By John Walker on September 1st, 2010 at 6:20 pm.
The sequel to Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City is due in Autumn 2011, but so far we’ve not seen a screenshot. Until today, when it seems a bundle were leaked onto Flickr. We’ve got almost all of them below for you to take a look at. And it’s looking pretty damned great. Click on them to see a larger version.
It’s all looking really fantastic, an improvement on the first game’s already solid graphics. Catwoman’s looking a bit Halle Berry, really. Which while clearly a sexy thing, does remind me of that film. Two-Face looks awesome. And Harley Quinn looks hot hot HOT! But then I fancied her in Lego form, so perhaps I’m not a good judge.
Oh bloody frig that looks awesome.
Best superhero game ever, I am calling it now. Unless they somehow manage to screw up and REVERSE everything they did right in AA.
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Can’t wait to get my hands on this one, loved Arkham Asylum (though I never quite managed to complete all of The Riddler’s riddles.)
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My photoshop sense is tingling.
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My you’re-stupid sense is tingling
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It should be up all day detecting yourself.
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My sense – sense is tingling!
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The quality of RPS comments really does make this a special community.
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It is hard imagining this being anything but amazing.
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AA was my goty, that one looks … you know
EPIC OVERAWESOMENESS
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That first Catwoman picture is a sexiness trap. It’s all “here’s a picture of a sexy lady for y- AHA! it’s also a picture of a man with half his face burnt off! Tricked you!”
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The first game was a mix tape of every good idea from every action game of the last decade and this looks to be similar… No scratch, that it looks identical.
I enjoyed playing Arkham Aslyum but couldn’t help being reminded of a dozen other games every five minutes, which probably says more about me than the game.
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I think Arkham Asylum was game of the year for me. To my great surprise, as I’m not a big action fan. Really looking forward to this title.
Harley looks a lot like Jeanette from Vampire:Bloodlines in these screenshots.
Also, the bat had a nice rear in the first game. I hope it makes a return appearance.
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As Quinns would say; ‘TIGHT!’
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Yeah, at first I was actually like “Why is Batman talking to Jean… oh, nvm.”
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Yeah, Harley is indeed looking particularly delicious.
Anyway, since it took me until basically the fight just before the final boss in AA to actually understand how the fighting worked and start really enjoying the game, I’m vaguely looking forward to AC – I’ll be able to have real fun pretty much from the start.
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If there is one thing I would change is to allow the players to enjoy the visuals while still getting the benefits of detective mode. I was so afraid of missing stuff that I had it on the whole time, missing out how good the game looked.
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They did mention they’re making some changes along those lines, althought the devs haven’t been specific.
Basically they don’t want players to be constantly playing the game through a blue tint again, so I’m hoping they’ve come up with a decent solution.
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See, I don’t know why Batman is worrying about the criminals running around Gotham when it’s clearly apparent that the Moon is about to crash into the Earth, so it won’t make a bit of difference.
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Some kid in green is dealing with that, apparently, leaving Batman free to punch criminals in the face.
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Nice catch TCM, had me a double take there :D
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One way they can improve upon the first game, which was very awesome in itself, is by adding an aa option.
Also, is that thug tagging a poster of the KKK in the 5th screen?
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If only they could get some Japanese devs to make the jiggly-physics.
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First game was awesome. Can’t wait for the second.
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@EthZee
He’s not bothered – he just plays the Song of Time to return to the first day and starts again.
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If anything that catwoman looks more like she is based on this design than the Halle Berry one.
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb306/shinlord/UpStart/Catwoman.jpg
It’s all looking good I must agree. High hopes for this.
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Always preffered John McCrae’s take on her from the Hitman comics. Well fit :)
This looks good, I enjoyed Arkham Asylum and would definitely play some more games in the same vein.
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But the woman inside the suit looks quite a bit like Hale Berry.
Good design overall.
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Looks pretty neat. And it has a grappling hook.
The shots of the Harlequin looked familiar. I guess now I know where Ascaron got their inspiration for the design of the Seraphim in the Sacred series. Although it’s a toss up which of the two is crazier lady…
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Harley is a crazy murderer and she is EVIL. Seraphim is a crazy (mass) murderer and she is GOOD. I think that a good crazy murderer is crazier than crazy non-good murderer, by definition.
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I have to admit Harley Quinn does look gorgeous, they really worked on her look since arkham asylum in which she looked kinda uncanny-valley-ish.
I’m fighting the urge of launching myself into writing an essay here on how the uncanny valley isn’t a valid theory since lately games had many characters that are close to realistic albeit still kind of distant yet don’t fall into the valley of horror.
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The uncanny valley is avoided, because they learned the pixar-lesson: you cannot achieve believable realism, so you might as well have fun with your character designs, or in other words: the goal is to make them likeable, not yearbook cutouts.
In this case it helps that they’re comic book characters to begin with.
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One question:
is it possible to play Arkham Asylum without any sort of internet connection (not even for a second) if I buy it legaly?
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I think so… if you create an offline Games For Windows Live profile, it never connected for me.
Can’t promise anything though, it may have some “must check for updates” idiocy going the first time you start it.
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It does indeed. The various update shenanigans you get when you first try and run it is utterly unbelievable. However, once that’s out of the way you can play offline fine.
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Mafia 2 ‘these women are all whores!!’ Batman Arkham City ‘Ooh look at the sexy ladies!!!’
/facepalm
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It’s in the setting. Mafia 2 set out to create a believable city with a serious plot and then whipped out the tatties. Batman is a comic franchise, so boobies are part of the territory.
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What can I say? It’s set in the world of a superhero comic, and we all know what the most common superpower is.
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@Garg
Funnily enough organised crime and prostitution do go hand in hand as well ;)
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I feel like me and catwomen, we will be good friends.
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It’s GfWL so I don’t think so.
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Has it been confirmed for the sequel yet?
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I hope the picture where he’s on the wire shows we’ll have things to lurk on other than splendidly-placed grotesques. Also that there’ll be plenty of rooftop-and-pavement multi-level areas. The multi-level stealth/punching sections of AA were the best bits.
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I’m hoping for (though I think it’s very unlikely) the same freedom of movement as in Infamous.
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I’m the goddamn CEO of Paradox.
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KAPOW!
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Looking at those pictures I think Batman needs to be less concerned with the Joker and more concerned with the moon crashing into the Earth.
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I’m really disappointed with what they seem to have done with Harley Quinn; I thought that her portrayal in AA was just about perfect, but this new look it seems like she’s a suicide girl now…?
Of course, my memories of her are mainly from the fantastic animated version I watched as a kid, so ymmv.
Other then that though, the game looks fantastic.
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Your memories are from the animated series and you thought they portrayed Harley well in AA? Better get that there Alzheimer’s checked out.
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It should be mentioned that Harley Quinn was created in the animated series, so that’s sorta the “classic” version of her.
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Yes, yes! My awesometer is reading high levels of awesome.
I like the more detailed and varied thugs. It’s not often you see our hero enveloped in a sea of unique and charismatic individuals.
The only thing that threatens to vex my perky affection is the very literal interpretations of the characters, specifically Two-Face. Catwoman looks awesome. I want a little more flair, a little more Art Deco, a tad bit more fantasy like the animated series. Batman: Arkham Asylum seemed to nail this and now it seems they’re getting carried away.
Hope the design of Batmobile from Arkham Asylum remains untampered; it was perfect and I want to drive through the streets of Gotham like a king.
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That’s exactly how I feel about the new designs! Yeah, the characters are being too “realistic” and less creatively topical. As cool as making each side of her hair opposing colours, it doesn’t tie together the pedestrian and chaotic design of her “costume”. I use costume very loosely, because as you said, CP37, she could just pass off as some random goth chick.
A darn shame.
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Why do replies never work for me? It doesn’t thread my response under the original comment. Anyone got answers?
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I hope Mark Hamill and all the other wonderful actors are already signed.
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Hmm Harley Quinn. I liked her in the first game as well.
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Harley reminds me of Jeanette from Vampire Bloodlines, the female videogame character with the sexiest voice ever. And that’s a good thing. Too bad Harley’s voice is kinda annoying :(
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I thought the exact same thing as soon as I saw it “what the hell is the malkavian from VtM:B doing in the game”… hehe
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Boomstick
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I hope this time you can grapple while jumping… but that’s about it for requests. Fall 11 can’t come soon enough.
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Letting me jump on my own instead of doing it for me would be an improvement.
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So how come Harleyquin is now a different woman? And Catwoman looks a bit lame to me, I always fancied her in Batman Returns and I think that darker style would suit this more to be honest.
But still, looks rather excellent!
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Robin?
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Let us fervently hope not.
Unless you can get him killed.
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Damn reply fail, that was in response to this.
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I’m Batman
Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox
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I should really give AA another try, I started it two times, I quite liked it but couldn’t get around the fact that batman’s cape took up half the screen while walking around, although I generally think that they did a great job with the camera and how it fit the action you were in. I just constantly tried looking around him while walking and it always put me off after 20 minutes or so. Those screenshots look pretty great though.
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Just run all the time (or crouch)…
Actually that would have to be request #2: analog running, without having to hold A.
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Looks wonderful, although I don’t think I’ll get my wish to have some daytime levels in which you play as Bruce Wayne and do some investigating without the cowl. That would have really broadened the scope of the game. I always think that you can’t do Batman properly without Wayne.
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Catwoman looks like the type Adam Hughes used to make, so yah, kewl.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Rf9S3GkkeyI/SgmE879yEcI/AAAAAAAAQVo/pQPBM6ha9gM/s400/m.+c.+wyman.+catwoman.+001.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ImHsGa18NYM/R41qucCMnBI/AAAAAAAAApM/CMjLGt7QBOk/s400/cw75.jpg
long friggin links lol.
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looks even more Adam West than before, given that Warner Bros were reeling in panic when we mentioned the tv series while working with them, that quite a turn around it’s amazing the liberties making the best game of the decade grant you, nice job Rocksteady!
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Harley looks… semi-sane there. After the way Joker treated her in Arkham Asylum, I wouldn’t be entirely unsurprised if she was having one of her phases where she co-operates with Bats to some degree.
I also wouldn’t be entirely unsurprised if she does a face/heel turn as soon as she sees Joker again, but whatcha gonna do?
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Of course the Harley Quinn in AA is a much more adult, much darker portrayal of her then in the animated series, but then again the animated series was meant for kids, so I feel this is appropriate. Now that I’m looking at the AA and AC models side by side, the major difference seems to be her lack of face paint and a mask in the AC model, so maybe I’m just nit picking.
She just seems like a goth chick without the mask and face paint to me though, but to each their own :)
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This was meant to be in response to the responses to my earlier comment
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I’m not liking the character designs much at all, apart from the thugs.
Still, Batman:AA with more scope. Should be fun.
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Yay.
I like Harley’s design. Two-Face and Catwoman look pretty standard but they spiffed Harley up a good bit. But then I have a thing for leather and corsets.
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@sink257: Damn, those Riddler puzzles were out of place. An ugly blight on an otherwise fine game.
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I like the new baddie character designs. The only thing that bugged me about the first game was that I felt like I was beating up the same group of thugs over and over. I guess I was.
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Well, Harley got a welcome makeover. Not sure about Catwoman, though. I don’t mind Halle Berry, but to me Michelle Pfeiffer is the one and only Catwoman. Also, Catwoman should be masked, not showing her face like she does in the screenies.
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That little bastard keeps on saying that he will get it done in three days, but it feels like it has been forever.
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Am i the only one who thought that AA was extremely narrow without any freedom to your actions?
Walk in a room, beat up the same guys you just beat up in the last room (“shit its batman again!” “shit its those guys again”), fumble with your keyboard to activate some auto aiming to look at the ceiling (because aiming is hard!) that doesn’t even leave you the choice to aim manually if you don’t like to feel retarded, then press grapple hook button, watch batman grapple to some pre defined spots, kill some guys from above, sneak around some other guys, see some bad boy who runs from you, use some super power or vision of any random kind to see footprints etc (which are also always in the same spot) then follow bad guy and kick his ass. Enter next room, repeat
Since so many people liked this game i wonder if i just got a wrong impression on the game and should retry it… but the first 30 minutes of gameplay pretty much felt like this to me and i got bored fast. So im not getting excited about the new batman game because i don’t think theyll change much in terms of gameplay
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That was pretty much my impression of the game from the demo too. I marked it as a ‘not worth the price now, i’ll buy it when it’s under a tenner’ except I’ve not got around to it yet.
It’ll be interesting where they go with this to make it different from the first.
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I was initially underwhelmed by the demo, but it won me over as I started to experiment with the different possibilities for varying takedowns and intimidation. I first thought you could only grapple onto gargoyles but that’s just the auto-aim preference as you can actually grapple onto any climbable surface – maybe try a gamepad btw. I did not find aiming a problem with analog sticks…
Also the gameplay opens up a lot more as you get more gadgets.
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Agreed. It was a very polished game, but it wasn’t the all singing all dancing affair that a lot of people made it out to be. What I thought was good about it was that you definitely felt like the the batman in that you could handle yourself in a fight from the off, which was a refreshing change from most games where you are relatively weak for the first half 2/3rds of a game. On the bad however, a lot of the boss fights were just variations on the same theme (fight big mutant) just ramped up higher and higher, which was disappointing. Certainly a great Batman game, but not necessarily a great game overall. Personally hoping that the sequel builds on the original, rather than just it being a case of same mechanics, new sandbox & dolls.
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Mother says I’m a special.
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I don’t think adding batman using hookers (first screenshot, where he is bargaining with a hooker) is a right decision. Maybe it’s cool but a little out of character
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looks like a cheap hooker too….
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Maybe she is his estranged daughter and they are arguing about her choice of career. And then he asks her: Do you do punching?
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Nonsense-sense sensing tingling sensation
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legendary reply…
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Arkham Asylum was great. I just hope that this time the developers take the time to implement proper, SSE/SSE2/SSE3 optimized multithreaded CPU physics. Utilizing NVidia’s deliberately crippled and unoptimized PhysX libraries is like waving a big FU sign in front of anyone who cares about the future of PC gaming.
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I do love how the clown caught spray painting looks so very sorry. He knows how hard the punch to his face is about to be :D
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oh god, harley is so hot. she was already pretty amazing in AA, and here she seems to get a change that’s different, but still awesome. oh god.
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Batman sure hates Juggalos.
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does that screen shot say 120 mm?
120 mm is a tank gun boresize. 12mm would be a .50 cal.
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