Batman: Arkham Knight

Arkham Knight is a game that stays 100% true to what makes Batman such a timeless character. The final game in the Arkham Trilogy is a great send-off to one of the generation's best gaming trilogies, and easily the best superhero video games series in history.

Batman has become such a staple in our pop-cultural diets that it's easy to make the character seem worn out from all the iterations we've seen of him through the years, but the Arkham series is one of the examples of revising the character and still keeping him fresh to modern audiences.

The plot takes place after Arkham City, and Batman is now the target of a plot by all of Gotham's greatest thugs: to finally kill The Dark Knight. Will they succeed? And will Scarecrow break Batman before the night is over? Rocksteady Studios concludes the Arkham Trilogy in a more open-ended and technically gorgeous entry for Batman video games than we've seen before; and the games themselves are comparable to Batman: The Animated Series and The Dark Knight Trilogy. The Batman: Arkham franchise is an achievement itself, and will surely be recognized as a classic example as to why the character works in so many different mediums.

Asylum is still the most cohesive and comic accurate one and Origins has the best writing (i like City the least and the spin-off Blackgate is a dud) but this is the roundest package yet. The gameplay is the usual polished to hell and back deal with a surprising amount of diversity and the new Batmobile is a bit overused but it works unbelievably well for most of the game. The very engaging narrative uses a few fake outs too many, the continuity is now a mess and the Knight's identity (i predicted it in the thread about 2014's bugs) is exceptionally obvious and even a bit unresolved. That said i skipped a lot of sleep to finish all the story content that isn't a collect-a-thon. The audiovisual presentation is industry leading, John Noble's Scarecrow is the best version of the character to this day and another returning villain is in top form too. I even got to play as Azrael and see a comic accurate Professor Pyg (the M rating doesn't lie) so well done Rocksteady. A- and a Game of the Year contender.

Arkham Knight is the most thematically consistent and emotional narrative in the entire Arkham franchise, hands down.

Throughout the entirety of the story, everything Batman cares about is threatened as central Gotham is under lockdown, taken over by an incredible roster of villains. Batman's psyche is represented through the manifestation of his subconscious - Through this, his deepest thoughts and darkest fears surface.

Batman's greatest battle is the one for his mind - Facing a foe lurking within, embodied by an old enemy in which he fights for his sanity.

Despite it's subvertive marketing, Arkham Knight is a wonderfully written psychological thriller with polished gameplay and excellently directed cinematics.

This game may be the last, but it goes out with a bang....Complete the game 100% to get the joke. It has the best atmosphere, the best gameplay, AND YOU GET TO DRIVE THE BATMOBILE! That's like 18 Bests in one

Pros: 1. Amazing graphics, music score & sound effects.

2. Outstanding voice acting performances by Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, John Noble, Jonathan Banks, Ashley Greene, Tara Strong, Wally Wingert, Troy Baker, Nolan North, Tasia Valenza, Grey Delisle etc as Batman, Joker, Scarecrow, Commissioner Gordon, Oracle, Harley Quinn, Riddler, Arkham Knight, Two Face, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Catwoman etc.

3. Great plot about Scarecrow reuniting all the supervillains to destroy Batman.

4. Joker appears as a hallucination.

5. Love the Batsuit in this game.

6. You get to drive the Batmobile, as well as battling tanks.

7. Love the Fear Takedown move.

8. You get to switch back & forth in between the Main Story objectives to the Side Missions.

9. Love the improvement of both the combat & stealth encounters.

10. It's a bigger open world than it's predecessors.

Cons: 1. Half of the writing's not the same without Paul Dini.

2. I didn't like the Deathstroke tank battle.