The narrative conceit which places us in this slice of Gotham is perfectly comicy-booky (“Yes, we in the government think it’s a fantastic idea to wall of this part of the city and create a giant prison managed by a psychopathic doctor!”) and allows Batman to run in to a good selection of foes. It’s a real shame then, with the flight and grapple abilities so nailed down and so fun that Gotham itself is so stunted – it’s a short place in Arkham City while the developers came within a stone’s throw of the feel of Gotham as far as architecture goes, everything is just too small to really capture the mythic presence of the place.
I cannot stress enough how smile-inducing the gliding game is. Gliding from gargoyle to gargoyle, diving low towards the streets and then swooping up into the light of the full moon - this is Batman as you’ve always dreamed. But size ain’t everything right? (right?) It’s how you move through the world that makes City, not so much the world itself. While Arkham City borrows the structure of Asylum (a linear story within an open world that is gated by ability unlocks) the world is infinitely larger and more diverse than the Asylum grounds were. This, I imagine, is the equality we've all been fighting for. The only thing more absurd than the male bodies in this game are the female bodies.
Arkham City may fail to reach the atmospheric highs of Asylum, but it is through and through a funner game, and, most important to me, a superior Batman simulation. And hooo boy – let me tell you: four years was all the break I needed. So I ignored City when it came out in 2011, and sat biding my time, waiting for the right moment to leap from the shadows and back into the man I was born to be. The thought of beating up another random group of thugs bored me to tears. By the time I reached the conclusion of Arkham Asylum, I was spent.
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