Batman: Arkham City Action Video Game - PC Game

by Warner Bros

• Follow-up to the award-winning hit Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Explore the sprawling new game world of Arkham City, which is five times larger than the first game
• Uncover a range of new and enhanced gameplay features
• Interact with and battle against an all-star cast of classic Batman characters, vicious villains and despicable deviants
• Become immersed in the all-new engaging storyline

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B004H80TUC
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches ; 4.3 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: November 22, 2011
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (129 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,744 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #4 in Video Games > PC Games > Games > Action > Fighting

Product Description

Platform: PC | Edition: Standard

Amazon.com

Batman: Arkham City is third-person Action-Adventure game that delivers an authentic Dark Knight experience rooted in an original and engrossing story as well as a combination of melee combat, stealth, investigative and speed-based challenge gameplay. A sequel to 2009's Batman: Arkham Asylum, Arkham City features the full range of classic enemies seen in the previous game, in addition to Catwoman, who is a playable character and has her own storyline in the new release. Additional features include: a range of new gadgets, an increased number of possible melee opponents and a range of movement options for Batman that include leaping, sliding, gliding and the grapple hook.

The Ultimate Experience of the Dark Knight

Developed by Rocksteady Studios, Batman: Arkham City builds upon the intense, atmospheric foundation of Batman: Arkham Asylum, sending players soaring into Arkham City, the new maximum security "home" for all of Gotham City's thugs, gangsters and insane criminal masterminds. The game features an unique combination of melee combat, stealth, investigative and speed-based challenge gameplay. Set inside the heavily fortified walls of a sprawling district in the heart of Gotham City, this highly anticipated sequel introduces a brand-new story that draws together a new all-star cast of classic characters and murderous villains from the Batman universe, as well as a vast range of new and enhanced gameplay features to deliver the ultimate experience as the Dark Knight.

An authentic Dark Knight video game adventure that picks up where Arkham Asylum left off.
View larger.

Key Game Features

• Become the Dark Knight - Batman: Arkham City delivers a genuinely authentic Batman experience with advanced, compelling gameplay on every level: high-impact street brawls, nail-biting stealth, multifaceted forensic investigation, epic super-villain encounters and unexpected glimpses into Batman's tortured psychology.
• Play as Catwoman - Catwoman is a fully playable character in Batman: Arkham City who has her own storyline in the main game which is seamlessly interwoven with Batman's story arc. Her navigation skills, combat moves and gadgetry have been specifically designed to deliver a fully featured and unique experience.
• Advanced FreeFlow Combat - Batman faces highly coordinated, simultaneous attacks from every direction as Arkham's gangs bring heavy weapons and all-new AI to the fight, but Batman steps it up with twice the number of combat animations and double the range of attacks, counters and takedowns.
• New Gadgets - Batman has access to new gadgets such as the Cryptographic Sequencer V2 and Smoke Pellets, as well as new functionality for existing gadgets that expand the range of Batman's abilities without adding extra weight to his Utility Belt.
• New Story - Five-time Emmy-Award-winner Paul Dini returns to pen a brand-new story for Batman: Arkham City, taking gamers deep inside the diseased heart of Gotham.
• Arkham Has Moved - Following the closure of Arkham Asylum and Blackgate prison, Gotham's new mayor, Quincy Sharp ordered the relocation of all inmates to Arkham City - a sprawling new super-prison five times bigger than Arkham Island, enclosing a wide variety of industrial districts, iconic locations and Gotham landmarks.
• Huge Cast of Characters - Players encounter numerous characters from the Batman universe, including Catwoman, Two-Face, Harley Quinn, Penguin, Hugo Strange, Victor Zsasz, Calendar Man, The Joker, The Riddler and other iconic characters yet to be revealed.
• Featured VO Talent - Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy reprise their roles as The Joker and Batman respectively.

Additional Screenshots

New gadgets to utilize. View larger.

A playable Catwoman character. View larger.

Expanded melee combat play. View larger.

Signature Batman stealth. View larger.

Product Description

Batman: Arkham City builds upon the intense, atmospheric foundation of Batman: Arkham Asylum, sending players soaring into Arkham City, the new maximum security "home" for all of Gotham City's thugs, gangsters and insane criminal masterminds. Set inside the heavily fortified walls of a sprawling district in the heart of Gotham City, this highly anticipated sequel introduces a brand-new story that draws together a new all-star cast of classic characters and murderous villains from the Batman universe, as well as a vast range of new and enhanced gameplay features to deliver the ultimate experience as the Dark Knight.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars get the GOTY edition instead November 26, 2012

By Dec

Platform for Display:PC Download|Edition:Standard

According to the description, this is the Nov 2011 release (base game), with all the dev playability patches since then and WITHOUT THE FIRST 5 or 6 DLCs. The Game of the Year edition (Sep 2012+ release) has the 5 or 6 DLCs:

Harley Quinn's Revenge
Arkham City Skins Pack
Challenge Map Pack
Robin Bundle Pack
Nightwing Bundle Pack
Catwoman Pack

The Catwoman pack is mentioned in Amazon's description and is (at the time of this post) missing from Steam's description. So I'm concluding it is the most recent DLC, or an unlock / automatic update, or else a mislabel/mislead.

I recommend getting the newer GOTY edition for $7.50 (75% off) wherever it's on sale (if you can catch it). If you get this standard older release, the DLCs at 75% off will still cost ~$8 extra. The DLCs currently add ~2 Gb of content and customization.

This version gets 4 stars because
1) the GOTY edition is now available,
2) the patches resolve initial release issues.

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update:

i did not deduct from the rating because of Games for Windows Live. in order to deal with the horrendous GfWL, i have denied 4 of 5 main Windows Live modules all firewall access by heuristics. you can save the game by creating an offline GfWL account.

30 of 39 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Love the Game, Disappointed by the PC Release November 24, 2011

By T. Stockton

Platform for Display:PC| Edition:Standard|Amazon Verified Purchase

Fun: 5.0 out of 5 stars   

I held off purchasing this game for PlayStation 3 so that I could enjoy the benefits of the PC version, which were quite numerous when Arkham Asylum was released. The gameplay is much smoother due to the higher framerates and it was the first PhysX game I was able to play, which definitely increased the immersion. I've started playing this title and to my dismay, all of the advanced features I had hoped for are broken. You cannot currently run this title with DirectX 11 features or PhysX enabled as of now, regardless of system setup. System specs below:

i7-950 @ 3.2 GHz
NVIDIA GTX 570 (Overclocked)
6GB DDR3 1600 MHz
OCZ Vertex 2 80 GB SSD

These problems affect both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs and so far as anyone can tell, these are not issues with the drivers but issues with the game itself. Hopefully these issues will be fixed soon in a title update, but seeing as the title was delayed an additional month and no extra work was done on it... all I can say is I expected much more after the stellar experience I had with Arkham Asylum.

tl;dr: Just don't buy this on PC until the game has been patched. The price will drop by then, or you can just grab the already cheaper PS3 or Xbox 360 release.

Edit: I've updated to recently released patch on Games for Windows Live, and can say that some of the DX11 frame rate problems have been alleviated. Frame rate drops are not as vast, however stuttering is still an issue. Still not the performance I expected after the delays or after patching. It is above playable in DX11 however, so I've bumped the rating to 3/5. Hopefully with future patches the stuttering is fixed.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars DRM madness May 10, 2012

By roboticsun

Platform for Display:PC|Edition:Standard

Fun: 4.0 out of 5 stars   

Just a reminder, this game has two types of DRM (digital right management) built in. The first one is securom, and it will require a release day check upon activation of the game. This sounds fine, but if their system is down, you have to go to securom website to download a offline activator to make it work which is a downright assault towards legitimate costumers. The second strike is GFWL (Game for windows live) and there are a lot problems with the Microsoft's gaming service platform for example, online service would be shut down randomly, servers sometime would be unavailable for no reason, and it may even crush your save files by chance.

I do not want to give the game a low rating, because I genuinely like the game. However the whole activation process took me around 3 hours and it's utterly stupid.