Live Magazine September 2014 Volume 9/2014 | Page 70

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BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT
Batman: Arkham Knight is the fourth
game in the ever popular Arkham
series, but is in truth, the official cap
of developer Rocksteady’s Arkham
Trilogy – published last year, Origins
was developed by a different team,
and featured Roger Craig Smith as
the voice of Batman. Well the Kevin
Conroy, the definitive Batman voice,
is back and so are Rocksteady with
a game that looks like that Batman
game we deserve and the one we
need right now. Arkham Knight looks
to realise – finally – a living, breathing, labyrinthine Gotham City for the
Dark Knight to explore and protect.
There’s a reason Arkham Knight is
only going to be on next gen consoles (and eventually PC) – the
PS3 and Xbox 360 (and sadly the
Wii U) just can’t handle the size of
the game, which is five times larger
in scale than Arkham City. As many
as 50 enemies can be on screen at
a time, allowing Batman to take on
entire riots of criminals. The graphics bring the kind of fidelity that we
expect from the new generation machines – Rocksteady are quoted as
saying there are as many pixels in
one character model from Arkham
Knight as there were in the entirety of
Arkham City. Batman never looked
better, and Gotham city has never
been a more vivid and atmospheric
playground for the caped crusader.

The biggest addition to the Caped
Crusader’s arsenal this go round
is the Batmobile. Half Burton, half
Nolan, all total badass Batman’s vehicle of choice provides a fantastic
and iconic method of travel in Rocksteady’s Gotham, and can be remote
called by the Dark Knight whenever
it’s needed. The Batmobile drives
like you would expect it to as well –
when colliding with walls the vehicle
won’t slow down and the walls will
suffer cosmetic damage.
Not content with bigger and better
gameplay and graphics, Rocksteady
look to be attempting to cap their trilogy with their biggest story yet featuring the titular Arkham Knight as a
brand new Batman villain. Normally
specially created villains for superhero games are quite average but
given Rocksteady’s fantastic treatment of Bat-lore thus far it seems fair
to grant them the benefit of the doubt
when giving something back to the
stories that have given them (and

at the height of his powers going
up against his now united rogue’s
gallery, as well as dealing with the
emotional aftermath of the ending of Arkham City. To make things
even worse, come Halloween Night
fan-favourite villain Scarecrow returns to wreak Havoc on Gotham
and Batman will once again have to
go it alone against many formidable
foes.
When Batman: Arkham Asylum
came out in 2009 it seemed inconceivable that 5 years later that a superhero game would be one of the
most anticipated games and biggest franchises of 2015 – both critically and commercially. Yet here we
stand awaiting Rocksteady’s epic
conclusion to their already masterful trilogy excited as we would be
for the next Assassin’s Creed, Call
of Duty, Mass Effect, or even Uncharted. It can’t come soon enough.

“BATMAN NEVER LOOKED BETTER, AND
GOTHAM CITY HAS NEVER BEEN A MORE
VIVID AND ATMOSPHERIC PLAYGROUND..”
the players) such a rich world to create with. Set one year after Arkham
City, Arkham Knight sees Batman

Written by Alex Holmes

www.stickytriggerentertainment.com