BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY (XBOX 360, PS3, PC)
2009’s Batman: Arkham Asylum came as an incredibly pleasant surprise. Now here was a game based on a character license, set in a saturated genre (third person action), and created by an untested developer team. Clearly, it was a poor ploy by a struggling publisher to cash in on all the hysteria and the craze that the release of the blockbuster movie The Dark Knight had created a year earlier. However, when the game was released, everyone was taken aback but just how well made it was, how finely tuned and balanced its game mechanics were, at the high quality of graphics and the soundscore, and at the nods to the Batman universe that the game was filled to the brim with. Clearly, here was how one handled a game based on an external license! Nearly ten years after Rare had shown the way with Goldeneye 007, Rocksteady, with Batman: Arkham Asylum, had reminded th world just what such a game should be like.
The one thing that everybody feared was that there would be an instant attempt to cash in on the game’s mammoth popularity. Indeed, all such fears were confirmed when Warner Bros., having taken over publishing duties from Eidos, announced that a sequel was already in the works, and that it would be released ‘soon’ Here would be the perfect example of a sequel that did nothing to improve upon the original game, a sequel that would only serve to diminish the glory of the original game!
Yeah… no. One look at the trailer reveals that all such fears were unfounded. And clearly, that should never have been in doubt to begin with. If the first game should have made something clear, it should have been that the developers clearly treated the source material- the Batman universe- reverently, and that they’d do nothing to sully it if they could help it. A look at the Arkham City trailer reveals that while not much may have changed as far as the core gameplay mechanics are concerned (which would be an invalid assumption anyway, considering how little we know about this game to begin with), the developers have taken it upon themselves to truly expand the Batman universe, telling a story that looks like it will be a worthy addition to the Batman mythos.
We don’t really know all that much about Arkham City, to be honest. The developers have been unusually coy about this title, which would be a worrying sign under normal circumstances. However, considering the sheer pedigree of the original game, I think it is now safe to assume that Arkham City, even if it isn’t necessarily the pleasant surprise that the original game was, will definitely be one of the most polished and best games of next year, and is thus certainly worthy of inclusion in this list.
