Huge, dark and fearsomely satisfying, Batman Arkham City is a magnificent.
Arkham City is the Asylum doors flung wide open. Former warden Quincy Sharp is now mayor of Gotham, building an electoral campaign on a promise of cleaning up the city streets. His answer is to section off the most run-down part of Gotham, shove all the criminals and super-villains inside the quarantine zone and blow the bridges, before leaving the newly christened Arkham City under the command of mysterious psychiatrist Hugo Strange and letting the gangs do what they may within its walls. Batman, naturally, doesn't trust Sharp's little experiment and facilitates a way inside to find out what the loonies are up to.
The glorious madhouse that Rocksteady built in the first game has spilled into the streets, stretching far and stretching high, verticality and dark skies replacing poky corridors and air ducts. The scope has considerably widened but the detail hasn't suffered, with a remarkable amount of care lavished into the minutiae of every filthy street corner of Arkham City. Torn posters of a better yesterday compete with the stark red and black of Strange's utilitarian regime. The Two-Face occupied courthouse is scarred and charred down one side. The Joker has redecorated the steel mill, balloons, flashing lights and giant flaming clown heads his aesthetic of choice. Crime alley twists behind the Monarch Theatre, snow surrounding the chalk outlines of where the bodies of Bruce Wayne's parents were found murdered, a memorium to death and the birth of the Batman. And looking on it all is the Dark Knight himself, perched on a twisted piece of steel gantry as piercing searchlights lance the sky and gangs patrol the streets below.
It's a terrific example of world-building and stage management, but more than anything else Arkham City is a magnificent playground, built for Batman and his wonderful toys. Traversal is a thrilling pleasure, that improved grapnel catapulting Batman into the night sky, his cape snapping open to allow you to glide over the rooftops towards your destination marked, of course, by the bat-signal. A new dive move allows you to plummet to earth, before swooping back up at the last moment to gain momentum and altitude, not unlike the feather cape in Super Mario World. As unlikely as it may seem to compare the Dark Knight with Nintendo's brightly dressed plumber, Batman's sheer sense of movement offers the same kind of instant gratification and razor-sharp control. The tone and toys may be drastically different, but the sense of pleasure at finding and mastering the tricks and nuances is the same.