Batman Arkham Knight is Rocksteady's conclusion to their Arkham trilogy. Is it as good as its predecessor Arkham City? In some ways yes in others no. Arkham Knight has a tremendous and rousing campaign that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end. In a nutshell Arkham Knight focuses on Scarecrows return but this time he has a partner. The mysterious Arkham Knight who has a very personal grudge against Batman. I won't try to spoil anything yet so I won't go any further into that for now.
Combat has been taken from the previous game and refined into a razor sharp edge. With new combos and the addition of the fear multi take down. Also Batman wouldn't be Batman without his trusty gadgets and a lot of old favorites make their return and new ones are cleverly implemented. Also along for the ride is the batmobile or should I say bat tank. This is one of the best parts of Arkham Knight but unfortunately it comes with some problems that I doubt bats insurance will cover.
First off I'll start with what works. The bat mobile handle beautifully. For Rocksteady's first attempt at the bat mobile they did a bang up job. They also allowed the bat mobile to transform into a bat tank and engage in some pretty intense and exciting tank battles. Unfortunately they thought that people were looking for a bat tank simulator because the bat mobile is used way to much in this game. They even have stealth combat for the bat tank and while this works pretty well its used at the worst times.
Now It wouldn't be a Batman game if their wasn't a slew of villains that you need to takedown through side quests. Now some of these side quest like Azrael's and Hush's side quests( which started back in Arkham city so you kinda get this overarching plot for your side quests) are awesome. While others like the firefighters and Deathstroke not so much. Here is a detailed list of all the side quests.
Heir to the cowl: Azrael has returned from Arkham City and wants to train under you to become the next Batman. This seems pretty straight forward until you get a pretty predictable twist. However this leads to a brief section where you take control of Azrael and get to decide how his story ends which is awesome. Yes, I know a lot of games have multiple choices but after locking up so many criminals throughout this game it was nice to have the choice as to whether this enigmatic character becomes a villain or a ally.
Friend in need: This one is really short but that's okay considering this quest started in Arkham City. Basically Hush has assumed Bruce Wayne's Id and you have to go and lay the smack down on him. This leads to a pretty cool sequence and a satisfying conclusion to one of the franchises mini arcs.
Line of duty: This one is long and basically just comes down to a arduous fetch quest. Firefighters have been captured by rioters and taken throughout the city and its your job to fly or drive around until you find all of them. Their is really not much else to it.
The perfect crime: This side quest has you finding Dead bodies hung up around Gotham and has you use your detective skills to track down the culprit. Its a pretty good side quest because it really shows off why batman is called the world's greatest detective.
Occupy Gotham, Armored and Dangerous, Campaign for Disarmament, and Own the Roads: These four side quests all basically have a similar premise Arkham knight forces have in some way or another taken over Gotham. You need to defeat them and take it back. Granted their is some variation among the quest. one has you chasing down lieutenants while others have you disarming bombs and taking out watchtowers. The biggest and most glaring flaw with these quests is the boss that they all lead up to. Finish these quests and you get to fight Deathstroke the DEATHSTROKE in tank stealth combat with no hand to hand. This is the biggest example of the game implementing the bat mobile at the exact wrong time.
Creature of the night: This one is simple but it really shines in the tragic story department. (spoiler warning) In this quest you come across Man Bat flying through the Gotham skyline. You discover that the creature is actually a mutated scientist by the name of kirk langstrom. In a attempt to cure Deafness he transfused his DNA with that of a vampire bat. Unfortunately for him this didn't end so well and led to the death of his wife. When you finally cure him he is grief-stricken and broken because of what he has done.
Gotham on fire: This side quest proves that the bat mobile can be used and used well. In this quest you have to go around Gotham and find all of the fire stations that have been set ablaze. You put the fire out only to have FireFly come bursting out of the building and fly off. You give chase in the bat mobile while dodging his flamethrower and waiting for the right moment to attack.
Gunrunner: In this side quest Penguin has depots of guns hidden all around Gotham. You have to tag the trucks that he's using to move the merchandise and tail them back to the goods. What makes this quest standout is the side character of Nightwing. This side quest gives a lot of spotlight to this character which is not something that we had seen at this point outside of DLC. Plus penguin being voiced by Nolan North doesn't hurt.
Two-faced Bandit: In this quest Two face uses all of the surrounding chaos to rob some of the biggest banks in Gotham. ITs a pretty straightforward quest except for the fact that the blaring alarms means that loud noises won't draw your enemies to you. Which allows you to have a lot of fun with gadgets and takedowns. This quest also somewhat fleshes out the character of Two-face and really shows off his duality really well.
Lamb to the slaughter: This is one of the slightly disappointing side quests. Alls you really do is go in beat up a bunch of goons and perform a stealth takedown to a villain that up until that point. I had never heard of before. Unfortunately the quest doesn't do much to help with that. Deacon Backfire only gets a few lines and by the end of the quest you come away from it thinking that he's just some cult nut and not an actual villain from the comics.
RIDDELER'S REVENGE: I saved this side quest for last because this is where another one of the games problems comes through. First off the quest starts out pretty well. It actually has a story with riddler capturing Catwoman and you having to solve challenges in order to save her. However it's after you save her that the quest spiral into the looney bin. You see in order to fight Riddler you have to solve all of his riddles which are scattered throughout Gotham. Now you may be thinking now that doesn't seem so bad how many riddles can their be? 243 riddles. YIKES. You may also be thinking well I don't need to do that it has no effect on the campaign. On the contrary it has a massive effect on the campaign. You see to unlock the full ending you must complete all of the most wanted side missions and that includes the riddlers. At the very least however at the end of the quest you get to have an actual boss fight against riddler and smash his face in with your fist.
Now a lot of you may be thinking that this game doesn't sound like an 8/10 at all who in their right mind would rate this this high. Well where the game really shine is in the campaign.(spoiler warning) You see Scarecrow has teamed up with the mysterious Arkham Knight to take down Batman and unmask him. But while that is going on Batman is dealing with these people that have been infected with some of Joker's blood. You see one of the effects of being infected with Joker blood is that you slowly turn into the Joker. What this means is that the Joker's consciousness is in his blood and it slowly starts to take control of the infected. Now if you remember from the events of Arkham city Joker infected Batman with some of his infected blood and so now batman has joker in his head slowly trying to take control of batman. Events continue and you learn that scarecrow's fear toxin makes it easier for joker to take control of Batman's mind. Eventually the scarecrow captures Batman and UNMASKS him in front of everyone. While injecting him with fear toxin which finally allows joker full control. When it appears that batman is enjoying the fear toxin because joker is in control scarecrow gives him another dose. At this point you go inside Batman's head and play from the perspective of Joker and see what Joker's biggest fears are. Finally Batman defeats Joker and locks him away inside of his brain.
However their is more to the campaign than joker trying to take control of batman. Their is also the plot thread of who is the arkham knight. I give the game some big props for this because it actually took a storyline from the batman comics and represented it really well. The storyline that it represents is death in the family. and the Arkham knight is Jason Todd. This this essentially becomes a different version of under the red hood. Everything in this game that is death in the family is handled really well but unfortunately you don't really get closer about the character of jason todd in the main game.
To top it all off the voice acting is amazing. With Mark Hamill, Kevin Conroy, Nolan North, and a slew of other great voice actors returning. The Arkham Knight being voiced by series veteran Troy baker was also a great choice.
SO that is arkham knight. Keep in mind that this is my opinion only and also I nitpicked a lot. Reading this over now I don't really say how much of an amazing game this is. Its an amazing game. I personally enjoyed this game's campaign over Arkham city's. While Arkham cities side quests may be better than Arkham Knight. I highly recommend this game to any fan of batman or gaming in general.