Batman: Arkham City Review (10/10)

Nothing can quite put into words how much I love Batman: Arkham City. The fruition of two hard years work by Rocksteady Studios here in Britain is bountiful, with one of the best plotlines in any superhero adaptation for a long time and a killer engine to boot. Things are just as you remember them from Arkham Asylum in the gameplay department, featuring swift and refined combat and utterly empowering yet tense stealth sequences, but as you would expect of a sequel there are some big steps forward too- everything just feels more fluid this time around, as if the first game was just a test run, to the point that as the challenge increases (and it does so from very early on, especially if you try out the awesome 'New Game +' mode second time round) you'll revel in the empathetic sense of being the Dark Knight, surveying a situation for the optimum way of dealing with it and then carrying out your plan of action in the course of a few ever-so gratifying seconds of pain and justice. Having Catwoman as a playable character for a few interwoven missions of the campaign is a great diversion as well, and better yet if you haven't loved what you've seen of her in trailers and demos, then she comes as free online pass DLC in the box which does not have to be downloaded if you don't want to do so. Back to the main game, though, specifically its storyline; many critics were worried that throwing too many villians into this cordoned-off part of Gotham would damage the integrity of the intense, claustrophobic experience in the original, and while it is true that the overall experience isn't quite as surprising as that affair, the dramatic changes made to incorporate a larger game world in terms of plot have not done Arkham City any harm at all. In fact, some of the twists and turns employed throughout are even more daring than the Scarecrow sections of the original, sticking more to a predictable formula of play yet ultimately packing a heavy punch when the dozens of individual story arcs culminate in a series of events sure to shock the most dedicated of Bat fans to their very core! There's so much replay value in Arkham City too that a return trip will be a guarantee for most gamers, and many side missions provide tantalising hints of what the future may hold for Gotham City... Enough from me, though- all this is just waiting for you to discover, so get out there and open your wallet as fast as possible to recieve one of the best video gaming experiences of this generation. If anything can top Batman: Arkham City as Game of the Year, I will be completely amazed, because this is seriously genre-defining stuff.