Batman: Arkham Knight

Arkham fans will know that the plots of these things go one of two ways: a smaller, elite band of villains want to kill you in the face (Arkham Asylum), or a huge, eff-off, just-about-everyone-ever band of villains wants to kill you in the face (Arkham City). Batman: Arkham Knight? That’ll be the second one.

We’re playing with the big boys here, gentlemen. All of them. It’s a who’s who of Gotham crazies. The Riddler, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Penguin, Harley Quinn, Two Face… you almost expect Arnold Schwarzenegger to wander into shot and fire a couple of his ballachingly bad Mr Freeze one-liners at us (in case you were wondering, my personal favorite is ‘what killed the dinosaurs? The Ice Age!’).

All we’re really missing is the Joker. And after City, we can probably excuse him for sitting this one out. Otherwise, this is a star-studded event all round. The whole ‘bad dudes unite to kill Batman’ thing didn’t work out so well in the last game, but there’s no harm in taking another shot at it. This time, Scarecrow is trying to unite his buddies against ol’ Bruce, which is more than enough reason for another slice of Arkhamtastic.

Check out the latest trailer below. It also showcases the much more vicious combat, the fancy-ass new tricks the Batmobile can do and the more extensive, free-roamy Gotham City; supposedly the biggest playground the series has brought us yet. And the ‘mature’ rating, also a first. Our little Bat is all grown up.

Megalomaniacal crazy bastards just can’t get the staff these days. Scarecrow gave these dudes one job: keep him away from Ace Chemicals. Those orders sound simple enough to me; it’s not like trying to construct an IKEA cabinet, drunk, while squinting at the Swahili side of the instructions.

But there must have been a communication breakdown somewhere here. What’s our ol’ buddy Bruce up to in this gameplay? Punching faces and gonads in Ace Chemicals, that’s what.

In this brief clip, we see some of Batman: Arkham Knight’s new additions to the series. First up, there’s the heightened focus on using the environment to your advantage against the goons. The whole thrusting-henchman-face-into-electrocutey-high-voltage-box thing, and that business with the light fitting, is the kind of resourcefulness that any Boy Scout with anger issues would be proud of.

On top of that, there’s an extra dose of explosive Batmobile action. Remember, it can morph into some kind of crazy-ass tank thing now. Check it out after the jump.
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We’ve seen some crazy effin’ crazy from Batman: Arkham Knight thus far. Once the Batmobile morphed into a deathly-death tank OF DEATH, all bets were off and we had to go and lie down awhile. But hold on to your butts, because we aren’t finished yet.

Earlier in the Arkham series, Scarecrow brought us some creepy, trippy, what-the-balls-y moments, which were lamentably missing from the last game. But as we know, you can’t keep a mad bastard away from his crazy-drugs for long. Rejoice, PS4 owners, you’re all set for another dose of Scarecrow.

As Destructoid reports, Sony have announced some console-exclusive content for Arkham Knight. It revolves around another attack from the ‘crow’s Fear Toxin, which has transformed Gotham into ‘a twisted, hellish nightmare’ for the inhabitants. What does this mean? Giant supervillains and their army of the undead, that’s what.

The Scarecrow Nightmare Pack sounds even worse than an average day for our Bat-tastic buddy, which is saying a whole freaking lot. Now, why in the name of Satan’s scrote can’t it make its way to everybody?

What the balls? You can’t promise us another bucket-load of Arkham action and a free-roamy Gotham, and then give us the middle finger with this whole ‘delay’ business.

Well, sure, you can and you have, but our ol’ buddy Bruce doesn’t approve. He was so ready to kick some criminal colon in 2014. He’d just polished the Batsuit and affixed some new weird nipples to it, like George Clooney had to wear as Batman, only to hear he’s getting the rest of the gaming year off.

Why? Because awesome takes time, that’s why. Rocksteady’s Dax Ginn has the usual PR-tastic prattle for us on the subject, as Kotaku reported yesterday. He explained that:
“Batman: Arkham Knight is totally awesome… the thing about awesome, though, is awesome takes time. And totally awesome takes a lot of time. So in collaboration with our colleagues at Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment and DC Comics, we have decided to extend the development time of Batman: Arkham Knight.”

In short, you can have plain ol’ regular awesome this year, or you can have awesome effin’ awesome next year. It’s a no-brainer, really.

Damn it, Bruce. Stop being such a fancy-ass rich dude.

Our ol’ buddy Mr Wayne, by virtue of his shitloads of cashtacular, gets the best of everything. Have you seen his freaking car? It’s like mission control at NASA in there. Ours look like the old Plymouth Fury Pa had in 1958 in comparison.

Which is exactly why Batman: Arkham Knight won’t be seen slumming it on consoles from 2005. What the hell would the Bat say if they tried to release it on 360 or PS3? Probably his trademark I’m Batman, even if that would mean eff all in this context. It’s just how he rolls.

So, anywho, videogamer broke the news last week. Game Director Sefton Hill, quoth the report, said:
“…you see a lot of games that are cross-gen, and they feel a bit reined in because of that. Because we were able to make that decision quite early, we were able to be more ambitious with the design and make a real, genuine next-gen game.”

Behind all of the PR prattle, this is quite a bummer right here. Still, if it’s the price we have to pay for a real, free-roamy Gotham, so be it.