Arkham City
Having fairly recently finished the story of GTA V and found myself in a motivational lull in GW2 (again), I considered my options and remembered I had never finished Arkham City. Heck, I'd barely started it before getting sidetracked with something else. So that's been providing sideline entertainment until I finished it up a few days ago.
Solid game all around. Playing as Batman is pretty empowering (even if you could argue that's odd as he has no personal superpowers). The game is fairly straightforward. Even a lot of the side missions are presented pretty directly, though there are a few exceptions and a bunch of achievementy puzzles. The list of villains is pretty impressive and handled well for the most part. Joker is the primary antagonist, but the Penguin, Two-Face, and other big names all make an appearance. There are moments of mutual respect with Ra's, Talia, and Freeze. It comes together pretty well without feeling overly cluttered, strangely.
Most of the game is easy. Sort of. I'm far from a button-timing expert, so large groups got unwieldy. I did have to replay some sections. And switching over to Catwoman for a few missions along the way is about as forgiving as going from a tank to something armored in tissue paper, as she has way less health and armor options than ye ol' Dark Knight. But on screen prompts helped me figure out boss fight mechanics in most cases, and most of my "deaths" felt more due to poor timing on my part than actual difficulty of the game. I suppose failure equaling a reload also takes some of the edge off, but that's par for the course in most games these days.
So... yeah, 'tis a good actiony game all around. I'm not sure I feel the need to buy the DLC, though, or pick up Origins - which means I may be at another "lull" of sorts.
Solid game all around. Playing as Batman is pretty empowering (even if you could argue that's odd as he has no personal superpowers). The game is fairly straightforward. Even a lot of the side missions are presented pretty directly, though there are a few exceptions and a bunch of achievementy puzzles. The list of villains is pretty impressive and handled well for the most part. Joker is the primary antagonist, but the Penguin, Two-Face, and other big names all make an appearance. There are moments of mutual respect with Ra's, Talia, and Freeze. It comes together pretty well without feeling overly cluttered, strangely.
Most of the game is easy. Sort of. I'm far from a button-timing expert, so large groups got unwieldy. I did have to replay some sections. And switching over to Catwoman for a few missions along the way is about as forgiving as going from a tank to something armored in tissue paper, as she has way less health and armor options than ye ol' Dark Knight. But on screen prompts helped me figure out boss fight mechanics in most cases, and most of my "deaths" felt more due to poor timing on my part than actual difficulty of the game. I suppose failure equaling a reload also takes some of the edge off, but that's par for the course in most games these days.
So... yeah, 'tis a good actiony game all around. I'm not sure I feel the need to buy the DLC, though, or pick up Origins - which means I may be at another "lull" of sorts.
I can't recall the level of enjoyment you had with any of the Assassin's Creed games.
ReplyDeleteLess maybe? I don't recall either now, though I think I posted comments on 1 (I think) back in the day. I can certainly see similarities in gameplay style. I seem to remember borrowing and playing AC 1, but not feeling drawn in enough to pursue the series. I've been peripherally aware of it and watched some videos of 3, I think. I'm a little turned off by how the framing story seems to sort of jump off the rails into ill-explained (though maybe that's due to my lack of direct involvement) magic/science/alien precursor beings... I haven't looked at AC 4 beyond general release reviews. Didn't the guy whose genetic memories all these stories were die at the end of 3 or something? Huh...
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