series is built on, and forms a crucial part of the gameplay experience in all instalments. It is, in fact, probably the part that captures the vibes and essence of being the Caped Crusader better than anything else. Since Batman doesn’t hold up too well to gunfire, he often has to employ stealth by hiding in the shadows and making use of his gadgets and tools, from batarangs to inverted takedowns to smoke bombs and much more. As you use your full arsenal of gadgetry and manipulate the environments to your advantage to methodically thin out large groups of enemies, the fear level of the ones still left standing continues to grow as well. It’s a perfect Batman simulator.

GADGETS

Speaking of gadgets, as you’d expect from Batman games, the Arkham trilogy makes Batman’s famous toolset a crucial component of the gameplay. Throughout the trilogy, in addition to batarangs and remote controlled batarangs, you also have the grapnel gun (more on that in a bit), the line launcher (which lets you grapnel across large distances), explosive gel (which lets you blast through weak walls and floors), shock gloves, smoke bombs, the batclaw, and much, much more, each boasting unique uses across combat, stealth, traversal, and exploration. Meanwhile, Batman also constantly has access to Detective Vision, which highlights enemies, hiding spots and points of interest in environments, and more.

TRAVERSAL

The importance of traversal in the core gameplay loop increases progressively throughout the course of the Arkham trilogy. With Arkham City being an open world unlike its predecessor, it places way more focus on navigation and traversal mechanics, which is where the grapnel comes in, allowing Batman to latch on to distance ledges and buildings and pull himself toward them. Combined with his gliding abilities (thanks to his cape) and the dive bomb mechanic, traversal in the Arkham games ends up placing a great deal of emphasis on momentum and aerial movement. Meanwhile, Arkham Knight also introduces the Batmobile, which is effectively a ridiculously fast tank that you can drive throughout the entirety of Gotham City.

NO ARKHAM ORIGINS

Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy is obviously the meat and potatoes of the franchise, but there’s more beyond its horizons as well. For instance, between Arkham City and Arkham Knight, we also got Arkham Origins, an open world prequel to the trilogy developed by WB Games Montreal. It was obviously developed as a standalone spinoff to keep players happy until the series’ next flagship instalment came out, but as those who’ve played it will tell you, it, too, was an excellent game that shouldn’t be missed. Sadly, as its name implies, Arkham Trilogy on the Switch is not going to include Arkham Origins, which remains stuck on PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U, a decade on from its launch. At least you can play it on PC though.

WHAT’S INCLUDED?

So what exactly is going to be included in Batman: Arkham Trilogy when it launches for the Nintendo Switch? Well, the three game we’ve spoken about here are obviously going to be part of the package, while all DLC released for the entire trilogy will also be included. That means players will get access to multiple post-launch skins, map packs, and challenge packs for all three games, as well as story DLC episodes for Arkham City and Arkham Knight. Additionally, a physical version of Arkham Trilogy will also be available, though it will still require downloads for City and Knight, with Arkham Asylum being the only game accessible directly via the cartridge itself.

FILE SIZE

Arkham Asylum, City, and Knight are large, hefty games (and grow increasingly larger and heftier as the series progresses through the instalments), which, of course, means the entire Arkham Trilogy package will have significant storage requirements on the Switch. As per the collection’s eShop page, the three games and all of their DLC put together will require at least a 53 GB download, which, by Switch standards, is absolutely massive.

In a press release, Warner Bros. Games confirmed that The Batman suit would be available in Batman: Arkham Trilogy for two weeks. On December 15th, it would arrive in Batman: Arkham Knight on PS4, Xbox One and PC, presumably as a free addition. Based on the recent gameplay trailer, it’s pretty accurate to the film, if not as visually distinct as the other suits.

Batman: Arkham Trilogy is available on December 1st for Nintendo Switch. It includes Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Knight (but not Arkham: Origins, sadly), with all their Challenge Packs, costumes and story DLC. Stay tuned for more details when it’s live.

The trilogy comprises Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Knight, their story DLC, costumes, Challenge Packs and more. It’s pretty big, with at least 53 GB of space required for the download. Interestingly, it also includes Robert Pattinson’s suit from The Batman, which went live on the Epic Games Store version of Batman: Arkham Knight before it was removed. Whether this will come to other platforms remains to be seen.

Batman: Arkham Trilogy launches on December 1st for Nintendo Switch and is handled by Turn Me Up Games. The studio also ported It Takes Two and Borderlands Legendary Collection to the platform with solid results.

It revealed in a new tweet, “More time is needed to bring players the best possible experience on Nintendo Switch. We apologize to fans who are excited to play this version of the trilogy. Thank you for your patience.”

Given the scale of the release, it’s understandable if more polish is needed. Also, considering the state of the publisher’s last major Nintendo Switch port (Mortal Kombat 1), providing more time for the development team may be for the best.

Batman: Arkham Trilogy’s port is handled by Turn Me Up Games, which also worked on It Takes Two and Borderlands Legendary Collection for the Nintendo Switch. It includes all three of Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham games, namely Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Knight, with all their downloadable content included. Stay tuned for more details and updates on the Switch version in the coming months.

https://twitter.com/BatmanArkham/status/1709029767851245954

A quick note! Don’t be surprised if you don’t find some of your favorites on this list. And while you’re here, why not check the previous list for added context?

With that out of the way, let’s begin.

Mass Effect 2

BioWare’s Mass Effect 2 continues to be held in high regard even after all these years, and a lot of it can be attributed to the best-in-class narrative that twists and twists based on the choices you make and of course, the spectacular action that takes you through it all. Mass Effect 2 might just be the best action rpg out there, thanks to a well-rounded narrative that features memorable characters like Illusive Man and bombastic moments like the Suicide Mission. It’s also one of the best-looking games on the now-dated console platform, but one of the best nevertheless.