Batman: Arkham City Review

Opening a tightly designed game into a city usually costs it density, and this is the rare sequel where the opposite happens. The grapple boost and dive chain into a gliding rhythm that makes crossing rooftops feel like a skill rather than a commute, and every alley between them hides a Riddler trophy, a side case or a thug conversation worth eavesdropping on. Freeflow combat gains counters, gadget cancels and beat downs that let an expert run forty hit strings through a crowd of armed men without a stumble, while the predator rooms add mines, floor grates and armoured enemies that force you to keep rewriting a plan mid encounter.

Mark Hamill's Joker is playing a dying man and knows it, and the final scene earns a silence most licensed games would have scored. It is not flawless. Catwoman's episodes are thin and were tangled up in a single use online pass, the Riddler count is absurd, and Hugo Strange promises more than the plot delivers before it hands the ending to someone else.