By Alec Meer on February 12th, 2013.
We may be in for a third Batscapade from the Arkhamverse, according to Warner suits in the company’s latest earnings call, and it’ll probably be this year too.
There’s almost nothing to go on, other than Warner’s Chief Financial Officer John K. Martin letting slip that “and we also have a strong games release this year, which will include the next release in the Batman Arkham franchise.” This means it’s up to us to let slip the dogs of speculation.
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By John Walker on December 20th, 2011.
Edit: We’re reading below that lots of regions outside the UK are being charged a really very much larger sum. Which sucks. Valve will always insist prices are decided by publishers, so yell at Warner. There’s also confusion over the inclusion of Arkham City and War In The North – to be absolutely clear, the Warner Complete Pack definitely currently includes those games, whether by design or mistake. It also seems that some regions can’t see the deal at all. The solution: move to the UK.
I’m never quite sure whether posting about the Steam sale is doing mindless promotion for the company, or alerting our readers to amazing prices for games. I’m going with the latter in this instance, because bloody hell, this one took me by surprise. Not boasted of on the front page of Steam’s decidedly confusing sales page (not including the names of the games on sale is perhaps an odd choice) is the Warner Complete Pack. Clearly one of many extraordinarily reduced bundles (19 THQ games for £50, 80 Sega games for £70 for instance), the Warner bundle brings 18 games for £40, and one of them is Batman: Arkham City. So that’s basically “buy Arkham City, get every other Warner game on Steam free.” And one of those is Bastion. And another is the brand new Lord Of The Rings: War In The North. And of course yet another is Batman: Arkham Asylum.
By Alec Meer on November 8th, 2011.
It was rumoured, and then it was confirmed, and then we were all like :(
For it is true: the man of bats will not strike back on PC in 10 days’ time, but instead in 17 days’ time. A small wait, perhaps, but we’ve already had to hang on for almost a month later than the console-folk. Yes, the already-delayed Batman: Arkham City PC port, mooted to be the very bestest version of Brucie-boy’s semi-open-world swinging adventures thanks to various technical jiggery-pokery done with the help of NVIDIA, has been delayed anew. November 25 is the new date, which at least is safely after all Big Three of November’s remaining new releases – MW3, Skyrim, Saints Row 3 – are all done and dusted and we’ll have time to think about something else/sleep.
There’s no word on why the PC version was delayed, and what the state of play will be for the various DLC by then. Oh well. Here’s a Nightwing DLC trailer to tide you over.
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By Alec Meer on October 31st, 2011.
Batman! A game so good that Yahoo awarded it 6/5, thus unwittingly demonstrating that review scores are little more than a media pissing contest whose only real beneficiary is publishers’ marketing departments and people who like to shout at other people on forums. Which is exactly why we don’t give scores here. Can Arkham City possibly live up to such drooling superlatives? Well, I can’t yet speak for the PC version – which isn’t out until November 18, though we’re hoping to have code before then – but I did spend far too much of my week off playing the console version (I’m sorry, I just fancied getting a different sort of RSI on top of the one I already have from my mouse and keyboard), thus have a very good sense of the game itself if not its technical aspects and improvements on PC. So, if you must, consider this not a Wot I Think, but an extended preview offering some idea of what to expect in a few weeks.
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By Alec Meer on October 19th, 2011.
I’m so sorry. There’s going to be a proper scandal about that. GamesIndustry.biz or Gamasutra or someone will probably run an expose about the awful corruption at RPS. Last week, I brazenly claimed, to your face, that this would be the last Batman: Arkham City trailer we’d post before the pointlessly-delayed PC release next month.
I LIED TO YOU.
Because here’s the first proper PC footage of Arkham City.
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By Alec Meer on October 14th, 2011.
Well, maybe. Suppose it depends on whether they squeak out any particularly tasty DLC. With the game due for release on the unantialiased darklands of console next week and currently drawing huge review scores – but sadly delayed on PC – its constant torrent of promotional videos is now capped off by this launch-ish trailer. It’s very dramatic! It implies Batman facing his darkest challenge since all the other dark challenges he’s faced and will no doubt continue to face! It features some slightly troubling voice acting!
It also looks rather cracking, which makes me only grumpier that we’ll have to wait a few weeks to play it on our faithful game-towers.
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By Alec Meer on August 15th, 2011.
I have nothing but sympathy for poor old Mr Freeze and the comics writer who created him, Ian Cold. From Batman’s already ludicrous rogue’s gallery (Man-Bat! Calendar Man!), his star is surely the most fallen, thanks to the governor of California’s chilling portrayal in the most nippletastic of all the Batman movies. How to make this pun-spewing pastiche remotely fearsome again? Well, give him a massive helmet, Terminator-esque body language, all manner of complicated-looking technology including some natty robot goggles and the sum total of zero one-liners: that’s the Arkham City approach.
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By Alec Meer on August 10th, 2011.
Gotham City Imposters, which can very loosely be described as Team Fortress 2 populated by armies of crazies pretending to be either Batman or the Joker, is two important things: 1) the first game from NOLF-makers Monolith since the dour FEAR 2, and more importantly their first attempt to do humour and outlandishness rather than po-faced horror since 2003 2) bonkers.
This is why my bat-sense is tingling at news GCI has opened beta sign-ups.
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By Alec Meer on July 4th, 2011.
Batman: Arkham City gets closer and closer, and we get exciteder and excitider, and in the heat of our anticipation become less gramatickly accurate. After what feels like years of teasing, concept art and pre-order incentives, finally we get to take a long, lingering look at what it’s really like in action. Below: 12 minutes of the game, including playable funtimes from both Batman and Catwoman, good acting, awful acting, Two-Face’s disgusting head and many many many goons and hi-tech shenanigans.
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By Alec Meer on June 21st, 2011.
And here was I thinking that all the non-comics Batman spin-offs were doing their damndest to pretend that the dark knight detective wasn’t in the habit of dragging a boy along to his late-night soirees with angry street thugs. Robin has been resolutely absent from Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies and went without mention in the solid, tight Arkham Asylum. But the Boy Wonder has found his way into upcoming sequel Batman: Arkham City after all. How’re they going to reconcile the wee lad’s bright costume and cheery demeanour with something so grim? Let’s take a look…
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By Alec Meer on September 15th, 2009.
Rocksteady’s slightly delayed PC version of their rather well-received man-thumper/ledge-grappler goes on sale this week. I’ve been playing it. I’ve also written some words detailing how I feel about it. But I’m not just going to give them to you, oh no. If you can solve my cunning riddle, you can work out how to read them. Riddle me this!
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