Batman Arkham City: Harley Quinn’s Revenge Review

After picking up the Game of the Year edition of Batman Arkham City I decided to try out the DLC add on that continues the story- Harley Quinn’s Revenge.

SPOILERS WILL BEGIN NOW
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After the climax of the main game, in which the Joker dies, I was stunned. I didn’t know how to react. It was a satisfying end to a great game. Unfortunately, I did not find the same appeal in this DLC.
Being set several weeks after the Joker’s death should be a great way to show the inner turmoil of Batman. The catastrophic events in his life that had just resulted in the death of his lover, Talia, and his arch nemesis (who’s death Batman feels is his own fault) meant that I was expecting this DLC to give me a gripping and compelling emotional arc of how Batman deals with the guilt and grief. Instead, I get a lazily finished story. None of the emotional weight I wanted is portrayed in detail, and the ending is particularly bad, with a cheap out of the blue result.
Batman has been missing for a week or two, and so you primarily play as Robin, who suspects the distraught and grieving Harley Quinn has done something. Like I said, it’s a good setup, but none of it is explored in the actual play time.

Harley has certainly got a little more crazy after her beloved’s death

The gameplay of this series has been praised again and again, and it does deliver here. Getting to play as Robin in an actual story, as opposed to just challenge maps, was a thrill and allowed for some new strategies. His combat style feels similar enough that you can hop back into the game, but different enough to feel like he isn’t just a re-skin of Batman. Some of his abilities, such as his shield, did result in gimmicks, such as blocking steam, which just slowed the game down, and in my opinion these sort of activities were completely unneeded, but he feels fast and responsive. However, I was disappointed with the amount of time I actually spent playing with Robin. Thinking playing as Batman would perhaps be 10% of the game, I was extremely disappointed that it is closer to 50-50, and so this new character that is fleshed out into the actual story is not used as well as he could’ve done.
The game also sees you in Joker’s Funhouse for the entire duration of the game, and you are often in the same areas, going back and forth. Like the story, the quests were poorly justified, and I would have liked a more open area, instead of the confined and repeated one that was produced.

One thing that maintains its quality is the voice acting and the atmosphere, where the loss of the Joker really feels like his funhouse area is emptier and sadder. Harley’s ‘Mourning Costume’ is creative, and reflects on her amplified madness as a result of the Joker dying.

The costume is creative and reflects the character well

There is a flaw so major however, that it completely negates that positive view. For a DLC of £19.99 or your regional equivalent, this game is just 2 hours. 2 hours for half the price of the actual game at its original price is a complete rip off

Picking it up in the GOTY edition means I didn’t feel too burned, but with the flat story and the short game, this is an absolute avoid to buy on its own.

DC Universe Online (PC) By Sony Online Entertainment (SOE)

DC universe online review – the game that very well could have The World Record for most voice-acting.

This is MassivelyMultiplayerRaider’s first review:

I am a fairly experienced in this game, in healer/tank/dps classes and in both factions, so my knowledge of the game has been gathered through levelling, doing PvP and also some PvE. As this game is an MMO, I will review it in certain factors, some of which more desirable to different game players.

Story:
Obviously the game has a great story/background, as it is derived from the extremely popular DC franchise, with countless comics and games under its belt. This game is easily split into Hero and Villain faction, which decides your PvP and PvE content, who you fight against for quests and in open-world battles. Quest lines nearly always end in the defeat of the one of enemy factions’ characters. Levelling the story leads you to even more famous and infamous characters to lay waste to, with clear progression and succession to the greater and harder challenges.

Social:
The social aspect of this game is not so good, hardly talking to other players over the general chat and through the world unless rarely doing PvP or looking for help in PvE. Legions can only be made by paying members, therefore stubbing out non-paying communities.This is one part of the game that I feel needs to be improved.

PvE:
PvE in this game is not too substantial, always based around quests, even in dungeons/instances there is an absolute goal to achieve, giving the feeling of grinding in some manor when told to kill thirty or so mobs. Amongst grinding there are luckily some very interesting quests to complete, when you are told to collect things or destroy things in a specific way, it can be refreshing from grinding. These quests may be fairly time consuming and take effort, so the easy accessible dungeons are even more so refreshing, with harder bosses and mobs to kill. My favourite part of DCUO’s PvE is “Wanted!” missions, in which players are sent out to kill a boss mob, who is in the outside world, not in a dungeon. The bosses vary in difficulty and tactics but are never too difficult as so many other players are also trying to defeat this boss.

PvP
PvP in this game is somewhat better, in my opinion, with two main ways to play; Legends PvP , a fresh way of experiencing PvP , pretty much discarding the play-style of your current character and getting to play a fully buffed and geared character , giving an awesome play style of nuke and fast paced attack . There is also just basic PvP, where you play as your own character with your own spec and abilities, practising your own style and self-made player, giving you experience on your class more so than PvE does, making you use spells you wouldn’t normally cast, especially for healers (which I play) as the nuke power of other players is more substantial that mobs. Speed healing and over-time heals keep team mates alive and teach you how to play. In the legends PvP, the matches are split into Capture the base and hold style matches. These are slightly boring but can be intense if played well. The normal PvP is from Capture the Flag to Captute the Base, being slightly more interesting, and even more deathmatch based as kills award points also.

UI:
The UI is fairly unusual and blank, with few spell bars and things to click; your play method is extremely simple and easy, just laying out your rotation how you want. Clear party and speech sections for those who like the social playing. Easy to access to talents, spells and gear for the perfect customisation.

Pay to win?
I know many games are currently in the category of Pay to Win, making it so that only people that spend real money can win, but in this game, I don’t find this true. Only those who pay have the slight edge, with added character choices and more available, such as more of a social aspect, and it is not that they can beat a Free to Play gamer unfairly in PvP.

Summary:
All in all, this a game I have grown to love and enjoy, with some fairly fun content but is hard to replace the more hard-core content of other games. If you are in search of enjoyable but not pure effort content, this is a game for you and you will really have some fun. It is constantly being updated and changed, so expect more from this game in the future and I’m sure it will be worthwhile.

Batman: Arkham City (Xbox 360) by Rocksteady

I am a Batman fan, and this was started by a game that was released in 2009, Batman: Arkham Asylum. I loved it to death and this is the sequel. I ordered the Collector Edition of this game, so I’ll add that to the factors.

Story, Presentation and Performance:

The story of Batman: AC starts with Bruce Wayne protesting about a section of Gotham being walled off to create a super prison. He is captured for this, and finds out that the leader of this project, Hugo Strange, is an evil villain who knows his true identity. Batman manages to escape to the main part of the prison and then starts to investigate the goings on. The story is extremely well executed, however, as the game is a free roam game, it does lack a bit of the pacing which made Arkham Asylum great, and they do seem to want to cram in as many villains as they possibly could. I don’t see this as a problem, but it might put some of you off.

The world of Arkham City is brilliantly imagined, and, as the game takes place over one cold winter night, the game is very gloomy and dark, creating a little atmosphere. The graphics are brilliant and the game did well to not make the aesthetic too cartoony. The voice acting is superb, especially from Mark Hamill as The Joker, and it is helped by the fantastic animations of The Joker as he performs, but however, on the subject of animations, Batman walks very stiffly. He’s fine fighting and running, but his slow walk looks odd.

I found no performance issues of this game whatsoever on the Xbox 360 version, so I have nothing to talk about here.

Gameplay:
Batman: AC makes you feel like Batman, and that’s awesome. The combat feels very smooth and powerful, but against masses of enemies, it is still a bit challenging, especially on NG+. It has a counter move, a hit move and quickfire gadgets, along with some simple combos, and the combos are mapped onto the controller very well, and the animations of all fighting moves feels so fantastic and smooth. In addition to punch ’em ups with goons, there are stealth rooms where you have to use gadgets to take out guards silently. This was sometimes challenging, as even Batman can’t take more than a few bullets. In addition, gliding and using the grapnel boost (which is an upgrade from a challenge that I absolutely recommend as it makes gliding around so much easier) are a lot of fun, and you can just fly around exploring for hours due to this. The only issue I had with the gameplay is, except for NG+ and a few stealth areas, it was fairly easy.
The Riddler has also loaded the prison with a ton of challenges and riddles, which will take a long time to complete for all you 100 percent-ers out there, and most of them are interesting, although a few are boring.
Finally, the game has challenge maps where you have to get a certain score on a leader board. These were interesting for a few hours, but quickly got boring, with the exception of one that is now DLC but I got with the game, but I’ll talk about that, well, round about now!

Collector Edition Content:
In the Collector Edition, there was a fabulous statue of Batman, which is a lovely trinket, an album, which I sadly lost, a The Dark Knight Returns skin, a challenge map, that I thought was brilliant, as it was unlimited and let me get a crazy combo of more than 100, a DVD of Gotham Knight, which is ok, and the concept art book, which I regularly look at. Overall, I think the content was absolutely worth it just ten pounds more, at least, for a Batman fan.

This game was one of my favourites last year, and any Batman fan or anyone who loves stealth and action games should look out for it. What a great game…