Topic: Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition Impressions

[Patchkid15]

Batman plus a GamePad has mixed results.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressions/32544

I played the demo of Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition at E3 and walked away a little unimpressed. Now that I have my hands on the full game, my thinking has changed drastically.

I am nearing the halfway point in the story and couldn’t be happier. Gliding and grappling my way across Arkham City is fun and easy to do. Even when I activated the game’s off- screen mode, the visuals and gameplay were smooth. The story is split between Batman and Catwoman, and moves along at a brisk pace that takes you from one section of the city to the next. I’ve found the gameplay inside buildings more enjoyable because of its focus on progression—roaming the city offers many different side quests, but many seem to exist only to pad the game.

The GamePad implementation feels somewhat lackluster when not used in off-screen mode. Swapping weapons on the fly is fine when not in combat, but if I am fighting thugs and want to pull out a batarang, stopping to look down while getting pummeled is usually not fun. The game benefits from using the GamePad in calmer moments, though. Reading character bios while listening to dialogue is a great way to stay informed and engaged.

If you picked up the game on launch day chime in with your initial thoughts below, and look for our full review later this week.

[MrPhishfood]

If I remember correctly on the 360 and PS3 versions when you had to use a gadget within combat you had to make double button inputs. Which became a bit confusing having to remember which 2 buttons responded to which gadgets. It wasn't easy getting that achievement to use every type of attack in a single combo.

[Kytim89]

Can you opt out of the armor that Batman and Catwoman wear and do you think that the Pro controller will be supported via a patch of some kind?

[Mannypon]

Wow, this is a complete 180 from what I've read on other forums.  Most people have said the game is trash and suffers from lots of issues like a bad framerate.  I don't know what to believe anymore.  Seems like everyone is saying all the 3rd party ports have issues.  Some are playable and some not so much, according to "them" lol. 

[Patchkid15]

@Mannypon, I have had one instance of bad framerate, which took place after I wrote these impressions. Other than that, there hasn't been another noticeable instance of major graphical issues.



@Kytim89, I am not sure, I don't think so, but I will look into it.


@MrPhishfood, Here you have to click up on the D-Pad, then look down to find the corresponding gadget on a screen of 12 icons. It seems there is a way to set shortcuts, which I did, but when I started the next chapter it reset them all.

[Blur256]

Well I haven't had the opportunity to play Batman however Blackops II was one of those games with some frame-rate issues and severe graphical tearing while in multiplayer split-screen. A friend and I played the hell out of zombies and during that time we experienced being thrown from the front of the bus to the back when it would cross the fog boundaries, being thrown out of the bus, and had issues with items used to upgrade the bus not appearing at all in any of the unpowered doors(this was all experienced during tranzit). In bot multiplayer we had issues with extreme graphical distortion during gameplay, such as dieing and your character would seem to stretch out at extreme sharp jagged edges all across the screen. After the game was patched the issues seem to be fine. All in all once the third-party developers decide to patch their games all these issues should be fixed, so don't take this stuff to heart, after all its a new console with some gourgeous games on it, incredible interfaces, and a very brilliant connectivity.