It just so happens that recently developers have begun to devote less time to optimizing PC versions of games, at least the number of poorly ported games to PC has increased significantly. If previously poorly optimized PC games were the exception to the rule, now they are the norm. Each new part of Call of Duty, some projects from Ubisoft like Assassin’s Creed: Unity and even the latest Quantum Break – all this is just a slap in the face of all PC players, the usual disrespect and negligence on the part of both the publisher and the developers. And okay, if everyone downloaded games from torrents, then I wouldn’t say a word, but many people buy, pay their honestly earned money, and besides, someone buys very expensive hardware for these same games. But the saddest thing is when you bought an expensive computer, installed a licensed OS on this computer, bought and installed there the very game that you have been waiting for so long and, perhaps, for which you built this computer, and instead of giving you positive emotions, it gives you a bouquet of various freezes, glitches and crashes. I think that it is the abundance of technical problems that is the main problem of modern PC gaming, and not the lack of any special exclusives or the abundance of shareware trash, as is commonly believed by many. In the end, you can buy a console for the sake of a few exclusives, and no one forces you to play F2P, but when you can’t play normally, not because your hardware can’t handle it, but because the developers were too lazy to optimize – this is the real problem and tragedy for all of PC gaming.
But it’s still a thankless task to play through games today at the moment of release, and then, having completed the game, start throwing mud at it and lowering its ratings just because of technical problems. In the end, you can wait for all the patches that will fix all or almost all of the significant problems of the game and start enjoying it to the fullest. At least that’s what I personally do, I start playing through a game only some time after its release, when I’m more or less sure that everything is fine with the game.
There was a lot of hype due to the optimization of Batman: Arkham Knight, many even said that “this is the worst port in the entire history of PC gaming” and people complained about the developers until the very end, because.e. release of the latest patch, and they still continue to complain. For this reason, I very often put this game off for later, I was very afraid of spoiling my impressions, because last year it was this game that I was looking forward to most, not The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, not Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and not anything else, namely Batman: Arkham Knight and don’t ask why, it’s just a matter of taste. But in the end, when all the patches came out, and my patience had finally run out, I finally sat down to play through this game and now that the game has been completed and I have finally formed an opinion about it, I’m ready to share with you my impressions of the final adventure of Batman from the Rocksteady studio.
"The Dark Knight as the most popular comic book hero"
I have never been a big fan of comics and superhero themes in general, but I have always liked the image of the Dark Knight, if only because this hero looks like the most alive and real character, compared to all the other fictional comic book heroes. The tragic story of the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents, incredible willpower, constant struggle for the truth, high intelligence instead of superpowers and the principle of “bring justice, but don’t kill anyone” – all this, and much more, makes Batman a truly special character. Well, the well-known, noir Gotham, a number of colorful characters, legendary villains and truly interesting stories filled with deeper meaning and morality, turn an initially children’s tale into a more adult work, reflecting our harsh and even cruel reality. All this made Batman a cult character, and thanks to Christopher Nolan’s brilliant film trilogy about the Dark Knight, the image of Batman and his story became truly legendary and settled in the hearts of millions of people for a long time. In the end, “The Dark Knight” of 2008 is considered one of the best films in the history of cinema and is on the list of most popular (and not only) tops, and this means at least something.
I became acquainted with the Batman Arkham universe from Rocksteady much later than others, probably somewhere in the middle of 2012. The thing is that for a very long time I was skeptical about games based on comic books, especially about superheroes. Having played various “masterpieces” about the Hulk, Spider-Man and other superheroes, for a long time I lost the desire to spend time on any games of this kind. For this reason, I missed the very successful Batman: Arkham asylum and only some time after the release turned my attention to Batman: Arkham city. Excellent trailers, the highest ratings from critics, as well as ordinary users, still made me try this game and, of course, I was very surprised, because the game was really a success. I can’t say that I was in some kind of indescribable, cosmic delight from Arkham city, but still, it was definitely one of the most memorable gaming experiences and this game stands apart on the list of my favorites.
After I completed Arkham City, I never got around to completing Arkham Asylum and to be honest, I still haven’t completed it. As for Arkham Knight, I can’t say that I was initially looking forward to it, no, I was just wondering what else the developers from Rocksteady would come up with and how this series would end, but that was only until the developers posted the first gameplay video of the game. After the developers first showed the general public the first gameplay videos and simply epic trailers built on the game engine, my level of anticipation skyrocketed. Stunning design and graphics, explosive gameplay and the mega-epic nature of everything happening on the screen, all this was very captivating, and sometimes it even seemed like it was some kind of well-staged CGI cartoon. Yes, I was delighted with the videos, but they were still just videos and today many developers like to embellish reality, for example Ubisoft. So until the release it was not clear whether this game was as good as in the trailers and whether the developers deceived us.
"Truth is above all"
Not at all, the developers didn’t deceive us one bit, the game turned out just as good as they promised us. The first minutes of the game literally cause euphoria, amazing design, graphics and some incredible attention to detail, all this is very impressive. The developers have put a lot of effort into the visual component, a very detailed, beautiful city, the variety of different buildings in which is simply eye-popping, the Batmobile, which is made so meticulously and in detail that you can see the nuts and various gears on it, Batman’s cape, which very beautifully develops over the city and from which raindrops flow, and of course, gorgeously staged cut-scenes of the level of CGI cartoons, which gradually flow into Gameplay, are there many games now that can be described in this way?? Don’t think.
In general, it can take a very long time to describe the visuals in Arkham Knight, but it’s better to see once than to hear a hundred times, because when you fly over the stunningly beautiful and at the same time gloomy Gotham, in the role of the Dark Knight, with an outstretched cloak and raindrops flowing from it, or rushing at full speed through the same city in the Batmobile, in these moments you understand that this is the NextGEN that many have been waiting for. What’s most interesting is that all this beauty was made, albeit on a modified, but still very old Unreal engine 3. How the developers managed to make one of the most beautiful games of our time on such an old engine is beyond me, but I bow to their skill and once again say without exaggeration that Batman: Arkham Knight is one of the most beautiful games of our time.
Although particularly meticulous players here may not find the best textures, not the largest number of polygons and not the best animation in some scenes, yes, all this is also present here, but, in any case, this is the result of enormous work on a very old engine. So in this case it’s a sin to find fault, because a large number of developers, having in their arsenal the most modern and “graphic” engines, end up doing things that you don’t even want to look at, but here you can say NextGEN, and even on an old engine. And as one good friend of mine who works in the game industry said, “Design decides” and he turned out to be right, because in this case design really decides and competently hides all the weaknesses of the engine.
“Variety is one of the main features of the game”
Now we can talk about the gameplay https://casinosnotongamcare.co.uk/review/golden-pharaoh-casino/ itself.e. gameplay. This time we were more pleased with the gameplay than ever, because in addition to all the variety that was in the same Arkham City, now the developers have added a huge city and a Batmobile to the game, as well as a number of innovations. Now the game is trying to please absolutely everyone and it does it well, here you have very spectacular and exciting battles, even more spectacular and exciting rides on the Batmobile, very good stealth, a detective mode, as well as missions from the “Riddler” that can make you use your brain, all this variety greatly dilutes the gameplay and does not let you get bored for almost a minute. The combat in Arkham Knight is as good as before and even better, our GG during hand-to-hand combat still skillfully switches from one enemy to another, breaking their bones one by one and spoiling their “cute face”, only this time he has a larger number of techniques and various tricks in stock. Personally, my favorite was the “Terrible Decisive Strike”, when you can knock out three opponents in turn in Slow Mo mode, believe me, it looks very spectacular and gives a lot of fun, although this same trick simplifies the gameplay, but still not so much that you can panic.
Also a nice moment was the opportunity to play as Robin and Nightwing, which we were given during some of the story and additional missions. There were few such moments, but they were enough for me, especially during such missions I liked the opportunity to switch on the fly and see group finishing moves, which also look very spectacular. And we can also thank the developers for the opportunity to play as a catwoman again, because she so skillfully shows us her expressive forms, and she also copes with the enemy quite well.
The main gameplay innovation is, of course, the Batmobile; driving it around the city, making sharp turns and admiring the city at the same time is pure pleasure. The chases on it are very good, driving, spectacular and exciting, but what can I say, even driving sports cars in the latest Need for Speed does not bring as much pleasure as a regular ride in the Batmobile in Arkham Knight. For example, while driving around the city, you can notice enemy vehicles and, if you wish, begin pursuit. Having started the chase, the real fun begins, you are immediately joined by other militants who strive to throw you to the side of the road, or simply destroy you. You rush at full speed, try to fit into sharp turns and at the same time destroy annoying opponents, and having destroyed one of them, the Slow Mo mode is turned on just in time, which increases the degree of epicness and fun to the skies. In general, as I said earlier, it is better to see once than to hear a hundred times.
But the use of the Batmobile is not limited to simple rides and chases, because by pressing just one button, our futuristic, armored sports car turns into the fastest tank in the world. This transforming tank is ideal for destroying enemy equipment, ranging from simple infantry fighting vehicles to various helicopters and drones, which can destroy our Batman in an instant (if he forgot to hide, of course). In general, we have to use the Batmobile, both in standard and in combat mode, quite often, in various situations where we have to use it just a huge amount, of course I won’t tell you about everything, because it will take me forever. But there is also a downside, the fact is that the Batmobile takes up half of our entire gameplay time and it is quite fair that this irritates many players, because no matter how good the rides on the Batmobile are, sooner or later they get boring and sometimes you just want to wave your fists, but at these moments the developers say “no! ride or die!"and that’s all. But personally, I almost never got tired of the chases themselves, but shootouts with countless enemies on vehicles using the Bat-Tank did sometimes get boring, although not so much that I wanted to turn off the game.
As before, most missions can be completed in two ways, the first is to go to the enemy face to face and, without thinking twice, break all his bones using various techniques, the second is to turn on your brain and try to carefully and quietly eliminate him. In the first case, the main thing is to press the buttons in time and in the end admire the spectacular finishing off of the enemy, and in the second you already need skill, attention and some kind of tactics, without which especially “harmful” enemies in especially difficult missions will kill you in one or two. Some missions are almost impossible to complete without stealth, and while passing the game quietly you constantly need to use various gadgets, of which there are a large number. Various gadgets, such as a boomerang, thermal imager, smoke grenade and electric charge gun, open up a huge number of options for completing the same level. Knowing how and most importantly where to use certain gadgets, you can significantly facilitate the passage of certain missions and make the passage of the game in stealth mode more entertaining.
I can also talk about the gameplay of Batman: Arkham Knight for a long time, but I will summarize and describe it as follows: “Various, damn exciting, but not without some shortcomings”.
“The monotony of secondary missions is the main drawback”
Now it’s worth talking about the most significant drawback of this game, or rather about the somewhat monotonous secondary missions that artificially lengthen the gameplay. If in Batman: Arkham Knight it is quite possible to close your eyes to the intrusiveness of the Batmobile, and to the lack of serious battles with bosses, and to too little “Detective Mode” in the gameplay, at least many did not pay attention to these things at all, but it is very difficult to close your eyes to the monotony of secondary missions. The developers have created a huge city and there really is something to do in it, but only until you complete the story campaign and until you get tired of going through secondary missions, and most of them will most likely bore you after some time.
The game has a number of specific secondary missions, for example: you need to prevent robberies in the city, save all the firefighters, defuse all the bombs, destroy all enemy posts, investigate mysterious murders and, of course, you yourself must choose which one you will go through next. Well, imagine, you look at all this variety and choose something most suitable for yourself, “I’ll go save the firefighters,” you think, get into the Batmobile, go to the crime scene, take out a squad of maulers, save the fireman, listen to his eulogies, get moral satisfaction and that’s all. Then you get back into the Batmobile, go to the crime scene, take out a squad of goons, save the fireman, listen to his eulogies, again get moral satisfaction and this process repeats again, again and again. In the end, you get tired of saving firefighters, and you think “hey, there are so many more interesting tasks here, I’ll go do them,” you get into the Batmobile, go on a new task, and there is the same deja vu effect, you are forced to do exactly the same thing. Well, to hell with it, I wouldn’t have said a word if the developers finished every “quest” on time, but only some additional tasks are completed on time, and most of them are so drawn out and repeated so often that passing the game turns into an ordinary nerdiness.
Well, the biggest mistake on the part of the developers is to force us to go through all these tasks in order to see the true ending of the game. Simply put, to see the true ending and the coveted credits, you need to defuse the nth number of bombs, towers, or no joke, but you need to find more than two hundred Riddler trophies! This is simply a catastrophically huge number and I think that many of you simply could not stand it and downloaded the treasured safe file from the Internet in order to see the true ending of the game. It’s worth making a reservation here, because many of you, having seen all of the above, may think that secondary missions are terrible and not worth playing. No, the side missions themselves aren’t that bad, they’re just too repetitive, but that’s about it. If you go through side missions in between the main ones and don’t leave them for later, then the process of completing them will still be exciting and you are unlikely to get bored with them. But if you decide to go through the entire story first and leave the side missions for later, as I did, then in this case you will get tired of going through them after a few hours, or even faster.
Although there were really good and even excellent side missions, these are all Riddler tasks in which we need to save the cat woman and don’t let the 243 trophies scare you, because you need to collect them in order to see the true ending of the game, and not in order to save our beauty. Riddler’s tasks turned out to be truly interesting, varied, exciting, and most importantly, sometimes they force the brain to work, and not the most attentive players risk getting stuck on some levels for a very long time. And to be honest, most of the Riddler’s tasks were no worse than the plot ones, and some were even better, at least for me it was always pleasant, after another massacre, to get into the Btmobile and go to the “Madman in Green” in order to solve his next riddle.
"The story and characters we want to see again on the big screen"
As for the history, everything is more than fine here. The plot in Arkham Knight is one of the main trump cards of the game, because the overall drama, very interesting twists and excellent presentation set the tone from the very beginning of the game and do not allow you to tear yourself away from the monitor until the very end. The way the developers present us with certain moments is very impressive, starting from the first appearance of the Joker and ending with the final meeting with the Scarecrow, everything is very emotional and colorful, and some scenes are so good that you want to watch them again, or replay them again, again and again. The cut scenes themselves are staged simply gorgeous and calmly look like a CGI cartoon, I just want to ask the developers to make a separate film using the game engine. The story in Arkham Knight doesn’t blow your mind the way it does in BioShock: Infinite, but that’s a good thing, because there’s simply no need for such a mind blower here. There are a number of key, unexpected moments in the game that are not dumped on our heads at some specific moment, in the form of a large psycho-emotional burden, but are presented more gradually, in portions, which is very, very smart.
In spirit, the story told in Batman Arkham Knight is very reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. There is still the same half-empty Gotham occupied by terrorists, the same cold-blooded militants, the same main villain, whose main goal is to break Batman from the inside, and not to kill him, an ambiguous second villain, whose true face we learn only at the end, and Bruce Wayne himself and his internal struggle. Batman: Arkham Knight is indeed somewhat reminiscent of Dark Knight: Rises, but only slightly and there is certainly no direct plagiarism here, the stories are still completely different, the heroes are different, the villains are different, the atmosphere is very different, there are only minor similarities that most of you simply will not notice.
Speaking of characters, everything here is at a decent level. All the characters are written very well and, perhaps, each plays a significant role in this story. I really liked the main villain “Scarecrow”, he is a very colorful character, his creepy image and equally creepy voice are really capable of instilling horror, I think few people would want to meet a guy like this in real life. It is very interesting to watch him, his constant balanced, calm, calm behavior, interesting and creepy remarks, inhumane actions, very interesting dialogues and the goals that he pursues, all this is very impressive and makes him a very memorable character. I personally really liked this version of “Scarecrow” and he can definitely be called one of the best villains in the history of video games, although for some this may be an exaggeration, but still, I would really like to see this guy again and not only in new games from the Batman Arkham series, but also on the big screens.
Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, is also good, his internal struggle is shown perfectly by the developers. You empathize and even sympathize with the main character throughout the game. This time he has to fight not only with an army of militants and bandits commanded by their crazy employers, but also with himself, his own mind, his fears, doubts and even memories that appear at the wrong moments and which strive to break our hero, which they sometimes even succeed in. This time it’s especially difficult for Batman, because the scarecrow knows where to push, knows all his weak points, knows about all his inner fears and weaknesses, largely, of course, thanks to the second main villain “Arkham Knight”.
The Arkham Knight was not 100% a success, he is also very colorful, but only up to a certain point and, of course, he is very far from the Scarecrow. If the Scarecrow is a villain without any “Buts”, then the Arkham Knight is a very pretentious character who, although outwardly looks excellent, what is his costume alone worth, but in itself he is not so interesting and certainly does not cause anyone horror or fear. In general, the story with the Arkham Knight is very reminiscent of the story with Kylo Ren from the seventh episode of Star Wars, when you take the main villain seriously until he takes off his mask. Although everything here is definitely not as bad as in the last episode of Star Wars, here no one will laugh at the main character and, although he sometimes behaves recklessly and emotionally, he is far from the crybaby and hysterical Kylo Ren. It’s just that if you don’t initially know who is hiding under the mask, then you will definitely expect much more from this character.
The game features a number of other equally important characters – Commissioner James Gordon, his daughter Barbara Gordon (aka Oracle), Robin, Alfred, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy and, of course, the beloved and brilliant Joker. All of these are the most important characters and each of them will, in one way or another, significantly influence the further course of events in the main story campaign. All other characters in the game are not so important, because their influence on the main storyline is simply negligible or completely absent. Such popular characters as Two-Face, Penguin, Deathstroke, Nightwing, Catwoman and the Riddler appear here mainly in additional missions and have virtually no direct influence on the plot of the game; talking about them, of course, makes no sense. There are also a number of other characters, not even secondary, but secondary, you can get to know them personally when you play through the game.
Yes, the story, characters and presentation in the game are great, as are almost all other aspects of the game, and I deliberately did not make a brief description of the plot so as not to accidentally spoil anything and spoil your impressions. No words about how the story began, what twists there were, which of the characters and most importantly “how” influenced the plot, no clues regarding who the Arkham Knight is and absolutely nothing at all. I only told about my own thoughts and impressions and I think that this is quite enough, and if you are eager to find out what is going on in Gotham occupied by two terrorists, then you should pick up a gamepad and find out for yourself.
The musical accompaniment in the game certainly does not reach the level of Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore or the same Steve Jablonski, there are not the same gorgeous compositions as in Crysis 2, Modern Warfare 2, The Dark Knight or the same Transformers, but the soundtrack available here is also very good. Here everything is according to the canons, during battles and in the most active and intense scenes we listen to an epic sound, and in calmer scenes, of course, something calmer. The calm music playing in the background is usually not memorable at all, but some of the tracks playing in some of the more active scenes turned out really good, but not so much that I wanted to listen to them separately, such as the stunning “Epilogue” or Hans Zimmer’s “SOS New York” for the game Crysis 2. Sometimes it even feels like Nick Arundel and David Buckley tried to imitate the creations of Hans Zimmer (for those who don’t know, Nick Arundel and David Buckley are the main composers of Batman: Arkham Knight) and yes, they did it well, but nothing more. I personally still missed the truly epic music in this game, at one point I just turned on the soundtrack to The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises and played to this gorgeous music. Believe me, driving around Gotham and doing chases to such amazing tracks as “Molossus”, “Why do we fall suite” and “Rise” is a real and unique pleasure.
I may, of course, demand a lot from the publisher and developers, but damn it, why can’t we invite truly eminent and legendary composers to write the soundtrack, who will write music that not only “supports the atmosphere of the game,” but also one that people will want to listen to separately. In general, to put it simply, the music in Batman: Arkham Knight is very good and even epic in places, but there is nothing supernatural in it, it supports the atmosphere of the game very well, well, I don’t want to listen to it separately at all.
And, of course, we can’t help but mention the simply cool, truly excellent, new Batman suit, codenamed “Batsuit v8”.04". In my understanding, it was in Batman: Arkham Knight that the most successful embodiment of the Dark Knight turned out, not only among the Batman Arkham series of games, but even among cinema. The Dark Knight from Batman: Arkham Knight in a new suit is indeed a very colorful and pathetic character, in which there is not a drop of absurdity or any kind of stupidity, which, unfortunately, is so inherent in this character in other works. The external image of Batman here looks even more advantageous than in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight, and let the fans disagree with me, but there the Dark Knight was still a somewhat ridiculous character, but here there is no trace of absurdity, at least I didn’t notice it.
Although, if specifically for you “Batsuit v8.04" for some reason you don’t like, then you can choose another one at any time. The game also has a huge number of completely different costumes for every taste and color, from a costume from the animated series “Batman Beyond” to a costume from Zack Snyder’s latest creation “Batman v Superman”. You can even run around in a costume from the 2008 film “The Dark Knight”, but for those for whom this is not enough, the game has the opportunity to change the Batmobile, of course there are not as many vehicles here as there are costumes, but the already existing copies will be enough for you. You can also play as Harley Quinn and even as the Arkham Knight, but in order to get all these “goodies” without exception, you must have a license and buy all the add-ons, otherwise you won’t be able to run around in Ben Affleck’s costume.
Well, now about the sore point.e. about performance, I played the game on a computer with the following characteristics: “Nvidia GeForse GTX770 2GB, Intel core i5 4670, 8GB Ram, Windows 10 Pro” – this, of course, is not a top solution, but it is far from the weakest. I played at full Full HD (1920*1080) resolution, at the highest possible settings for this system.e. in the game, almost everything was turned up to the maximum and almost all the additional goodies from Nvidia were included, except for textures, they were at the usual level for me for the reason that they require a video card with a large amount of memory. So what can we say, ultimately, about performance?? Personally, during the entire time I played the game, I didn’t have a single bug, lag or crash, and you won’t believe it, but the game worked just perfectly, without jokes or exaggeration, even the FPS didn’t drop anywhere. All this, of course, was a pleasant surprise, because so many people are having problems with the game even now and even on computers not inferior to mine, but I just launched it, set the maximum possible settings, clicked on “New Game” and enjoyed the game literally until the very end, without knowing any problems. Although, I won’t summarize now and say that the game has bad or good optimization, because I don’t know exactly how the game works on other computers and I might just be lucky. I’ll just say that the game worked fine for me and I didn’t experience any problems.
On this note, I think it’s time to end my story about this game, sum up the results and give an assessment, in short, “give a verdict”. Batman: Arkham Knight, this is a really great game, large-scale, spectacular, epic, incredibly beautiful, diverse, exciting and has an excellent plot, but at the same time it has a number of minor flaws, as well as a couple of significant disadvantages – these are not the best side missions and the intrusiveness of the Batmobile (yes, I still didn’t turn a blind eye to this), and also don’t forget about the disgusting start of sales on the PC and the state in which the game still arrives, because many still do complain about the game, while having a license and very good hardware. If you have a console and for some reason you haven’t played this game yet, then you should definitely buy it, but if you have a PC, and even not the most productive one, then you need to approach the purchase of the game more carefully, although on the PC the game is now very cheap and you can buy it for only 500 rubles, and the Premium version, which includes all add-ons, for only 1000 rubles, so if something happens, you are unlikely to lose much.
In general, Batman: Arkham Knight is a worthy conclusion to the legendary trilogy from Rocksteady, this is the best game based on comics and one of the best incarnations of Batman in general, this game is definitely no worse than Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” and definitely better than most of the film adaptations known to us, not counting, of course, “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises”. This is a grandiose game that needed very little to become an unconditional masterpiece. All things considered, I give this game a 9.1/10 points and I think that this is a well-deserved rating, even taking into account all its shortcomings.