Introduction

You know what was a great game? Batman: Arkham Asylum. I just LP'd it a little while back, in fact. The game was recognized as the Guinness world record holder for Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Videogame in 2010. I'm a fan. Too bad the record hasn't been updated in some time because if it had, it'd be Batman: Arkham City.

Arkham City is the 2011 followup to 2009's Arkham Asylum when the difficult question was asked of "well how the hell do you follow that up". The combat has been beefed up with new moves and enemy options, the predator segments have been improved with your prey getting new gadgets along with getting a little smarter, and arguably the weakest part of the first game (the boss fights) has been improved upon in pretty much every way. One of the few complaints I've heard leveraged is that the game being open world takes away from the focus the first game had, but everything else fits together so well that I have trouble staying mad. The story is still being headed up by Paul Dini, and Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill return to voice Bruce Wayne/Batman and the Joker. This is Mark Hamill's Joker swan song, so to speak, this is the last time he plans to play the Joker. The end of an era for fans of the 90's animated series. But let's not dwell on the negatives, let's enjoy what's here.

The Story
After the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum, Warden Quincy Sharp was able to brand himself as the man who shut down the breakout (despite the facts claiming otherwise) and leverage the newfound fame into a successful Mayoral campaign. As the Mayor of Gotham City he unveiled plans to take the northern end of the city and make it into a bigger and better prison facility named Arkham City. Under the auspices of new Warden Hugo Strange, the criminals in Arkham City have made it the place for all of their new power struggles with all of the problems that entails. During his night-time activities, Batman has been facing both troubling rumors about the facility and assaults by a paramilitary force known as TYGER, a private company that provides security for Arkham City. Batman is unable to do much about the city from his position, but Bruce Wayne and his billions should be able to bring a costly campaign against the threat such a hotbed of criminal activity could give rise to. Nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan. The story also covers the activities of Catwoman during the same time frame, up to her own antics with regards to Arkham City as she comes into conflict with Harvey Dent A.K.A. Two-Face.

The Format
Being an open world game, it's going to be very easy to get distracted while I work towards the main story. There are many side quests, many challenge rooms, and

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Riddler challenges. ~~I won't say I'm doing a technical 100% since there's a lot of challenge rooms that are redundant~~I did 100 percent, and I will be doing all the sidequests, all the Riddler challenges, and I'll be doing the Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC as well. I'll do my best to stay focused but I plan on getting sidetracked during transit between areas to show off some of the sidequests, challenges, and other new things in Arkham City as I'm going through to hopefully make the eventual Riddler Roundup ~~not take 2-3 hours~~ only take 4 hours. The game also has a ton of incidental dialogue that I'll do my best to capture but it moves pretty fast sometimes. If I skip over a favorite bit, sorry! During the sidetracked videos I might have on a guest or two to talk about things, but otherwise the videos should be either "got places to be" or "let's go sightseeing". I'll try to mark out which is which.