Batman Meets Poison Ivy In Arkham Knight Battrailer
I want Joel Schumacher's Gotham City
Watching the latest gameplay trailer for Batman: Arkham Knight [official site], I've come to a realisation: the Gotham I'd like a Batman game set in is from Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin.
This new trailer has Batman fly, leap, and drive around town, see, and though it has some nice detailing and neon signs, it's all a bit drab, I want the city to rise a mile high, skyscrapers pierced with roads atop the shoulders of colossi, lurid mood lighting, and marauding gangs of kooky punks. Please watch this trailer then pat me on the shoulder saying "There there, Alice, of course."
I'm right, right? The punching and gliding and grappling look as fun as ever, but the 'gritty' tone of the Arkham series looks more stretched and silly than ever. Arkham Asylum worked in its constrained environment, but Arkham Knight's going a bit 'Batman meets Escape From New York' - and even EFNY has Isaac Hayes as the Duke of New York with chandeliers on his car. Arkham Knight looks like it's trying to straddle a spiky fence between comic book Batman with its wacky supervillains and Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, and the two don't mesh well at all.
I still don't know what's going on with those tanks either. They're drone tanks, apparently, but yep, someone thought the Arkham games needed tank battles. That's not how Batman should fight cars. He should race cars over the shoulders of a vast Atlas statue between two buildings, down its arm at such high speeds that they spin out on the elbow into a deserted meat-packing plant. I'm telling you: Schumacher's Gotham is the one for video games.
Still, I'm sure it'll all be plenty fun. The Batfundamentals are there and have been honed ever several games, even if tank combat is now 'a thing'. We'll see come June 23rd, when the game launches.