This is the black sheep of the Arkham Batman video game franchise. While Rocksteady was developing Arkham Knight, Warner Bros decided to make this game to apparently honor some kind of contract. While I am going to say this game deserves the title of "black sheep", it certainly does not deserve all of the harsh criticisms it gets from the majority of the Arkham diehards. Starting with one of the more prominent negatives, this game is still incredibly glitchy even after the 13 years it has had (at the time of writing this) to patch it. I even fell through the map once. The gameplay itself is also incredibly clunky, and somehow feels even worse than Arkham Asylum's, which predates this game by many years. There were countless times where I would be in a predator encounter and not able to actually use a takedown on someone even though I was right behind them and crouching. Sometimes, when I would go for a 'combo takedown', I would quite literally be staring at the guy right in front of me mashing 'E', only for the game to launch me 12 feet behind to attack some random guy. The free roam is also probably the worst in the series. The game also doesn't REALLY support higher resolutions, as the game's textures will still look incredibly pixelated until you go into the game files and adjust the resolution yourself. This game certainly has the lowest lows of the Arkham franchise, but it should be said that it also has some of the highest highs. The boss fights in this game are simply the best in the entire series so far (I have not played Arkham Knight, but I have heard it has few boss fights and they are bad). The Deathstroke and Bane fights in particular are simply incredible. Even the Killer Croc fight at the beginning of the game was incredibly engaging and fun. And while I said the gameplay is the worst, there is one redeeming part of it all. The part where the Greatest Detective finally earns his name and does some sleuthing. This is by far the most fun I had in the game, I did all the casefiles because of it. In the previous two games (Asylum and City) the so-called 'Greatest Detective' barely does any actual detective work, as those games focus more on the stealth and combat systems. But, this game almost brilliantly balances the detective work, stealth, and combat. Another bit of praise I have for this game is the atmosphere. While not as great as Asylum's, the winter wonderland that awaits you is rather immersive. The game also portrays something very well that the other games lacked, in my opinion. And that is the fear that Batman imposes upon the 'criminal element' of Gotham. There were several cutscenes where I would be saying to myself, "Yeah, I understand why these people are so afraid of him." In this game, he exudes that fearful aura you expect from a Year 2 Batman. Overall, I would personally rate this game a 7.8/10. It desperately needs some kind of remaster.
