MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "The Batman" (2022)

Okay, so... it's good.

It's not great, but it's good.

There you go, there's your review. Come back later, maybe I'll have something better for you.

MadCap's Mod Mondays - "The Bat of Skyrim"

"Bruce...you are a disgrace!"

"No! No! You are not my father! I am not a disgrace! I am vengeance! I am the night! I! Am! BATMAN!"

...and now, so can you!

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Gotham Knights"

Well, DC Fandome is off to a cracking start, isn't it? It's still going on at the time of this writing, so let's go with that. Even for a guy who is and has always been a Marvel fan like myself, there's a lot to like in here, particularly since I started picking up on watching the Arrowverse family of shows. While I think that the clickbait-y pronouncements that DC has put Marvel on the back foot with this are hilariously divorced from reality, I will have to tip my hat to the Distinguished Competition on their showmanship when Marvel's current counter to this all...are bad character designs and a deconstruction of Jack Kirby's Eternals that nobody asked for.

Just stop, I know you're going to click into a new tab to look up who those are.

In the still-going 48 hours of hype we've seen the Robert Pattison Batman trailer (I'll probably get to that later), new The Suicide Squad trailer, trailers for the upcoming seasons of the Arrowverse, that one Suicide Squad game from Rocksteady that no one seems to really want, and...this curious little gem among all the titans.

...no, not those Titans, although one of them is in the game.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Harley's Revenge"

Why are you looking here? The review is down there.

Batman: Arkham City was awesome, as was Batman: Arkham Asylum before it. So, naturally, any DLC involving either thing would be also completely awesome, right?  Actually, yes…yes, it is.  Released recently…ish…Harley’s Revenge is a DLC in which…

Everybody watch out, Mrs. Joker's packin'!

Okay, I’m going to go ahead and put up a major spoiler warning here.  Granted, this is a DLC to vanilla City, so it’s very likely if you’re going to be purchasing it that you already know about the major twist at the end of Arkham City so…yeah, there’s not much to be avoiding per se.  But standard rules say a year since launch is required for spoilers so…SPOILER WARNING! CRUCIAL PLOT DETAILS CONCERNING THE END OF “BATMAN:  ARKHAM CITY” FOLLOW!

…

Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Let’s continue.

Following the death of the Joker, Harley seems in a right state and has taken several Gotham PD officers hostage.  Naturally it’s up to Batman to save the day…except he goes in and almost immediately gets himself captured.  Thus, it’s up to Robin (the Tim Drake one, not the Dick Grayson one) to bust into the Joker’s old complex in Arkham City and save the Caped Crusader from the insane lover of the Joker.

Robin controls very much like Batman, not able to take too much direct physical punishment and much more preferring to use stealth to take out his enemies (though I question how well that should be able to work considering his outfit) as well as his gadgets.  His weapons are also, surprisingly, not that varied from Batman’s.  Birdarangs (called “Shurikens” by the game) instead of Batarangs and a weird shield attached to his club to get through hazard material such as smoke from busted pipes.

You also do don the cowl of the World’s Greatest Detective during a flashback sequence about halfway through the plot and again at the end following his rescue by Robin to finish off Quinn once and for all…until she breaks out of Arkham once again (or wherever they’re keeping all the villains now, seeing as Arkham City has been all but scrapped by the time of this DLC).

All in all, it’s nice, but there isn’t that much meat to it.  I don’t expect it to be a full length game (once you know what you’re doing, it takes only about two hours to complete), but I sort of wish there had been some more to this one, maybe making Robin and Nightwing possible to play in the free roam of Story Mode?  

Don’t get me wrong, I – of course – enjoy playing as the Batman and Miss Kyle in her skin tight costume with the zipper hanging low is as ridiculously distracting as ever, but we know you guys have full character models and move sets done for all four of those characters. You even bothered to give Nightwing and Robin their animated costumes in the multiplayer.  So, explain to me why you couldn’t put them in Free Roam mode, Rocksteady? Even just letting us beat up thugs at them would be something, even if they have no storylines of their own.

But, as I said before going on that rant, an enjoyable if short DLC.  We see how Batman deals with his grief over losing both Talia and the Joker (punching things) and see how Harley deals with her grief (dressing in mourning clothing and still looking pretty damn hot) following the loss of her dear Mr. J.  Will you enjoy it? Well, if you enjoyed City, then chances are you’ve already gotten this and are pretty much enjoying more of the same.  So why are you still here? Shoo…come back next week.

“Harley’s Revenge” is available for download on Xbox Live and Playstation Network from WB Games and Rocksteady.

This review is based on the Xbox 360 DLC.