Should I Buy? – Batman Arkham City DLC – INCLUDING Harley Quinn’s Revenge

This isn’t a review of the Game of the Year edition because I don’t own that, and truth be told I’m also missing the additional Challenge Pack from my purchases so I can’t in all honesty say I’m reviewing the content in the GOTY version.

If you want to see what I thought of the main game, that review’s here. This review is for the Catwoman, Robin, Nightwing, Skins and Harley Quinn’s Revenge packs.

A final note, the prices here are in Microsoft Points. If you want prices for PC or PSN, I’m sorry but you’ll have to track those down yourselves.

Catwoman Bundle Pack

This was launch content included for free with all new copies of the original game and costs 800MS points to buy. It adds the four “Catwoman Episodes” into the main game, as a separate option on the main menu and adds Catwoman as a playable character in the Challenge Mode.

Her episodes are quite short, the first one is just a small fight sandwiched by cutscenes, but flow pretty well as they were obviously designed in tandem with the main game to flow into each other.

Though the rest of her episodes are of a better length, they’re still fairly short and lack any of the big set pieces that Batman has. If you just zip through the story aspects of the episodes, they’ll pass by pretty damn fast and you may start to wonder just where your money’s worth is.

In my opinion, that’s in the post-game content. Just like how you can control Batman after the plot’s over, Catwoman’s fully controllable in the playable epilogue section as well as the aforementioned Challenge Mode and this is where you’ll really get to stretch your feline legs.

Cats plays as a much weaker but faster version of Bats with much fewer tools  to work with. She only has her whip for exploration and there’s only two more gadgets but this works. She’s not a super-rich badass detective, she’s a cat burglar and though she’s competent in a fight, she doesn’t have cash, know-how or need for any of Bats’ trinkets.

Her animations make good use of her lighter frame and sex appeal to give a real sense of character, even when she’s fighting. Learning quite how to handle Cats is a bit of a curve as you can’t tank as many hits as usual, but it’s just as fun as Bats.

Instead of a Grapnel like Bats, Cats whips to things and then climbs them. Though annoying at first, I got into quite a groove with it and ended up preferring it to Bats’ grapple. Though it trips me up every time that you can end up exposing yourself to the enemies you’re trying to ambush while you’re swinging across an area.

In Predator situations Cats does come with the added ability to cling to grated ceilings.  This helps to make up for her lack of tricks, and it, along with her “Thief’s Vision” (which doesn’t list the number of enemies or even flag the ones with guns a different colour) force you to think and act more carefully.

All in all the Catwoman Bundle Pack was worth it for me, but if you’re looking for a solid story expansion this probably isn’t the investment for you.

Robin Bundle Pack

Robin was, until Harley Quinn’s Revenge, a Challenge Mode only character. This Robin is Tim Drake, by the way, famed for his use of a staff in combat and currently Red Robin in comic continuity.

In this game we have a Robin wielding a retractable staff, and he makes full use of its properties in a fighting style that makes him rather unpredictable. He’s stronger than Cats and faster than Bats, and several of his Gadgets have interesting properties.

For example, his staff can throw out a frontal Bullet Shield that’s handy for tight spots, and he can instantly zip to an enemy in battle instead of pulling them towards him like Bats does.

In terms of difficulty for Predator Challenges he’s between Cats and Bats. He’s a bit fiddly to get used to, but his unique properties mean that if you want to mix things up, he’s a good candidate for it.

At just 560 MSPoints for him individually or 1200 Points for him, Nightwing and the bonus skins all together which’ll save you several hundred points.

Nightwing Bundle Pack

Now the only one of the four playable characters with no story mode, Nightwing is a lightning fast bruiser who really struggles in Predator challenges. Also, strangely, he doesn’t speak at all. Just kind of scowls. Which is really weird for Dick Grayson.

He makes Batman feel slow as a turtle and Catwoman as weak as a newborn kitten with his Escrima sticks (which are now also stun batons). I also really admire his fighting animations, which really drive home his acrobatic past. Actually, I’m calling it. The fight animations of Batman Arkham City are the finest in gaming history as far as I’m concerned. Every single attack the heroes have feel like a part of the character and what they’re about.

Nightwing is priced the same a Robin and part of the 1200MSPoint The Arkham Bundle as well.

Arkham City Skins Pack

This pack is really just something fun, it doesn’t affect gameplay at all. Batman gets about six different ones, Cats and Robin get two and Nightwing only gets the one. It costs 400MSPoints, so track down pictures of the costumes and if you want them, go buy it. There’s not really any more to say than it’s 400MSPoints alone or part of the 1200MSPoints  The Arkham Bundle.

Harley Quinn’s Revenge

Look at me! I’m topical! This DLC came out at midnight and I stayed up late playing it especially for m-er, you. It’s an additional short story campaign set after Arkham City‘s ending in which you get to take control of both Batman *and* Robin. that’s right, the Dynamic Duo are tackling this caper together.

Basically, Batman went missing investigating Harley Quinn’s base and Robin goes in when he doesn’t pop back for more Bat-mints. Like the Catwoman story, it’s split into four segments, two for the Dark Knight and two for the Boy Wonder.

The thing I noticed first was that the difficulty has been ramped up. Enemies seem to hit harder and faster and a lot more of them are armed now. This was a bit infuriating at first, but I managed to adapt.

Though I like that they introduce sections to explain how Robin’s gadgets can be used to interact with the environments like Bats’, but his sections are so short they never really get used more than once or twice. Robin’s sections feel more like a proof of concept demo at times.

But I’d still call them the highlights. Bats’ sections feel a little padded and less well thought out. Almost like it was meant to be an all-Robin story until someone upstairs pulled the plug on that idea.

There’s been some pretty obvious corners cut. Most of the places you could explore in Joker’s turf has now been forcibly closed off, to the extent that parts of the scenery have been destroyed. Still, there is a new warehouse area where most of the action takes place, including a Predator battle for Robin against Quinn and her goons that provides a fun challenge.

At 800MSPoints I had to put a tenner on my account to get it and I did finish it in one sitting of maybe an hour or two but I still enjoyed it. As to whether it’s worth it? Well…that depends on how much you like the game and whether or not you want more.

And really, that’s my verdict on all the DLC for this game. It’s enjoyable and if you want more out of the game, then this’ll probably see you right. In the end I can’t give it the giant gold stars the main game gets, but it’s by no means bad content.

News – The Batmen

Now those of you who follow videogame news even loosely will know that Batman Arkham City, the much anticipated followup to Rocksteady’s Batman Arkham Asylum has been receiving a lot of coverage.

Most recently, this is because it’s had a full five new costumes announced that you can dress Batman up in for the Challenge maps. This is, on the surface, quite cool. Now not only can we play as everyone’s favourite feline and the Boy Wonder but six different versions of Batman.

The costumes are based on various incarnations the Caped Crusader has had over the years, and it’s a bit like The Dark Knight’s Greatest Hits. There’s the Batman Beyond suit used by Terry McGinnis, the protege of an aging Bruce Wayne. Then you’ve got an old Batman, the one from Frank Miller’s classic The Dark Knight Returns. Next up is another of Miller’s, this time it’s the suit he wore in Batman: Year One, the massively popular retelling of Bruce’s first year fighting crime with cape and cowl.

Then there’s a traditional 70’s era look that sports the blue cape and yellow chestplate that used to be standard for the World’s Greatest Detective. Finally is a very faithful recreation of the Batman we saw in Batman: The Animated Series.

They're the Goddamn Batmen

Now as the more observant of you may have noted, I earlier said that this is a good thing ‘on the surface’. Now it’s time for that timebomb to go off. You see, not only will you only get one of these suits if you preorder the game from the right store but they’re not even making them all available in every country.

You may think that’s a minor thing, but when a preorder bonus is a purely digital addition to a game like a costume pack or extra weapon instead of something physical like art cards or t-shirts this is almost never later made available as DLC. The kind of people who’ll put in a preorder at somewhere they wouldn’t normally shop or just picking the game up at launch are the type of people who will pay for every piece of preorder content as DLC.

You are missing out on a huge pile of cash. Sure, you don’t want it to be day one DLC, that’d undermine the entire premise of the bonus. And I’m not saying stop the incentivising. But six months, a year down the line? You can easily role this out as DLC for every country. Put all five of them together in a value pack, or price them so low that people think ‘I can afford £1.50’.

Social games have got the microtransaction system down, the mainstream gaming industry needs to learn the lessons it can from social games and other mediums. There’s been a lot of failed schemes like Online Passes and DRM to to convince people to buy your games new, but you don’t make it easy for us. If a book, film or album sells well, they keep making it. Games don’t. Unless it makes its way to digital distribution, you pretty much can’t buy a game new a few months after its release.

If people will keep buying it, keep providing it. That people have to be so reliant on the preowned market for games they couldn’t afford, didn’t know about or weren’t interested in at release means that they’ve become conditioned to buy later and cheaper than buy on release.

Don’t try to force us to come to you, cause that’ll just make us resist harder. Be like Valve, build up a good relationship with your fans, based on listening to them and making business and design decisions not always based on profit mongering.

Guest Review – Should I Buy? – Magicka

Hi guys! Today’s post isn’t following the every-three-day-schedule I know, but I’ve got a special piece from themickanator who writes The Game Scene over at http://thegamescene.wordpress.com/ So enjoy! 

“Do I have any PC gamer friends?” How you answer this question will also be how you should probably answer the title. Magicka is not a game built for single player, but club together with 3 chums and you’ve got a great deal.

The story plays out the typical promising-student-embarks-on-epic-quest-to-save-the-world narrative, but it certainly doesn’t take itself seriously. Without giving too much away, you have to save a powerful but misunderstood wizard to restore peace to the realm, all under the guidance of your teacher who is certainly not a vampire. The dialogue is as light-hearted as the aesthetics, with most of the voice acting being done is a sort of simlish-like language which is a source of many giggles on its own. Despite that, the actual game play is not as jovial.

I said Magicka is not built for single player, and by that I mean that it is nearly impossible to get very far on your own. Let me explain why. You have 8 basic elements under your control, and you can mix up to 5 of them to create more powerful combos and ‘magicks’, special spells which are learned from books along your journey. Controlling your mage and your magic is an unusual system. But not hard to get used to, however, the difficulty lies in the game mechanics.

Mages aren’t fighters, sprinters, swimmers or, well, anything athletic. Your walking speed is just enough to evade pursuing foes, but the more elements you have loaded ready to cast the slower you move. And while casting you are motionless. Oh, and do not cross the beams… However, don’t let that put you off! All these difficulties may be frustrating, but they provide many hours of frustrating fun, and a fair few funny moments.

Now, let us suppose that you somehow get bored of the campaign (or your friends), but you still need your Magicka fix. There are a number of other game modes you can indulge in with your spell-casting chums. There is versus mode, which has 3 variants on death match, and Challenge mode, which mainly consists of survival levels.

These 2 modes can then be further expanded with the relatively huge list of DLC available too. The most notable of these is the Vietnam DLC. Yes, you read correctly, Vietnam. This provides challenge mode with another survival map, and a mission level which records your time, so you can keep trying to better yourself. It really does take place in a Vietnam setting, with enemies (still goblins) and allied soldiers (sadly not goblins or other mages) wielding guns. These guns can also be used in other levels in both challenge and versus modes.

Also, as with most of the other DLC, it provides you with an additional set of robes to choose from. Each set of robes have special abilities and have a different starting staff and sword/gun. All of that for £3.49, and the cheaper DLC going as low as £0.59.

So all in all, Magicka is a fantastic little game with a superb sense of humour, all for a very agreeable price. The campaign, versus mode and challenge mode will keep you occupied for many hours, but it is a game not suitable for the casual gamer or the chronic rage-quitter.

(All prices from Steam)

Magicka – £7.99

Complete Pack (1 copy + all DLC) – £16.99

Four Pack – £23.99 (4 copies of the base game, one for you and 3 to gift to friends so you can play together!)

DLC:

Vietnam – £3.49

Final Frontier – £1.99

Marshlands – £1.79

Party Robes, Frozen Lake, The Watchtower – £1.59 each

Nippon, Wizard’s Survival Kit – £0.59 each