Why Batman Arkham Knight Is A Brilliant Game Despite All The Bollocks

First the gripes...

Ok, let's address the elephant in the room, more specifically the self (en)titled master race slowly shuffling around, noses upturned, criticising the room for not having a high enough framerate and decent ambient occlusion. I jest, that demographic isn't all that bad.
I am a PC gamer, in that playing PC games is part and parcel of me being a gamer. Some of my fondest memories come from being sat in front of a desktop monitor, whether it was playing Elite and Ultima on my uncles old banger, or spending my Design & Technology classes playing Doom, Marathon and Battlezone on the school iMacs. PC gaming is the lifeblood of the industry, to paraphrase Morpheus, it is guarding all the doors and holding all the keys. But, it is not the bloody messiah.
I am in complete agreement with my gaming peers and the YouTubers whose opinion I respect, that the Arkham Knight PC port was a complete joke, an insult to a very large and very influential group of consumers. Warner Brothers passed off duties to an inexperienced (and small) dev team to port over and shove it out the door along with the console version. Now, I'm not going to argue the fact that PC gamers used to complain when their versions of triple A titles took longer than consoles, and now they piss and moan when they get it at the same time in a broken state, and I ain't gonna cite the general bitter dichotomy between PC gamers and console gamers in general, because just...no. However, I will agree that the handling of Arkham Knight on PC is so shockingly bad that it turns the stomach.

Now, onto the game...and still with the gripes. None of the 3 Arkham sequels even come close to matching Asylum for overall quality. This is not the fault of the games themselves, nor the developers that are always trying to out-Batman themselves. Arkham Asylum was groundbreaking, a high watermark for games based on comic book characters. Rocksteady did what no other developer had managed when trying to transfer the caped crusader to interactive entertainment - they made you feel like the Batman. Gadgets, detecting, fluid combat and a rogues gallery of villains to battle, all in the claustrophobic and self contained wallas of the eponymous nut house. It's almost perfect, were it not for some stilted boss battles it would have been.
Then came Arkham City, which opened up the playground a little, to the detriment of the formula. AC is still a brilliant game, still a shining example of how to make a Batman game, but the law of diminishing returns comes in the form of the larger environment diluting the overall experience.
Arkham Origins is the only game in the series (those silly mobile games don't count) to not be developed by Rocksteady and it shows.WB Montreal are retreading old ground and they know it, attempting to emulate their predecessors and succeeding as far as making a competent Arkham game.
Arkham Knight is easily the best game since Asylum, but it is not without flaw. The aforementioned open world of Arkham City Expands it's borders to include the full Gotham experience and that feeling of butter scraped over too much bread remains. Deserted by all non combative NPCs due to a plot contrivance, Gotham's perma-rain slicked and neon drenched streets are a lonely place. It feels like a playground, like an open area in which you go from point A to point B and collect some stuff on the way, which is fine in principal. The reality is that, like Los Santos or the densely packed continent of The Witcher III, Gotham feels a bit hollow. You don't even have to fight the goons scattered around, they barely even engage you and aside from a city control side-mission, it's generally a waste of time to engage them.

OMG go away Batmobile! Bad Batmobile! No!

My other major gripe with the game, perhaps the biggest, is the implementation of the Batmobile. The Batmobile has always been awesome and the one in Arkham Knight is a glorious mash up of the Tumbler from Nolan's films and and the jagged sci-fi design of Schumacher's version. However, there are two key failings in how Rocksteady have decided to integrate the thing into the overall game. One, it's always available, which I can only assume is because the open world of Gotham is larger and more difficult to traverse than in previous games. Thing is, it isn't that time consuming to glide the length of Gotham on Batman's leathery wings, occasionally grappling to higher position or dive bombing to get some air...and that is infinitely more enjoyable than awkwardly- and literally- smashing around the narrow streets in a giant war tank. The second issue is that you have to use the Batmobile...all the damn...time. A perfect example of this is an early mission at the iconic Ace Chemicals, a sprawling, multi-staged undertaking which is completely staggered by having to go back and forth and open up routes for your bat car. The Batmobile's implementation skirts the borders of irritation, at times feeling like a genuine burden. The foundations of this series is built around just how the goddamn Batman can do whatever he wants because he's the goddamn Batman. Arkham Knight would have us believe that he needs his car to accomplish even the most menial of tasks. Additionally, the games only frustrating difficulty spikes take place behind the wheel of the B-Mobile. There is a moment in the later stages of the main story when the car is destroyed...but, of course, Bats has a spare and my utter dismay at it's return was palpable.

Now for the good stuff...

Arkham Knight grabs you by the balls right in the opening moments. You stare at the rictus grin of a dead Joker for a good couple of minutes before realising you control the furnace hes being burnt in. Then you are transported into the shoes of a GCPD beat cop, whose evening coffee is disturbed by an outbreak of fear toxin and we see the nightmare world descend through his eyes. After Scarecrow recites the traditional bad guy ultimatum, music swells and the camera sweeps across the night sky, stopping to centre on the cape and cowl of the watchful protector. Then we are him again. We are Batman.
Rocksteady know atmosphere, it's a key part of why the Arkham games succeed. Perhaps the best example of this is the voice of Batman, Kevin Conroy, reprising the role he helped make iconic in the early 90s animated series. Outside of comic books, Conroy is just as much of an integral part of the Batman legacy as Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney (yes, he counts) or Bale. Rocksteady know this, that's why they cast him. It's also why they hired Mark Hamill to play the Joker and Paul Dini to contribute to the story, they understand that when you are translating one of histories most iconic cultural figures, the details matter. It's in these details that the game soars; the cape physics and the subtle rippling sound as you glide through the air. The exhilaration of taking down an army of henchmen in one long, gadget filled combo. The slow degradation of Batman's armour over the course of the story. The GCPD hub area and how organic it feels as you fill it full of scum. These games are Batman simulators and I cannot think of anything cooler than that.
 Arkham Knight is, in many ways, a culmination of what the devs set out to do with Asylum, having the tech to enable a fully open Gotham and keep the versatile mechanics that make playing the central character so satisfying, has allowed them to spread their wings and cut loose for a supposed last hurrah.   

The city itself is visually spectacular, environmental design and art style are Rocksteady's forte and gothic structures of Bruce Wayne's home, surveying the neon drenched streets below, as rain buffets your cape and bad guys chatter in your earpiece. In my current playthrough, there have been countless times I have surveyed my murky protectorate and spotted a landmark I just had to swoop down and investigate. Sure, most of the doors are closed and a majority proportion of the city is window dressing, but much like in Arkham City, that doesn't really matter. As I mentioned before, the transition to a larger open world did hurt the Arkham series, but there is no denying the thrill of exploring this particular incarnation Gotham.

they do not disappoint here. Everything seems purposefully placed, from the alleyways cluttered with broken tech and overturned trash cans, to the graffiti and signposts everywhere that serve as clever nods to Bat lore and the DC universe as a whole. There really is nothing like gliding over the

Fan service is at an all time high for this series, too. It's chronological placement in Batman's career means most of the bat family are present and, aside from the Joker (who still has indirect presence), a lot of key villains appear, as well as some new additions. It's unfortunate that key villains don't get enough time to breath, acting as more like brief walk on parts rather than organic elements of the story.
The main missions are also smattered with nods to famous franchise setpieces, like a nightmare sequence involving Barbara Gordons crippling at the hands of Joker ala Alan Moore's seminal Killing Joke. Elsewhere, there's a a wonderful escape from an exploding Ace Chemicals that apes Burton's first bat film. The loving attention to detail paid to both comic book lore and movie and TV continuity is frequently exhilarating and always heartening.

It's a shame that there are so many mitigating factors involved with a triple A release these days. Gamers, jaded cynics that we are, have a sense of entitlement that isn't always warranted, we want things now and we want things right, even when they may not be possible. Release delays, broken DLC delivered unceremoniously down consumers' throats are negatively impacting the reception of the game itself. Arkham Knight has become a prime example of a product whose overeall quality has been overshadowed (and flat out dismissed by most) by it's technical implementation.
end products and an increasing supply of

Is Arkham Knight a fantastic game? Yes, it's a fitting swansong for devs that defined a sub genre and added so many knew elements to the gaming lexicon. It's essential for fans of Batman and 3rd person action games in general. Does the implementation of sickening DLC, pre-order shenanigans and a shocking PC port hurt the overall core experience...no, why should it? I know some people that have the game on PC and despite the crippling issues, are still powering through and enjoying every minute.
The climate is changing and big publishers are soon going to learn that their bullshit isn't going to stand up much longer with the many, and they can't survive on the pocket money of the few. Until then, I wonder how many truly great games will only be remembered for what their publishers did wrong?