Batman: Arkham City for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

I expected Arkham City to be head and shoulders better than Arkham Asylum but there were differences that made them about even in my mind. The main story line in City was not nearly as impressive as I thought it would be, pretty one dimensional and short. The extra gadgets and abilities are really cool, but the side quests and challenge maps really don't make up for the lack of a long main story. 400 riddler trophies is a little excessive in my mind. I liked it about as much as Asylum.

What a game. Where to start? This game takes the prequel to a different level. The gameplay has infinite depth. The different ways in which you can play through the game is fantastic and each way is completely unique and as equally as rewarding as the last. It's a seamless blend of choices between Metal Gear Solid co-vert ops and God of War/Assassin's Creed hack/slash/counter.

If you've never played the first batman game, don't worry, the learning curve on this game is quick (just don't try hard mode). You will quickly grasp the basics of the game and eagerly learn the advanced tactics. This is another one of the beauties of this game, it makes you want to master your own play style, not just beat it as quickly or as easily as possible.

As an overview: Top notch graphics, intuitive game play, decent story (obviously better if you read the comics/played the first one), a multitude of gameplay styles, and one heck of a high addiction rating makes this game a must buy.

Bottom line: If you are on the fence or simply speculative: no more hesitation, get this game and you will not be disappointed.

What can i say but WOW what a beutiful detailed game, i loved the original and so far this one is just as good if not better, i have played it for 3 hours now and it has not dissapointed im looking forward to upgrading my skills wich there are alot of upgrades, but if the begining of this game is evidence to whats to come BUY IT OR RENT IT NOW.
The fighting system is just as fluent as the original with a bit of changes here and there but i promise you all that you will not be dissapointed.

Good: Great gameplay, amazing storyline, fresh, so much awesome gameplay and gadgets, best batman game ever

bad: you have to download catwoman

ugly: there is nothing ugly about this game

This game is amazing.The Storyline is Pretty long. Shows great detail to show all Batman Villains.When I finished Batman: Arkham City, I immediately cataloged what I thought it did wrong. It tossed in too many villains and didn't flesh them out, it clearly tried to replicate the Scarecrow stuff from the first game and didn't do it as well, and Batman still moves a bit stiffly when simply walking around. When I formed the list, I found myself disappointed with the game. But the days rolled on and I couldn't stop playing -- in fact, I only wanted to play more. The hundreds of things Batman: Arkham City nails outweighed my nitpicky problems. I realized Batman: Arkham City is a brilliant game.

In a world of uninspired sequels and tacked-on multiplayer deathmatch, Batman: Arkham City proves you can still put out a game with a strong single-player campaign and have it stand out from the crowd.

It's an improvement over Arkham Asylum in almost every way. More gadgets, more combat moves, more riddles, and more villains to fight. The story is incredible, and is driven by the excellent voice acting of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill.

The only downside is, despite starting with all the gadgets and abilities you earned in Arkham Asylum, the game still "Metroids" you into needing more gadgets or upgrades to backtrack to areas and items you couldn't get to earlier. It's a minor frustration that could have been worked around, but given how much there is to do you may not even have the time to notice it.

The ending leaves the door wide open to a sequel, and it'll be interesting to see where they go with the next in the series.

The gameplay and visuals were astounding. THe story, writing and acting were fantastic: dark yet melodramatic. The controls were buttery smooth. Expansive open-world that revealed more as you progressed.

Short campaign. THe replayability was the most disappointing. The riddler challenge system was upgraded but I found it to be convoluted and difficult to use. Chasing down those stupid trophies only to find little progress made toward unlocking a new riddler hostage challenge. No new batsuit unlocked after playthrough: what's up with that? It would have been nice to be able to change the difficulty setting for the replay+ (i.e., the campaign replay w/ carry over upgrades, progress, etc). It's kind of a 0-sum gain when a fully upgraded Batman takes on more challenging enemies. And it's not like I have an incentive grind through since there's nothing left to upgrade at the next level-up. All I wanted to do was kick some butt with my new toys. See Dead Space 2 for replayability done right.

i had this game for more then 2 weeks, after which i wanted to buy it. definetly worth the time and effort.

I am one of the staggering minority of people who did not like Arkham Asylum. I thought it was repetitive and constraining. I hated having to use Detective Vision all the time and thought Batman deserved having a city, not just a bunch of corridors, to walk around.

Well they gave Batman a proper city and Arkham City is a much better game. The combat is pretty much the same but they switch it up with set pieces and different types of encounters. Because you're in the city for most of the game and not in a series of rooms, using Detective Mode to plan out how to take down enemies is more fun this time around.

I finished the main story (playing on normal) in maybe 8 hours, without playing many side missions. I found the side missions frustrating and repetitive, so I didn't bother. What is most disappointing about the main story is the boss fights. There was only one boss fight that I thought was properly difficult. The rest were ridiculously easy.

Rent this game, don't buy it. If you play all the side missions it will only last you maybe 15 hours. Good game, not incredibly memorable though.

Batman Arkham Asylum was the best game i ever played, until Arkham City came along... this game BLOW'S MY MIND... this is so amazing, if you loved Arkham Asylum. you will love Arkham city 30x better.

Rocksteady Studios more than delivered on the sequel to an already amazing franchis. This is the best Batman game ever created, and it was one of the most amazing single player gaming experiences I've had in a long time.

Nowadays, everything revolves around competitive online gaming it seems. Arkham City is an unbelievably refreshing single-player campaign in an industry dominated by online play. I found myself totally immersed in this game and put in over 40 hours by the time I was done. I'm Batman.

Batman has serious upgrades this time, boasting like 10 different awesome gadgets. These obviously play major roles in Batman's gameplay, along with his flawless hand-to-hand combat. These are all leveled up through progress, but there is not much branching out or customizing, however that didn't seem to bother me. The gameplay is almost flawless, and you can mix both melee and gadget fighting combos to create huge powerful streaks, unlocking finishing moves and other devastating attacks.

One of the best additions for me was the awesome open-world Arkham City you can explore. Batman can practically fly anywhere in the city using his cape and grapple hook, which can fling you in the air to keep you floating forever. It's so much fun to navigate like that, and you can pick off guys 100 ft in the air using special aerial attacks. Press a button and Batman can soar down like an Eagle to pounce on your enemy, allowing for a quick kill. I'm Batman.

On top of that, the story was actually great too. Blending the Penguin, Riddler, Joker, Dr. Strange and more all in the same game actually worked really well. It helped compliment the amazing detail in Arkham City, along with the 700+ collectibles, side quests, missions, modes, and more it has to offer. Even when you beat the game, you can start over with your current gadgets and level to cause some serious damage. This game is a great rental, but I would not recommend a purchase here.

Milt Drucker

Never one for comic books or a great passion for the superhero genre I was hesitant to try this game. I'm glad I took the chance. The story line is apparent but a bit hard to follow. The cut and cinematic scenes are decent, brief, and keep the game rolling. You'll find that almost every main character you encounter, you'll end up fighting, and there is basically one primary offense you'll end up using to bring them down.

A few times during the game, I found I wasn't sure which way to proceed and "Detective Mode" was of no help. However, this was very few and far between.

Before encountering a boss, you'll encounter the same scenario over and over again. You'll need to traverse a level, dispatch guards along the way, and until you reach the "boss's lair." Once there you'll repetitiously use the gargoyle perches to dispatch the main guard units before squaring off with the boss.

There are a ton of side missions which I did not do other than collecting Riddler's trophys that I had encountered along the way. I want to say that the side missions were a bit overkill but then again, straying from the main campaign, and I tire easily.

Controls were a bit quirky but very manageable. You'll use every aspect of your controller.

The main campaign is fairly short. I think it took me approx. 5 hours to complete the game. Last of the bad...there is a ton of stuff going on. It may be my preference but I like a game to keep rolling and it's entirely to easy to get side tracked from your main objectives.

Now forget everything I just said! This game is awesome!! Character innovation, movement, and overall game-play is the key to this games success. It's an absolute blast to play. Batman's gadgets are extensive, unique, and innovative. If you like 1st person, action-type games...don't pass this one up. If, within the first ten minutes of play, you're still unsure... get accustomed and keep playing. You'll love this game!

I see a lot of people going overboard with rating this game and felt inclined to give a review. Arkham City is a solid game. The combat is great and throwing in different types of enemies that force you to use a wide variety of techniques keeps it interesting throughout. This Batman has an open format with plenty of side missions to distract you from the main story, and this is a good thing because the story mode is VERY short. I beat the game on hard in just over 4 hours. The boss battles in it were pretty weak and different worse than Arkham Asylum ones. On top of all of this the ending (won't spoil it) was terrible. At a certain point you really get tired of Batmans resistance to ever taking a life as well. He will watch a bad guy kill/destroy anything they can and beat them to a bloody pulp only to let them go for reasons unknown. Batman is the toughest sissy i have ever played in a video game.
With all this being said the combo of gliding, diving down, and using your grapnel/grapnel boost was carried out beautifully in this game. You could maneuver throughout the city very fluently and it was quite fun. So to sum it all up

Pros:
-Gliding and grapnel gun in open city was awesome
- The combat improvement
- Voice acting
- Graphics were great
- No glitches at all, played smoothly throughout

Cons:
- The games main story mode was VERY short
- Weak plot development in story w/ a terrible ending
- Boss battles were hardly memorable compared to previous game
- Game was really easy, even on hard

Great game to rent and beat but would be upset if i spent $60 on it. It is a solid game but not deserving of the 10's most ppl rate it.

Forget about Battlefield 3, that game is garbage. This is the way a game should be done when you aren't greedy and plan on actually delivering a high-quality product because you truly want to.

The game overall is a pretty good game, im just really glad i used a service like this to check it out before I went to the store and spent 60 bucks on it because in my opinion there are a lot of games out there that are not worth 60 bucks no matter how good the gameplay is and the story is, and i think this falls under that category...rent it..check it out...if you love it then by all means go buy it...there was a guy by the name of duke that had a game out once(or several times) that thousands of people bought and look what happened..be careful

A company making their third game has no right at being THIS good at it already. Batman Arkham City takes the essentials of Arkham Asylum and fleshes all of them out in an oddly perfect way. As I was hovering over the "10" button on the rating I kept asking myself if there were anything in the game at all that would make me take it down to a nine... anything at all... and you can see how that went.

Story: Brilliant, and the less you know going in the better. Rather than a random selection of completely unconnected plotlines, each character you meet serves a purpose to the greater narrative of either the main story, or a facet of Batman's personality.

Gameplay: Same basics of Arkham Asylum with a few refinements and changes in order to incorporate more gadgets into freeflow combat. Traversal of the open world becomes second nature after less than a few minutes of dedicated practice (and a couple of missions that help with that), and after a couple of hours you are no longer having to remember which button does what. You'll just know it. Superb.

Content: TONS. The main story will be roughly 30% of your game if you decide to do everything. There are multiple side-missions with amazing villains for you to thwart, and the Riddler outdid himself by putting more than 400 trophies and riddles into the city. There is a new game plus mode that unlocks after your first playthrough. It ups the difficulty slightly by changing enemy types and removing the 'spider-sense' lines that alert you when you can counter an attack. The good thing about this is that the Riddler challenges are shared between games. This makes it easier to snag them all over time.

Several things in game are referring to the inevitable sequel, and to (I believe) DLC. Fans of Hush (such as myself) will be happy to hear Batman, after Hush evades him, say to Oracle: "I'll deal with him tomorrow." Bring on that DLC Rocksteady... or better yet. Make Hush the #1 Villain for the next Arkham.

Get. This.

There were way too many riddle puzzles/trophies spread out throughout the map.

Im not much of an action adventure gamer but since batman arkham cit got so many good I decided to check it out. And I have to say, I was impressed. This game could almost be portrayed as a stealth super hero game. The characters are great and the game is pretty challenging, even on easy. You have a detective mode which lets you quickly view tactical options. And there are plenty of gadgets to use. I was not disappointed with batman arkham city and I doubt you would be. Go ahead and check this game out whether you are a fan of action adventure or not!

it was kinda confusing at first but soon i got used to the controls and everything. the graphics are FANTASTIC. i didnt really know any other attacks other than X and Y but overall it was pretty good

By far Game of the year everything bout the game is awesomeee :D

6yr old enjoyed the game...needed help playing and figuring out the game.

i got this game thinking it would be really fun, but the first hour is so cheezy and boring that i just put it back in the mail.. now i wont say this game is bad, but i will say this is not my type of game, for batman fans you will LOVE this i am sure

very fun riddler is the only bad part of this game way to many trophies to find

One word describes this game, "amazing", as you begin this game you realize how much free roaming you will be able to do. The ability to glide anywhere you feel like almost makes this game like a rockstar game. The more you play, however, the less interesting it is. The more time you play, the more time you want to quit and stick it back in the mailbox. The game gets more and more confusing as you continue to play. It's almost impossible to not look up a walkthrough, even then I still had trouble on what to do. So once I finally had beaten the game there was nothing for me to do except level up my equipment. Which can get very BORING. Another con of renting would be the catwoman ability. Only people who buy the game new can get the ability to play as catwoman, or you will have to buy it on the marketplace. In conclusion, this game is worth the rent. Do not buy this game because you want to play as catwoman though, because i dont think that it really helps much. Pros: Great graphics Great campaign Free roam Huge variety of attacks and equipment Cons: Hard to beat the campaign Can't play as catwoman Boring after a while